Meg,
One of the problems with oral cancer is that it is one of the "hidden cancers". I was a non-smoker and rare drinker, who, for a long time had a dry, scratchy sort of hoarse throat. If a guy down the hall in my office lit up a cigarette, I was very sensitive to it. My doctor friends all figured that since I was an active, healthy guy, it was just allergies. I began having some gum pain but the dental people thought that is was a periodontal problem, and when a periodontal procedure did not work, I was sent to an endodontist who opened up and old root canal, only to find that it was still in good shape.

It was not until, months later, when food that I swallowed hit something and came back up, that I finally went to an ENT, who ordered a barium swallow with a radiologist, and later stuck the scope down my nose to reveal a large tumor on the base of my tongue that had also spread to neck nodes, diagnosed as Stage IV.

I don't know how anyone could have found it sooner unless a doctor or dentist with trained and sensitive hands could have felt the swollen lymph nodes. I asked the periodontist and a doctor friend of mine to look down my throat, but I gagged so easily that they could not see anything. Naturally if I knew then what I know now, I would have been to see an ENT much earlier.

Take care,
Danny G.