I've had a sore on the lateral portion of my tongue for the past 4 months. It is on the opposite side from where the cancer was. I've been attributing the sore to rubbing my tongue against my teeth in the night when my mouth is excruciatingly dry. I've been doing constant saline rinses (every time I pass the bathroom) and started using one of those products you can buy over the counter - Soothe and Seal - to try to get this thing to heal up. My dentist and surgeon both saw this sore about two weeks after it first developed (I wasn't taking any chances and got right in when it wasn't healing). The dentist said at that visit that if it didn't heal in a month he wanted a biopsy. I went to the surgeon a few hours later, and he was remarkably uninterested and said that it didn't look like anything. I had CT scan about a month later, and got an all clear - and the surgeon again looked at the sore and was unexcited about it. Since then, the radiation oncologist has seen it, the speech therapist has seen it. They both noted that I had a "big ulceration," but gave no further comments.

I went back for my routine dental visit earlier this week, and the dentist immediately checked on the sore. He used the Velscope and spent a lot of time examining my mouth. He said that it "wasn't glowing red" and that it looked "white" and said again that if it hadn't healed in a month it "needed to come off." I asked if it could wait that long or if something should be done now, and he said that he "wasn't that excited by it" and thought it could wait for one more month to see if I could get it to heal before removing it.

I called my surgeon's office after knowing full well that he would be incredibly displeased if someone else did a biopsy and he wasn't involved. I mentioned that the sore had been seen many times over the past months, but we were now at 4 months since it appeared, it bleeds when I brush my teeth, it is getting more painful, and looks bigger to me. They made an appointment for me to have it looked at again, but unfortunately he is out of town on vacation all next week - so the 22nd is the earliest appointment. That's a long time to sit and wonder.

Needless to say - I'm a tad concerned. I'm encouraged that the dentist didn't seem to see any blaring signs of obvious cancer with the Velscope, but I don't know much about that technology - so I'm not sure how accurate a visual exam using it is. I'm also a bit concerned that if the surgeon decides to do a biopsy, and the reason we're doing the biopsy is because my mouth refuses to heal thanks to radiation damage, then how in the world will the biopsy site heal?

Any thoughts?! Anyone else out there have non healing sores that aren't cancer?!