hi all,
so my OH was diagnosed in may with HPV P16 positive, this is at the base of his tongue and lymph nodes both sides, he is 35 so only a young fit slim and Healthy chap, this has totally knocked him for six, nothing but complications, firstly was with his peg it was fitted he was discharged from hospital and ended up back in a&e 4 hours later, he had slight infection after his peg being far too tight, this ended in him not eating without pain for 6 days, he then had his first batch of two 7 hour days of chemo, ended up having a reaction to it and generally feeling like he’s been hit up the back of the head with a cricket bat made him so sick he didn’t eat for another 5 days and was having minimal amount of fluid, radiotherapy has been going great, he has just finished week 3 of 6 but all this week has been unable to swallow even just a trickle of water, went for review and ended up being admitted back into hospital to try pump feeding and pain management medication as he has lost 13kg In 3 weeks! now he has paracetamol and diclofenac pain relief, codine makes him constipated and morphine makes him violently sick, does anyone have any good pointers for helping him to swallow? All he wants is even just a sip of water I feel so helpless but he would try most things, and I feel this group is so informative
thanks
I wouldn’t worry too much about losing the ability to swallow due to treatment pain. My consultants and nurses banged on about it but there is a limit to what you can endure. I was told if I didn’t exercise my throat muscles I would lose my swallow. Well I can tell you I had a nasogastric tube in for 7 weeks and was overnight pump fed for a month. Little went in orally for a great proportion of that but I was back to eating in no time. More important to my mind is doing your jaw exercises to avoid trismus
just my take on it
Dani
Base of tongue cancer. T2N0M0 6 weeks Radiotherapy finished January 2019
