Hi all,
The salt lick blues. Unfortunately IMRT is very hard on the salivary glands if they are in the field of radiation. There are two types of salivary glands: serous glands and mucous glands. The serous glands provide most of the liquid in your saliva and the mucous glands provide the lubrication or mucous. IMRT affects them both so the result is less liquid from the serous gland so the salt concentration in your saliva is higher than normal. Thicker mucous with a higher salt concentration from the mucous glands.
So how do you deal with it? It's different for every patient. The common denominator is drink lots and I mean lots of water. Cut out salt in all of your foods. Read labels, salt, sodium, MSG, hydrolized vegetable and animal protein. I know soup becomes a mainstay of the diet at this stage but, soup is famous for having a high sodium and MSG content which only adds to the problem. It's better to make your own soup stock or choose low or no sodium products.
If you want to stimulate your saliva production add a few drops of lemon juice to every glass of water.
Stay hydrated and hopefully the salt demon will disappear quickly.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Mike