Posting here on behalf of my dad he got diagnosed with tongue/throat cancer back in 2022 he started radiotherapy this year and had 5 sessions a week for 6 weeks and the last session was at the beginning of June since finishing treatment he has had an extremely sore swollen tongue and a funny taste in his mouth he has lost alot of weight from not being able to eat they've tried him with various medications (morphine, methadone, Fentanyl, ketamine) but nothing seems to be helping his been told that the most recent scan shows the cancer doesn't look like it's fully gone but has an infection so have him antibiotics and got to have a pet scan after the course has finished.
Just want to know if anyone has had the same issue and if anything helped then because he just feels like giving up at the moment
Hi Sean
So sorry to hear about your dad
I must say that 12 weeks after I had six weeks of radiotherapy for my tongue cancer I still had ulcers in my mouth which made eating difficult. I had a PET/CT at 16weeks and there was evidence of activity at the tumour site. Folk call it a hotspot. I had a biopsy afterwards and thankfully it was just inflammation.
Is your dad’s tongue swollen because his mouth is very dry? What sort of mouthwashes does he have? I had and still use BioXtra which is soothing and emollient.
Coukd he have thrush? It’s really common after treatment and antibiotics are the last thing indicated. Just a thought.
If he’s not eating can they not place a nasogastric tube? I had one for eight weeks when I couldn’t eat and it saved my life.
Good luck and let us know what happens
Dani
Base of tongue cancer. T2N0M0 6 weeks Radiotherapy finished January 2019
