Hi, My name is Ellen. Please read my story, and bear with me as I am not a good writer. I have not been diagnosed with oral cancer, but I do have multiple sclerosis. I need some guidance. I am concerned that I may have throat cancer. My immune system is just about destroyed. I have had over 15, 000 mgs of IV steroids in 2011, and have been on oral prednisone for the past 2 years since that time- all this for an MS relapse that almost killed me. I have 3 kids- ages 12, 11, and 8- I have homeschooled them their entire lives. Lots of pressure for an already sick person. I am 40 years old. My only sister died in 2010 and I haven't been okay since then. I think that stress caused the MS relapse. Anyway, I was a former smoker. Before I had my precious children I smoked for about 7 or 8 years. I quit when I had the kids. I stayed off the cigs for 8 years- until my sister died. The stress and sorrow hurt me so deeply and I picked up the damn cigs again. But I did not smoke a whole lot. Maybe 5 per day- if that. I quit many times and then started again in these past 3 years. ---I also have hypothyroidism and a goiter (that cannot be seen my the naked eye) in the right side of my neck. They check it every 6 months. A year or more ago I began having some hoarseness and my voice could not go high if I wanted to sing. I went to an ENT and he put a tube down my nose and made me vocalize. He told me I had vocal nodules and needed speech therapy. I never did that because I do not have the time. But the hoarseness never left so I went to a different ENT. He also stuck that tube down my nose and made me say "ahhhh" and he said my throat was okay. At least I think he did. He was very very rude to me and really did not act nice. I assumed all was well cause 2 doctors looked down my throat and they were not concerned. But 3 weeks ago my throat began to get very sore. It burns like fire. It is worse on the right side. and My ear is feeling full and kind of pulled on- just slightly. The ear actually makes a squeaky noise when I turn my head. I have stopped smoking- 4 days ago- and am relieved to be done with that. I will never pick those up again. That was so dumb when I am already a sick person. So with all of the steroids I have had my immune system is way down. I catch everything. I am very concerned that I may have developed cancer in my throat from the combined effects of the steroids and the stress and the smoking. I cannot afford to be sicker. I have 3 kids who still really need me. There is no one else who can take care of them like I do. My husband is not involved with us. I have read many of your storied here and have been so touched by them. I would be honored if any of you could give some guidance or wisdom here because I am lost right now. I am a God- fearing woman, but am just so afraid that I have hurt myself. Do you guys know if cancer of the throat burns? It burns even worse when I eat spicy food. And have any of you had a squeak in your ear? I was thinking it was just fluid in my ear and fluid hurting my throat, but am not so sure. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions or opinions or experience with any of this. I know I must call the doctor and I plan to do that. But I wanted to reach out to you guys. Thank you for your time, Blessings, Ellen

Ellen, welcome to OCF. I hope you do not need our services!

It sounds like you have your hands full with raising your children and also not being in the best of health. Those things can cause alot of stress and make these things more challenging.

Smoking can cause cancer, several kinds so its good you have stopped using tobacco. A compromised immune system can be a factor in developing cancer. I have not heard of steroids and stress having an impact on getting oral cancer so please dont add that to your concerns. Of course stress is not good for anyone so its wise not to borrow trouble. Its likely to be several weeks before you have concrete answers to what is causing your symptoms.

Im not sure what type of doctors have been doing the scopes you recently had. I suggest you seek out an ENT who specializes in oral cancer and give them all your list of symptoms. Make sure to tell them about the vocal nodules. I dont know if something like that goes away on its own. Whatever their determination, its up to you to follow thru with their recommendation. I know you say you dont have the time but you need to make the time to take care of yourself. Raising children takes alot of energy, you must take care of yourself in order to take care of them.

Best wishes!

There are soooo many things that can go wrong in the ear nose and throat area that can cause numerous problems but rarely cancer so I agree with Christine go to or go back to an ENT. Keep us posted.

I haven't heard of a connection with steroids and oral cancer, and assume it's corticosteroids, like prednisone or decadron, you are referring to. Even anabolic steroids for that matter. Steroids are used to treat cancer symptoms like inflammation, and to prevent reaction to certain chemo. High doses corticosteroids can suppress the immune system, and its use cause weight gain, puffiness in the face, also known as moon face, fat redistrubution, necrosis and bone issue. It also can also cause psychological problems like agression. moodiness, depression. As suggested, see a ENT specializing with cancer, and your symptoms could be a number of causes. Good luck.

