Gail is right. It's time for Johnny to be on a duragesic patch. Tom started his just before radiation ended. He started on 25 mcg Fentanyl and they stepped him up, 25 at a time, til he got adequate relief. He's on 125 mcg now (he's a big guy), three weeks after radiation and Erbitux ended. He's still using liquid Oxycodone for breakthrough pain a few times a day as well.

If you do a search here on Fentanyl(search is up top, under the "post a reply" button) you'll get a lot of information about it. It's a very powerful drug so there are a lot of do's and don't's but it's very effective for a lot of patients.

Although everyone is different, the last week of radiation and the week after were rough with the burns in the throat. Tom had a lot of discharge from his and got a lot of relief by using a suction machine rather than spitting because spitting hurt so much.

Speak up to the doctors about the pain and the discharge from his throat. If your docs don't treat a lot of oral cancers, they aren't as familiar with the progression of these things and don't always act pro-actively.

Hang in there, it DOES get better!
Joyce

CG to Tom dx SCC 5/06; right neck lymph nodes removed, dx right tonsil and tonsillectomy 6/06; rad and chemo started 7/06; treatment COMPLETED 9/06 33x rad; Erbitux (8x); Cisplatin (2);