Hi all,

Day two of having my cancerous gum tissue on left side of mouth removed along with my two bottom molars and some jaw bone to test if cancer is present in jaw.

....Little history, I have a forearm flap along the left side of my tongue from a previous surgery. It connected to the gum area that was just removed. The surgeon also removed a small lesion where the flap connects to the top of tongue (another issue that is on-going)...So if you can visualize, my entire left side of my face is swollen to the size of a tennis ball. The flap and left side of tongue have plopped down to where I did have my two molars. I have some bone exposed on the jaw bone. I just had my first drink of water since yesterday morning, orders were to have IV only, then drink water and clear liquids before getting into dark liquids and soft foods. I could not sleep at all first night in hospital, was so tired, but everytime I would nod off, I would wake up itching or skirming after 30 seconds (maybe a reaction to the morphine??).

My surgeon allowed me to have early release and I am now home, I have strong pain killers (oxycodo HCL/ACET), AMOX antibiotic, and peridex mouthwash.

My first glass of water gave me a terrible fit of hiccups, and it continues to after 2 hours, it subsided only for about 20 minutes. Also acid reflux is kicking in. I took a boost meal replacement drink and seemed to soothe things down for awhile, but hiccups came back. After the boost, I then rinsed my mouth with the peridex.

Okay...here is my question...I have had bad experiences with peridex in the past, and because it has alchohol as an ingredient, aren't there studies that proved that alchohol based mouth rinses or washes could actually be the contributing factor to dysplasia, precancer and eventually cancer? Is there anything else I can take that will effectively keep my gums and exposed bone area clean? I don't want to risk any infection, so will continue to use the peridex, but was really hoping that someone would know of a better and safer solution?

Thanks,

HGT