I was hoping to get some feed back to see if anyone has had a problem with thrush. I am currently close to a year out of treatment and just within the last couple of months I have had thrush mouth 3x's! Is this normal? Is it due to a dry mouth? I try and keep my mouth moist, drink water all the time, and I use the biotene spray which is on my night stand. I sleep with my mouth open, don't know why just do so I get really dry. I drink water in the middle of the night and use the Biotene spray. any feed back would be helpful. Currently I am using the Mycelex 10mg lozenge for treating the thrush. If this is a topic that has already been discussed, sorry for bringing it up again. But I am just worried.

I had problems with thrush for awhile and seemed to live on mystatin. It got significantly better after I bought a water pik which I used in addition to brushing. I'm not sure if the two are related, but just a thought that might help.

Donna

Thanks Donna for responding. Hey I will try anything at this time. My dentist a few years back recommended a water pik for dental care. One of my co-workers uses a water pik and really likes it better then brushing. (I think I would still brush.) So I might try the water pik. Thanks again. Take care.

Debbie

I use a water pik twice per day and still manage to occassionally end up with thrush. The water pik works great at removing anything your toothbrush can leave behind. My ENT gave me a prescription rinse to go with it.

Its not fun having thrush at all. Thrush is a virus. If you dont completely get rid of it the first time with medication, it will come back.

I'm almost 6 years out, had IMRT and about 80-90% salivary function return and I had thrush a couple of months ago.

Water Piks are a great idea but not a substitute for flossing. I use one all of the time and have a battery operated one, by Panasonic, for travel.

It's pretty easy to alter the pH in the mouth which opens the door for thrush.

i would suggest taking oil of oregano or olive leaf extract (in pill form) to rid the body of the yeast you are carrying in your gutt and then add probiotics to add good flora to your gutt. Those who dispute this works have not tried it, plain and simple. Using diflucan etc too rid the body of excess yeast is great too but for maintenance to keep it at bay ongoing, this works. It is happening because you have a yeast overgrowth in your system that needs to be gotten under control. Your treatments made you more inclined to suffer from it.

Also eating more veggies (raw, juiced or steamed is best) will help neutralize your system, giving less acidity for the yeast to work with and grow.

Sugar is what fungi lives on, so removing as much sugar, white flour, and fruit as possible from your diet will help to remove the yeast as it will not have anything to live on. (green apples are safe in the fruit dept)

Best wishes - I had thrush so bad that went undiagnosed for so long it got where I could not even swallow liquids... it can get serious if not tended to and it will keep coming back if you do noto treat the cause instead of the symptoms. And not always does it show up as white patches which is why mine was misdiagnosed for so long ... if your mouth is burning, it may well be thrush.


Also, to clarify something another poster said ... candida (yeast, thrush) is not a virus, it is a fungi. For this reason it is treated with antifungals. Fungi is very stubborn and will remain unless you get all layers of it. This is why you do things for maintenance after initial antifungal med treatment or it will continue to repeat itself every once in awhile ...

It also tends to come back every time I am put on an antibiotic so I sometimes take Diflucan when I take antibiotics. I am on a permanent does of Nystatin to keep thrush at bay on the prosthesis in my neck but still it comes back from time to time in my mouth, just burning, nothing white.

Where do I buy this oil of oregano? I need to try that.

Take care,
Eileen

Thrush can kill you if allowed to go unchecked and systemic. It starts in the mouth then goes to the esophogus, then into the stomach and then it can go systemic. It's very difficult to treat once it has gone systemic. I would use holistic and home remedies with extreme caution.

There was a long while, post Tx, that I was taking 400mg of Diflucan every day. A maintenance dose for H&N post Tx is Diflucan, 50-100mg/day.

AIDS patients take up to 800mg of Diflucan/day and that's just for maintenance.

By comparison a female yeast infection can be cured with 1 100mg Diflucan tablet (and it is the same fungi).

The candidiasis fungi is present in the mouth (and vagina) all the time. A normal immune system and pH keeps it in check. Dry mouth is a major reason for pH imbalance. Antibiotics alter the pH so that's another reason why a candida bloom happens.

I tried yogurt with acidopholis and it didn't change a thing. I found that Diflucan was the most effective in the anti-fungal group of "...azoles".

yes, it can be very dangerous if left untreated... and very uncomfortable.

my doctor told me that things such as yogurt with live cultures are good and she recommends them to use in conjunction with other treatment, they will not cure it on their own, it will just help get the good bacteria built up so you heal quicker and don't get a recurrence, hopefully. it is good to use WITH the other treatments like diflucan etc.

she also told me that doing ongoing maintenance doses of things like diflucan are counterproductive and make you more suseptible to another bout of the candida (thrush) because the thrush will actually become immune to it and use it as food, like it does sugar... so one would want to balance this with the ongoing problems one may encounter after treatment.

while the fungi is always present, it is the overgrowth that causes the problems and this is what things like oil of oregano and olive leaf can help keep under control. i use it daily and have no more problems with thrush and like i said i had it so bad it got where i could not even swallow... anf they used every pill they have at their disposal to get rid of the stupid stuff because it had such a stronghold by the time they figured out what it was (because there were no white patches as they look for). it was in my mouth, and down my esophogus.

*they have told me since, that this could have contributed to my diagnosis of cancer as well - so nothing to play with. While i will never know IF it was a contributing factor, I will always know it possibly was and that is enough for me, to hate the stuff with a passion.*

Maintenance doses of anti-fungals are usually for people with compromised immune systems, transplant patients and HIV patients fall into this category. Diflucan will never become a substitute source of "food' for candida. Candida is NOT a known contributor to cancer development. Here is the OCF page on Candida for more information http://www.oralcancerfoundation.org/dental/candida.htm