Hi Everyone!

My Dad finished his treatment last Friday and is plagued with tons of mucous. It's so bad he's gagging and throwing up because of it. Any advice as to how to get rid of that or at least thin it?
Thanks!!

So sorry, I too threw up from my mucous. The dr gave me zofran, it helped a lot, tho i still thew up at times. There are products to thin it out, tho I don't know what they are because I never used them. I'm sure someone will post something to you soon with some ideas. Hope it gets better for him soon.

I was in the same boat. I actually got better with pain meds. Before meds, I would choke, get sick, and then spasm til I was empty. With no PEG it was a lot of work getting 2500 calories down just to do it again. After I started meds, I got sick every now and then but the spasms stopped. It still wasn't fun but it became a lot more manageable.

I had my GP (not my specialists) prescribe me antibiotics for excess mucus as it seems to come from an underlying "normal" lung infection. This helped clear it up - but it does reoccur - rinse and repeat.

A home suction machine, sponge sticks to get in back of mouth, robotusem, mucinex, constant rinsing, papaya juice, pineapple juice rinsing, rinsing with meat tenderizer Aldolf's was suggested, tea, hot soup like egg drop, steam showers helps cut mucus, sleeping on an incline may help not back up at night. Forget the name of the electrical tooth with water nozzles. If your dad goes back to his treatment center, ask if they can spray the mouth out. My radiation center did it.

I'm taking oxycodone for pain, which is minimal, but pain can interfere with healing from surgery, maybe other type healing too.

Hope this helps

Paul pretty much hit them all. The water pik works wonders with about a capful of non-alchol mouthwash mixed with warm water. Also get a vaporizer to keep the humidity up to help with breathing. Get suctioned out at the doctors visits and get a prescription for a portable suction machine to do at home. This phase will pass quickly and be replaced by dry mouth.

He does have a portable suction unit but says that doens't help him as most of the mucous he has to cough up, and then when he gets to coughing that's when he gags and throws up. He's on a fentanyl patch and taking oxy round the clock every 6 hours. So I know his pain is controlled. I tried suggesting he drink something other than water and he tells me it tastes bad. Which I get that's unpleasant but I wish he would just do it!! He has a PEG and gets all of his nutrition through that, but I would like to see him start to use that less and his mouth more. I know that may be asking a lot, but I'm afraid he will never get off that tube because all he will drink is water. My mom tried to give him soup to sip on and he just maked an awful face at her and set it back on the counter. Did anyone else begin to sip on things a week post treatment? This has all been so frusturating. Just when you get a mental high for completing treatment, you get brought back down by all the side effects. I'm just hoping this doesn't last long. Any other advice is much appreciated!!!

Water is good, better than nothing. It took me 7 weeks to drink anything post radiation treatment, and that was only a sip. I think I started out with chicken broth, egg drop soup, chicken broth with pastina, worked from there, and can eat everything by mouth now, but more treatments set me back a while, comes back, and so on. I would watch others eat, watched the food channel, read cookbooks, torture lol, but one day I just got up and started to eat, I coudn't take it anymore...baby bites.

Oxycodone makes me vomit. Constipation can cause nausea, vomiting too.

Dealing with the mucus is just horrible, especially at this point when the patient is weak from all the tx.

One small thing that helped my husband - he could no longer tolerate rinsing his mouth with salt/baking soda solution without gagging and vomiting. Nurse on rad team suggested warming up the solution a little and that made it tolerable.

Regarding moving up his intake, water only should be ok for now, if he uses a PEG. Have they recommended he do more? My husband was very slow returning to eating (he had induction chemo which complicates side effects) but he did force himself to sip water and can now eat almost all foods. You might be worrying yourself too soon about this. This phase does not last.

All good suggestions above, Klr. Sorry your dad is so miserable. But as others have noted, this too shall pass. For me none of the first line nausea drugs did anything and it wasn't until I finally got my hands on some old fashioned Compazine that I got any relief.

Keep us posted. It's wonderful that your father has you to take care of him!