I was diagnosed with Nasopharyngeal carcinoma with mets to all the nodes in my neck in 2005. In 2014 I had to go through 30 hyperbaric treatments in a hyperbaric chamber to buildup my jaw in order to have all of my teeth extracted. My insurance covered the majority of the oral surgery, however the dentures were not covered. They were around 2000.00.


Just curious, do you have issues with speech and swallowing? My speech is gradually getting worse. I am very difficult to understand and it seems to worsen each day.

I have both problems you mentioned. The problem started about 10 years post the treatment and got worse gradually, I noticed the problem when people start leaning towards me so that they can hear clearly what I said and if I am on the phone the person on the other end will ask me to repeat my word many times....I always feel the denture (also got after 30 HBO sessions) is too bulky in my mouth preventing me to properly pronounce word starting with "G" or "K". Actually, my worst problem is swallowing, it seems that the throat no longer squeezes food down now, even liquid, I just have to let the drink flowing down by "gravity". The action of swallowing will simply push the food up into the nasal cavity and spew out from nose. For this reason, I have stopped eating with friends or family in the restaurant and that is very frustrating.....

Bless you! I also prefer to not eat in public. My family doesnt realize how frustrating and embarrassing it is. My soft pallette melted into the back of my throat during radiation and i go every 3 months and my ENT dr. uses a balloon type thing to try and open it back up. He has told me from day one that he is scared to operate with the fear of my food and drink coming out my nose. Well now I know what he means. I would have loved the dental implants but they say my jaw wouldnt hold up for that as I too feel these dentures are so bulky and the fact I despise FIXODENT! Haha! I really am blessed and thankful to be alive!!

Another issue that I have, is aspirating, therefore I get pneumonia frequently. I have been diagnosed with asthma and get real short of breath and raspy. The aspirating is caused from the swallowing issues.

I live in South Mississippi and i literally feel I have the BEST ENT doctor in the world and he has done everything in his power to help me.