Nelie, I remember my physical therapist having me do some swallowing strengthening exercises. If I recall, chin down towards my chest & dry swallowing as hard as I could to 1) build strength in those muscles & 2)stretch those same muscles. It's kind of a tough exercise to do even now. I realize that when I'm eating I keep my head down when I'm swallowing. My 2 youngest girls, 10 & 11 made the family dinner tonight. Chicken nachos! I managed, but I had as much mango/peach salsa & sour cream & diced tomatoes as I did nachos to make it go down! There wer'e quite a few very hard swallows & a couple of glasses of milk during that meal! I did not do much talking & was most certainly the last one done at the table. I was doing a lot of breath holding. You have been through a lot more treatment than I have with breast cancer & all. I am trying to be encouraging for you. My ENT says my throat is always inflamed because of the radiation & always will be tender. The other day I took a drink of hot coffee & in the process of doing the hard swallow thing burned the crap out of the back of my throat while sort of holding it there till I could swallow it. Like I said, I'm pretty bull headed & I love my coffee with cream & brown sugar! I do wish you some forward progression. We all heal at different rates & I hope yours speeds up. Erik