Hi there, Thank you for the responses. I really appreciate that. I did make an appointment with the ENT today. It is this Friday. He is one of the same ENTs that I saw before. I live in a very small town in Central Louisiana and the doctor choices are very limited. This ENT is not the one who was mean, but a rather nice guy who is supposed to be a good doctor. I don't know if he specializes in oral cancer, but he has many patients who have it, so I assume he deals with that a lot. He did the scope down my nose ( I think it was 4 or 5- maybe 6 months ago) but it did not have the little recording camera on the end of it. Does that matter? Is there a specific type of test that I should request? Will that scope test definitively show oral/throat cancer- or not?
As for the steroids I was given- it was NOT anabolic steroids. I want to clear that up. The IV steroids were administered in the hospital and it was a corticosteroid to relieve the inflammation on my spinal cord. I have been taking oral prednisone since that time to help keep the inflammation down because my spinal cord looks like swiss cheese on an MRI and I have terrible pain and spasms etc. They are also used to cause my immune system to calm down and stop attacking itself. It does cause the immune system to not work as well. In fact, they almost gave me chemo instead. So my concern is that my weakened immune system could not fight off the effects of the smoking that I did. But as I said, I did not smoke lots. My kids never even knew. I hid it from them and everyone except my hubby. Hubby dips and I am working on him trying to get him to quit.
I awoke this morning with the sore throat- on the right side- and when I push on my neck I can feel pulling in the right ear. I would like to know if any of you had burning, raw throat pain- more on one side- as a symptom? At first I really thought it was from the extra mucus smokers always have and that there was a post nasal drip causing my throat to burn. But as I said, it hasn't gone away. It has been 3 weeks. And the hoarseness has been 2 or 3 years, I am not even sure how long.
The other possibility is the thyroid. I have a nodule on the right side that this same ENT has been following. I have had ultrasounds every 6 months on it. I cannot really tell but the docs tell me that it is enlarged. I am wondering if maybe I have thyroid issues/cancer or something.
Anyway, thank you for your time. I know ya'll get a lot of hypochondriacs on this site and it is frustrating. I assure you that I am not one of those. I am already sick and I know how annoying it is when people think they may have a disease that you already struggle with every single day. I have an ms site that I use and we have so many people coming on there asking us questions about ms and they usually do not have it. So please, please forgive me if I sound like that. I would not be here at all if I didn't have a real problem.
Thank you. I admire you guys.
God be with you all,
Ellen

Ellen, I'll try to answer some of your questions.

1. The fiberoptic tube is called a largnoscope or flex scope to check the throat with the micro camera. It may see surface areas that are suspicious for cancer, but only a biopsy can definitely prove cancer. Your doctor would order any other tests, procedures, if necessary, like a laryngoscopes, triple scope, pandendiscopy under anesthesia with direct biopsies taken of any suspicions.

2. A weakened immune system may contribute to a number of illnesses, or medical configiond, relapses, but with smoking, even 5 cigarettex, sounds like a lot to me, causes direct injury to the mucosal lining, elliptical cell changes in the mouth, aerodigestive tract, so I don't know how the immune system would fight that off, unlike HPV-16, a viral infection, which the body usually fights off, and hairy leukoplakia, the immune system plays a part. Maybe it's stretching the connection with a compromised immune system in delaying in repair to the DNA from smoking.

3. The vocal cord nodule can cause hoarseness, other throat problems like throat coughing, clearance, voice changes from the vocal fold, mucous accumilation, neck pain, and should see a speech and swallow therapist as prescribed.

4. The thyroid I'm not as familiar with, but a nodule there can be biopsied by FNAB, find needle aspirational biopsy, which is usually done with ultrasound guidance by a pathologist or some ENT's, which is a 20 minute office procedure, and is highly accurate, if done by an experienced doctor to get a proper sample. If done by pathologist, a sample is looked under the microscope, and cancer may be seen by from that, and is always sent for confirmstion and further pathology. Depends des on the policy, doctor, if they let you know on the spot if it's cancet of not right there.

