Hi,
My husband was diagnosed with throat cancer, right Vallecula SCC with right neck metastatic disease p16 positive squamous cell carcinoma, in November 2021. He has finished his chemo and radiotherapy and all things point to it having been successful at treating the cancer, which is fabulous news. We just have his final scan to do and then the results will be in!
At the moment, one of the main problems he is dealing with is a thick catarrh like phlegm at the bottom of his throat, which makes him cough and spit stuff up, or he chokes on it. I will be talking to his oncologist when we see her but I wondered if anyone who has been through a similar type of cancer has any insight into how he can deal with this better. As he has virtually no saliva at night, he doesn’t get much sleep and coughing/choking/spitting happens a lot…sleeping, not as much!
He is using artificial saliva, which has helped, but has this improved over time for people, or is he going to be stuck with this forever?
Many thanks,
Hi and a very warm welcome to the online community which I hope you'll find is both an informative and supportive place to be.
I'm sorry to read the problems that your husband is suffering from at the moment and it's natural that you'd want to see if anyone else has had a similar problem.
As the online community is divided up into different support groups I'm going to recommend that you join the head and neck cancer group which is a great place to ask your question, share experiences and get support from others with the same type of cancer.
Clicking on the link I've created will take you to the group where you can join and post in the same way as you did here. You can also join in with existing conversations by clicking on 'reply'.
It would be great if you could pop something about your husband's diagnosis and treatment into your profile as it really helps others when replying to you and also when looking for someone on a similar pathway. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.
If you have any difficulty navigating the community just drop me a reply and I'll be pleased to help
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Thank you Latchbrook, that’s really kind of you to help direct me to a more effective place to post my query. I will give it a go now…she says hoping she doesn’t muck it up! 
