I am in the recovery phase from oropharyngial cancer following surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. I am about to the point where I can attempt eating solid foods again and have trouble opening my mouth very wide. Apparently the jaw muscles have suffered scaring and contraction such that range of motion is reduced. The Dr. has suggested daily exercise with a clump of tongue depressors (I am doing this) or with a mechanical device called a "therabite". I would appreciate any "experience-based" advice on this topic.

Welcome to OCF!

The range of motion issue you are experiencing with your jaw is called trismus. Unfortunately, its a fairly common after effect of radiation.

I have trismus myself. I found there wasnt much that could be done to help with the tightening of my jaws. I had a great physical therapist who would work with me using the tongue depressors, the therbite device and other exercises. It took alot of work to make only small short lived improvements. I eventually gave up as I didnt seem to ever be able to get ahead of the tightening.

I didnt have much success but you may so dont give up. Try to find a good physical therapist who has worked with other patients who have had OC or other mouth/jaw injuries.

Good luck!!!

I forced myself to yawn throughout the day. Even though I wasn't able to fully open my mouth at first I could feel the muscles "firing". Not a doc here but I feel this helped me involuntarily stretch my mouth.

I was given a series of exercises early on by my Speech/Language Pathologist to do during and after treatment. While I definitely experienced some stiffness and range of motion issues, they were relatively minor and short lived. That being said, I still do them at least twice a day 11 weeks post treatment to keep things loose.

Keep up with the exercises! Opening your mouth as wide as you can, placing (up to) three fingers in and gently forcing it open and holding for 10 seconds, repeat ten times. Opening your mouth as wide as you can and moving your jaw left then right, ten repetitions. Same thing with mouth closed. Those were a couple that made a big difference in the long run.

The Therabite is a mechanical device that replaced the fingers in the above exercise. I didn't need it as my fingers proved sufficient. Also, fingers and tongue depressors are WAY less expensive than the Therabite!

Positive thoughts and prayers,

"T"

One of my regrets 11.5 years out from treatment is NOT taking this seriously enough. It is difficult for dentists to get to those back teeth and eating a hamburger or sandwich is impossible. Wish I had kept up the exercises way back then or ordered a Therabite! Really work at those exercises as you will be thankful for every bit of mm you can stretch down the road!- Kris

Kris too used the "fingers". This worked very well. He forced the fingers in up to 5 times per hour. Gradually worked up to 3 fingers. He did this intensively for about 6 weeks and can now open his mouth pretty well.
Our surgeon and SLT preferred this method to the Therabite.
Tammy

Most muscles have memory... So you stretch it and eventually it gets the Idea... You know - like working on getting that crotch to the floor while doing the splits...suffer enough - practice enough eventually it gets there. However, radiated muscles are damaged... Some beyond repair. Not necessarily saying you can't get it back but sometimes the lesson doesn't stick, so diligence is the key here. Wanna keep what you have? Do your exercises and do what you can to prevent worsening, and sometimes depending on the amount of damage and how much you pushed yourself while going through treatment and after you may never get back an acceptable range of motion. So someone whose muscles were In the direct path of the radiation, and who didn't chew, swallow, stretch, yawn and exercise during and after treatment, may not be able to regain the function lost, or see much improvement in comparison to someone did what they could despite the pain during treatment etc... Then again sometimes no matter what you do the damage is permanent, however continue to do what you can everyday even just to preserve whatever is left. also a reintroduction of blood flow to the area, (acupuncture) may help prevent further fibrosis. I think it very much depends on the person bent treated, and the qualifications of the person doing the treatment. I found it helped me maintain and improve my jaw muscles and neck muscles. But it doesn't work for everyone. Hugs.

The exercises, splints, should be done the first few months, if they are going to help. There is a similar device called Dynasplint. Other than that, there is not much help. Electrical stimulation is somewhat helpful, and surgery to the jaw joint area, which can increase the mouth range of motion, but due to the wide field of radiation to other adjacent areas, fibrosis, it's not that helpful. There is a visual measurement with mouth range of motion, maybe by WHO, I forget, that breaks down in levels, stages or degrees. That's why the surgeon, anesthesiologist asks you to open your mouth pre surgery, to see if they may need to inter-bate you while awake, put a temporary trach in sometimes, and just missed the trach lady surgery, but did inter-bate while awake, but give you a sedative, and was knocked out just from that. Good luck.