Experiences with Calphasol ?

I had the caphasol effervescent tablets. Essentially the same as caphasol A&B but easier to manage. 
I didn’t take them till my mucositis was well established. in my opinion we should be offered this at the start of RT. 
Rinsing with it five or six times a day really helped and speeded up healing. I had one persistent ulcer along the side of my tongue that responded to nothing and took its own time to heal in 6 months. 
I found using the whole tablet wasteful so I broke it in half and just made that up with lukewarm water. 

Hi Hattie

My hubby has been using caphosol for a week  or so now it's the liquid A & B versions. He has been using them about 4 x daily but has been told he can use up to 10 x daily. He starts week 3 of treatment tomorrow. His taste has all gone now but he is still swallowing well.  He has been given some difflam spray and some gel clear sachets too. Give the caphosol a go different things work for different people.

Best wishes

Lisa x

Did your consultant give you it Dani?

Hey Lisa,

Did the consultant prescribe these ? 

X

Yes. I got it from oncology. As much as I wanted. Luckily 

Yes, as mine will not prescribe.....  Ok thanks for info.  

I don’t want to put a downer on this, but there is no convincing large scale evidence that Caphosol makes a difference to radiation mucositis. I was prescribed it during my 7 week course of treatment and I thought it was great and probably helped. However I still got horrendous ulceration which may have been the same whether I’d used Caphosol or not. Since my treatment finished over 2 years ago, my hospital Pharmacy has withdrawn it’s recommendation that patients have Caphosol. I was furious and tackled the Pharmacy over this - they showed me a raft for studies. And I later looked up others. Nothing truly convincing to say it works over simple salt water. So it’s difficult for hospitals to prescribe it without good evidence, it is expensive. To me it seems totally logical that it would help and I believed it helped me - but I have no evidence this is true.

I wouldn’t want everyone spending a lot of cash on an unproven therapy. That said, I think I would probably pay for it myself if I hadn’t been prescribed it - that’s not logical but we just want to try to get anything that moves things in our favour don’t we? Do everything you have been advised Hattie -keep your mouth meticulously clean and use whatever you are recommended. And keep in touch with your team as treatment progresses so they can advise and change medication as necessary. Best of luck

Hilary

This is why they won't prescribe it Hilary.  They said lack of evidence it works,  but people using it also do swear by it too.   Got Gelclair instead from them & saliva spray, difflam & biotene.  I guess we want to try anything in the hope it helps !! Yes, and it's expensive.

Tina x