The gabapentin should not be what caused your husbands dry mouth. The dry mouth is part of the recovery process. First after finishing rads, patients have that awful thick gunky mucous. Then seemingly overnight the gunky mucous disappears and the dry mouth phase begins. This can cause all kinds of other problems for patients. To me it sounds like your husband should still be doing the cup of warm water with 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp baking soda mixture rinses at least 3 or 4 times a day. This will help stabilize the ph balance in his mouth which should help with the other side effects he's having. The dry mouth can also cause thrush which can be very painful and sometimes linger on for days/weeks.

If he is in pain then that is only making everything else even worse. Make sure any of your husbands pain is managed, discuss this in detail with his doc.

Your husband may need to continue using magic mouthwash to enable him to eat easier.

What you both are going thru is why the recovery phase can be so challenging. After being able to successfully eat a meal it should help to boost his moral and give him much needed hope. I feel so sad reading what you both are going thru. It sounds like you both could use a break. Nobody should have to endure any of this without knowing he will soon be well again.

Im not sure where you are located but maybe if the weather is nice, your husband could benefit from being outside. If he could see some progress in his recovery it could go a long way in helping him to mentally feel better. Im sure he doesnt feel very well but if he could just try to start taking short walks and slowly increase the distance he could then see measurable progress. For example, he can only walk out to the road to get the mail. Then after a couple days, he walks out to the corner, a few more days later he is able to walk around the block and so on. Plus... another benefit would be you could have a couple minutes a day to clear your head.

In time everything really will get better, it just takes way more time than any of us like. At 8 weeks post rads, your husband will definitely still make many improvements. The dry mouth affects all of us who have gone thru rads. It takes a very long time to see this get better. Some patients see improvements in their dry mouth even at 2 years post rads. We used to call it the water bottle carrying phase. To recover, pay attention to what is controllable.... his intake. By focusing on intake you can make sure your husband hits his daily minimums so he has the best chance of making his recovery as easy as possible.

Hang in there!!!

(((((HUGS))))))