You have all been wonderful........thank you for your guidence.......I don't know what I've done without it.
My new question is, has anyone had any experience with TEP? Apparently it is a prosthesis placed betweeen the wall of the trachea and esophagus, allowing speech in someone who has lost their voicebox and vocal cords.
I've looked on the net, and there is only limited "scientific" journals that I'm not privy to.
Love,
Mandi

http://www.webwhispers.org/library/TEPProsthesis.asp

FOUND THIS WEB SITE AFTER TYPING IN TEP PROSTHESIS ON GOOGLE,IT HAS ALL THE INFO YOU ARE LOOKNG FOR AND PICTURES TO ILLUSTRATE.IF THE LINK DOESNT WORK JUST USE THE WWW.WEBWHISPERS.ORG IN YOUR ADDRESS BAR HOPE THIS HELPS

LIZ

Just bumping this info up in case you missed it Mandi,the boards have been very busy the last couple of days.

love liz

Hi Mandi,

I had a TEP put in at the time they did my total laryngectomy in 2001. I have had very good success with it and could speak immediately, but had no surgery to the tongue. The ability to speak with one of these depends on how well the esophagus vibrates. A speech pathologist should evaluate before TEP is done. I don't know what the effect of no tongue will have. It will certainly make it more difficult to speak but Misskate seems to have managed it.

The kind I have is surgically changed by my speech pathologist when it starts leaking, usually every three months. Many people last 6 months or longer on one prosthesis before it needs changing. My keeps getting clogged with thrush even though I take Nystatin regularly. I know of only two companies that make this type. www.inhealth.com where I buy the neck gear I wear over trach and www.atosmedical.com whose prosthesis I wear.

The TEP is wonderful and I would highly recommend if they think the procedure will work. They is a fairly high failure rate in people who have had radiation but your husband's radiation, like mine, was several years before the TEP procedure so he has had a chance to heal more. It depends on what the doctor's think.

What type of neck gear is your husband currently using? Hopefully he is wearing some kind of HME vavlue to keep trach moist. Both these companies make hands free values that most TEP users wear. I have them but prefer ATOS HiFLow value which requires one hand to operate.

Also In Health makes a good shower guard. I use the same adhesives and plates that come with the shower guard as my normal neck wear with the ATOS value. Just personal preference. These are small and don't cover half my neck but also don't work well with hands free value.

If you have more questions, please email me rather than PM. It it is easier to respond if I don't have to get on forum.

Take care,
Eileen