Hi Lorie,
If the Nystatin swish & spit is too irritating at this stage, you may wish to try Diflucan instead, besides Diflucan is the most powerful medication in it's class (I was taking 400 mg a day for a few months - in contrast, female yeast infections are treated with 1 100mg tablet - I was a living experiment - they told me they have never heard of anyone getting that high a dose for that long but I found out later that HIV/AIDS patients are given up to 800 mg's a day).

Early on I had fair days to horrific ones. Treasure the fair ones! Just when it seemed I coudn't go on any longer it would lighten up and I would get a little relief. I remember praying a lot for God's help, healing, comfort and strength during that period.

My experience was very close to Minnies (sans PEG tube of course). It took a month for my taste buds to start returning. Until then I had to force myself to eat. When I was able to try to eat (semi-solid foods at first - I had been on a liquid diet forever - by the way, I hated Boost and Ensure - it coated my throat and made me gag - I used Carnation Instant Breakfast instead - I tolerated milk pretty well). I had jones for all kinds of things, many of which ended up going to the dogs (I had to put them on a low fat diet!), but at least I tried them (probably drove my wife crazy but at least she was encouraged by the return of my strength and appetite). My experience was that natural foods tasted the best (in contrast with processed foods). It was about 2 months post Tx that my appetite finally returned. I still have a small problem with dry things like bread, cookies or chips but today I ate a whole bag of popcorn at the movies and it was no problem. For some odd reason I have taken to drinking a lot of Coke - I find that the carbonation helps swallowing a lot more than just plain water - it drives the doctors nuts though -they frown on Coke (I drink a lot of water also). It took a while before my throat was healed enough to tolerate anything carbonated. You'll just have to experiment with what works - and it will be dynamic and changing all the time. Acidic stuff was hard to tolerate early on, like fresh vegetables, salads, salad dressings, fruit and fruit juices - all the healthy stuff! You should be working with a nutritionist.

I am kind of surprised that you are getting Rx's from your dentist. My oncologist became my primary care doctor and coordinated and prescribed all of my medications - he also did the necessary monitoring by ordering and reviewing the bloodwork and other tests. Oncology is a kind of highly specialized internal medicine.

Weaning off pain meds helped also but don't be too hasty on that one. Pain management is a very important part of the recovery process.

The book I refered to in an earlier post was exceptionally good at covering almost of of these details. It was written by 2 oncology nurses and is very up to date. I didn't have to bug the advice nurse quite as often. It was espcially handy on weekends when my only other option was the ER.

If you had trouble with patience before, this will be a groundbreaking experience ;-)