I am about 2 months out of surgery MRND. I was told by my doctors to expect stiffening of the neck as well as swelling in the neck and throat area as the lymphnodes had been damaged due to the radiation and surgery. I have no problem with this as i wake up to the sun everyday and life otherwise is good.

There are days that I wake up with little or no swelling and usually after a hot shower and some massage and stretching exercises my throat looks almost normal. Then there are days, like I have had in the last week, where the swelling seems to get progressively worse each morning, till I wake up like I did this morning looking as if I had a pickle barrel aroune my neck. So far this past week has been the worst of it and Im hoping that this type of swelling will not happen again. I noticed when it is like this that no amount of massage or stretching seems to help. All it does is irritate my throat and skin.

Is this usual? Is this what I will have to go thru from now on? If it is, I will live with it. Hopefully, this in an exception for it to get this bad. Has anyone else out there had this kind of problems?

Fred

Not unusual at all. I am presuming that your surgery involved a neck dissection, which inevitably leads to some degree of lymphedema. This is the lymphatic fluid that used to be handled by all of those lymph nodes they removed. It is looking for a new way out, so pefuses the surrounding tissues. Sleeping position, weather and a variety of other things can cause the swelling to increase or decrease. I am about a year out from the end of treatment, and mine is better, though not totally eliminated yet.

Hope this helps.