Nancy, I went in daily to my MO's office for several days after each chemo for rehydration through an IV in my port because the nausea and vomiting was so bad I was getting dehydrated. Gary is right that it's really essential to stay on top of this(hydration). I also ended up having to use compazine suppositories, even though I hated how compazine made me feel, because I couldn't keep anything down. Like Robert, I was also taking ethyol --up until the second chemo infusion, at that point I decided I just couldn't handle it and the chemo nausea together so I skipped it for a few days. Then I went back to taking it every other day, at my rad oncologist's recommendation.

I do have some saliva at this point (8 mos after rad), when I get a mouth massage I get a lot more--which leaves me hopeful that in another year my mouth might be at a decent level of moisture all by itself (obviously the glands can make more saliva than they're making regularly)--I'm not sure how much of this is due to putting up with the ethyol, which was awful, and how much due to IMRT saving part of my right parotid gland. I do think it's worth doing everything you can to try to keep your saliva--incuding the godawful amifostine. But it seems most folks can't tolerate it all the way through and I think it's expecting superhuman strenght to think he can take it regularly if he has bad chemo nausea too.

Nelie

Nelie