Minnie,

It was a very slow process for me (probably way over a year), but eventually my tongue began to feel more normal. Since I had surgery before radiation, I ended up with a lopsided tongue that took a lot of getting used to. Then the radiation brought on swelling that lasted for months, and left it feeling so clumsy that it was hard to talk or move food around when I was trying to eat. After the pain and mouth sores subsided a bit, I had numbness for a long time and, like you, I ended up biting down on it sometimes by accident.

It has been about as normal as it's going to get for more than a dozen years, and the left side (where most of the radiation was done) still feels "different", but very manageable compared with the first year or two after treatment. It's one of those things where it's hard to see day-to-day improvement -- it's more of a month-to-month process, I think.

Cathy