Mouth Cancer -first hospital appointment

Hi and welcome to the community

You'll likely get a physical exam and be booked in for an MRI and maybe a PET/CT and  a biopsy. They won’t be done that day.  Your consultant may have a good idea of what’s going on so do ask. 
Take somebody in with you. They will hear and remember stuff you don’t. 
Best of luck. 

Thanks so much for your reply. On another forum someone else had said similar. I was unsure whether i would have any tests on the day of my first hospital appointment. Hope you’re well x

Hi welcome to our community sorry you’ve found yourself here. AsDani i says today’s will be about what happens next the consultant know what they are looking at. I always took hubby with me as you won’t hear half of what’s said. Hopefully you won’t need our help but pop back on let us know what they’ve saud. If you do need us we’re here to try  and help

good luck Hazel 

Welcome to the forum

If you are in England you sound like you are on a "2 week pathway".  That means that your dentist or GP is worried enough to get you in front of an expert quickly.  The vast majority of people on that pathway do not have cancer, just something that is unusual to your primary care team.

As Dani has said you will get a physical exam.  Lots of feeling and probing and it can be a little uncomfortable, especially under the tongue.  This lets your consultant have a good idea of what is going on.  From that they will decide if other tests are needed.

It is a scary time waiting for the diagnostics and then the results.  Try to occupy yourself to not give your mind space to consider the possibilities.  We all imagine the worst when often it is anything but.   Stay off Google as most of the information on there is totally out of date.

Don't be afraid to ask questions, write any you think of before the appointment down on a piece of paper so you remember to ask them.  Nobody in your clinical team will resent you asking for an explanation.

Ask any questions you want and let us know how you get on.

Hello,

I had a lump on my gum and jaw pain. As my dentist didn’t take the problem seriously and I couldn’t get a GP to give me a face to face appointment I had to eventually go private to get a biopsy which gave me a cancer diagnosis.

The biopsy will be one of the first tests for you, but bear in mind only one in ten prove to be cancer.

Once I was referred to the NHS hospital after the biopsy result the first step after the consultation was a CT scan and an MRI scan to detect any tumours.

I had these scans within a week of my first consultation and actually proceeded to surgery within a month.

After the scan results I had a second appointment with a MDT (a team of specialists) to discuss a treatment plan.

Hopefully your biopsy and scans are clear, but if there is any cancer you will find treatment begins quite quickly.

But my experience was that, having spent months trying to get an initial diagnosis, once cancer was identified everything happened really quickly.