Cheryl,

We are starting week 5 in the morning. Harry is going into the hospital for his second chemo tx. He has the mucocitis really bad and uses the Biotene which does seem to help a little. He also drinks a lot of whole milk. Why? I have no idea but he seems ok with it. He is afraid to try anything carbonated because the sides of his tongue are excrutiating.

As for the nausea, we have had a real battle there. Harry reacted very quickly to the chemo (within 12 hours) and he was very sick. While he was that sick, it did not seem to matter what they gave him, nothing worked.

But in the weeks that followed we have come up with a regimen that works. We have home health because he has not eaten solid food in almost 4 weeks now, since day 2 of tx's. He dehydrated last weekend and the doctor drew the line. I give him IV fluids everyday and now I give him both compazine and reglan 3 times a day by IV push.

The good part is that we are able to stop the nausea, the draw back is that he is like a walking zombie. He falls asleep standing up and I have to watch him very closely.

I guess for everything that works there is a downside. He cannot be around anything that is aromatic. I try not to cook in the house if I can avoid it. When I do have to cook, he stays upstairs with the door closed and I try to cook things that aren't as smelly.

We do use the humidifier and that is a must as far as we are concerned. I got that tip here on the board and it has made things much better. There is also a mouth spray that you can get at almost any drug store called StopperZ. It helps with the mucus.

I hope that some of this is helpful. It is always hard to know what to try because everyone reacts different. But then that is the beauty of this place... you will get lots and lots of things to try and that certainly increases the odds of finding something that works for your dad.

Good luck to you.

Cindy