I hope this helps.

Just want to chime in and say we are close in age, and I also homeschool my two kids, 11 and 8. My summer took a wild left turn with tongue cancer. Just in case we do radiation, I have been planning a low-key school year. It is amazing how much they can learn even when my health causes me to slack off. (I have an anxiety disorder and migraines and stuff.) I hope you feel better soon, hang in there and keep asking till you get answers.

A scope will not be able to determine on the spot if you have cancer or not. It can spot a lesion which would need to be biopsied to determine a cancer diagnosis. If your ENT has been following a thyroid nodule, they should biopsy it so they will find out what is going on with it.

Many oral cancer patients are not diagnosed until later stages as they have no symptoms at all. When I was first sick I did not have pain or anything specific wrong so I was shocked when my doc came back with the cancer diagnosis after the biopsy. My only symptom was I felt run down, kinda like the day before you get the flu. I felt like that for about a month, I was diagnosed with Stage I OC. When I was diagnosed with Stage IV OC, I felt the best I had in years. I couldnt believe I was sick as I felt too well to have anything wrong, especially Stage IV OC. Others have complained of many other problems prior to being diagnosed with OC, but not all OC patients will say they had any type of pain prior to being diagnosed.

As I stated in a previous post, its probably going to be several weeks before you get a definitive answer to whats causing all your symptoms. Hopefully your ENT is not just experienced with treating OC patients but also very knowledgeable about everything to do with OC including diagnosing it.

Best wishes!

I found out I had thyroid nodules the same time I was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2005. My doctor (ENT) has been monitoring the nodules via periodic ultrasounds (to measure the size of the nodules). I�ve also have periodic FNAB (find needle aspirational biopsy) to look for any signs of cancer. From what I understand, thyroid nodules are fairly common in women and most often are benign. However, you should continue to have the thyroid nodules monitored by your doctor.

It sounds like you have a lot of health issues already and plenty of stress in your life. I pray that you do not join the OC club also. Good luck with your appointment this week.

Thank you guys again for your answers and insight. I really appreciate all of you. I am pretty scared. My sweet children are my entire life, and I cannot believe I was so stupid to ever pick up a cig ever again! I hate myself for it. I know better. I am an educated person - I was a public school teacher- and I am already sick and fighting the odds with MS, so I could just cry forever for being so dumb. Loosing my only sister was absolute hell on earth and it broke my heart for a long time. It weakened my resolve and I gave in to the damn cigs. So regretful.
I am already scheduled to go to my GP tomorrow because my hair is falling out- I am serious. This is the second time this has happened! It also happened in 2009 right before I was dx with hypothyroid. I guess I will tell him this throat stuff. Are there any blood tests or things he could do to check this stuff out? I don't think there are but just thought I would ask.
I know I sound like a total wreck but you guys would never know I was sick to look at me.
Also, to KristenS who also homeschools- I would love to know more about you! THANK YOU for speaking to me! You obviously know the worry of having children whom you are not finished raising yet- and then having to deal with terrible illness. I deal with that already. I would love to know more about you, and your dx, and how you homeschool with all the other stresses in your life. I am grateful to you.
Christine, Paul, David, Susan-I am also extremely grateful to you for responding with such great info and wisdom. I am sure each of you have been through your own hell and I appreciate and value any time you give to me on here. I would like to know more about your stories too. Thank you so much.
One more question, if ya'll don't mind- I do have a hopeful thought and want to run it by you all- here it is: My nose is always runny. Sounds weird but I am thinking, praying, and hoping that it means that I just have lots of fluid in my sinuses and its draining on back of my throat, too. Maybe?? Surely a runny nose is NOT a sign of OC- right?? I have no idea but as I was blowing my nose tonight- as I do all of the time for years now- it occurred to me that a runny nose could be my signal of blocked sinuses- and that would cause my squeaky ear and throat pain? I may be reaching here. Hope is much needed. I don't think my kids or my parents can take much more loss or sorrow.
Sorry for talking so much. I am terrified, honestly.
I already really like you guys. THANK YOU and GOD BLESS and HEAL each of you!!
Ellen