Hello, Amy in the Ozarks and all the other kind responders,

Thanks for the suggestion about unflavored Pedialyte. I'll check it out tomorrow.

Since my last post Pat's mouth pain has become much worse. It's as if within a two or three day timespan she's gone from doing fairly well to doing pretty bad. Specifically her mouth is just teeming with ulcerated sores. Her lower lip is bigger than Angelina Jolie's (except it has many blisters). Her tongue is noticeably swollen. Also there's a good deal of throat pain. Even swallowing water seems to hurt her.

Today we saw the med-onc prior to her Erbitux treatment and he gave her several Rx's. First, he Rx'd a Fentanyl patch. Reading the sheet on this stuff gave me the creeps. Especially the part that says you basically need to have been on something quite strong (like morphine) when starting use this patch. Pat hasn't had anything that strong and I'm wondering if the med-onc isn't being a little too agressive with the pain meds this early. On the other side however, I'm concerned that my sweetheart is in pain and pretty miserable. Tomorrow we see the rad-onc and I want to run this patch idea past him before we start in to the heavier pain meds.

The med-onc also Rx'd Rozerem for sleep at night. Lately, Pat has been getting up several times each night with dry mouth/pain. The doc felt that getting a good night's rest was important enough at this point that an Rx for something for sleep was in order. He also said that the Rozerem would not be habit forming. (As if the Fentanyl isn't.)

The third Rx was for a Nistatin swish & swallow. I think he tended to agree with me that maybe Pat had some thrush-like/fungal-like symptoms which the Nistatin would be helpful in treating. Hopefully, it will help with all this mouth pain.

The last Rx was a refill for the Doxycycline. The Erbitux rash around her mouth and chin areas are really giving Pat some problems and they want to make sure she has an antibiotic in her for the time being. The closet in our bathroom is looking more like a pharmacy each day.

In terms of what Pat is able to take by mouth the list in becoming much shorter. Anything cold, soft, non-spicy or non-seasoned, etc. is about it. Today we experimented with pop sickles, tapioca pudding, jello, cream sickles. They all seemed to work okay. Today, I supplemented her diet with a three cans of Carnation VHC. Vanilla flavored things seem to be the easiest to tolerate. The pop sickles are the most soothing at this point. The magic mouthwash (once she gets past the short-lived burn/hurt) only lasts a short time - like ten minutes, but relief is relief.

Comment, input and advice is most welcome and helpful. You are all in our prayers daily. God Bless you.