I would venture to say that maybe the doctor hasn't heard of it. I had to educate my doctor on the benefits of IMRT. That's why we are here - to pool our knowledge and give you more tools to be your pwn patient advocate. Lately I had an oncologist and a nurse asking ME for advice - now there's a twist.

It might depend on what doctor also - you may need to consult with a swallowing specialist.

The muscle simulator makes sense since many of us have pretty severe muscle damage and/or atrophy.

TENS stands for "Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator". It actually mainly used for pain management.

With the procedure that Don had, especially if they did a pectoral flap, swallowing will never be the same as it was. The pectoral muscle is used to add bulk only and is not a replacement for the functionality of the original muscle. This is not to say that some improvement cannot be made however but some adjustments may be neccessary. Even those of us having only radiation have permanent muscle damage of varying degrees.