My husband is 8 months post treatment for oral cancer which was treated with surgery, chemo and radiation. He was able to swallow liquids approximately 5 weeks post treatment and was not able to progress to more solid foods. In Aug. following a bad throat infection his swallowing abilities gradually decreased to the point he can now not swallow anything without choaking. He has had a swallowing assessment which identifies 2 problems. One of the problems is the hardening of the swallowing muscles from the radiation. I am wondering if there is anyone on this forum that has used VitalStim therapy for this problem. If so how effective was it in improving swallowing ability?

My base of tongue cancer was treated successfully in Summer 2001. I couldn't swallow for four years and it turned out to be something easy that didn't get diagnosed by a couple xray swallowing tests or by my repeated complaints to my ENT. Turns out I had a stricture ring (I think that's what it was called) 20 centimeters into my esophagus (measuring from the back of my teeth). An esophagus dilation took care of it and opened up my 'ring' from a size 5 to a size 14 (guess normal people are size 20). Anyway, I was just like your husband, choking on everything, even a single piece of corn. Thank goodness those days are gone. Maybe this will help you. My doctors said my 'stricture ring' was unrelated to my radation, but it had to be the reason because the swallowing problem started when the treatment got going.

Midwest how was the esophageal stricture finally identified? We can see there is also a problem in the esophagus on my husband's x-ray but it looks like a bulging hernia type thing that protrudes with the swallow and effectively blocks the passage, and then goes back flat when the swallowing is terminated. His epiglotis is not closing over his airway properly with the swallow and so of course what ever was being swallowed hits the blockage in the esophagus and comes back up and down into the airway. We see ENT surgeon on Mon. and will see what he thinks when he has seen the swallowing video. We are hoping for a good outcome from all of this as he is cancer free presently. Thanks for your response, very interesting.