Help- struggling to eat and swallow

Hi Sue unfortunately this is about the stage the side effects start to kick in. Everything starts to taste like cardboard, try to drink as much water as you can, and try to get down some soft food. Let your team know, how things are. Don't worry you will get there.

Ray. 

By five rads after you I was on morphine with an NG tube. Long acting morphine to dampen the background pain was a game changer. Oramorph every four hours alternated with paracetamol kept me comfortable. 

Metoclopramide for nausea
Mouth preps were Gelclair Difflam and Caphosol 

Difflam  fifteen minutes before trying to swallow anything did help and I was given antacid with Oxetecaine which has local anaesthetic in it. 
This  worked for a while but I soon gave up fighting with food, getting upset with what I could and couldn’t manage and eventually being frightened of even swallowing Fortisips. Everything went via NG tube. I pump fed at night and concentrated in some quality of life in the day. 
I had nothing to prove to myself. I knew the treatment would batter me but I knew it would cure me. There was nothing to fight. The RT was doing that. I just had to stay sane. 
I didn’t lose much weight and made a pretty uneventful recovery. 

I’ll add

Soluble aspirin can help ease the throat but don’t swallow it. I tried that for a while. What worked better was swilling my oramorph around my mouth and throat 

Hang in Sue. You will get there. 
Ray is spot on. Tell your radiographers how you are and they will get some decent pain relief for you. 

Hi Sue,

I was prescribed oramorph and a thick liquid paracetamol that coats the sore bits as it goes down.Things will improve eventually.I buy very smooth porridge out of tesco smoother than ordinary porridge oats i suppose like ready brek really.I found it the easiest thing to take first with honey and cream.Still can't taste much and i'm 9 weeks finished treatment.I felt sick too but if i could eat it seemed to help.

Turi

Hi Sue, I re.ber after my mouth op mouth was really sore. Co-codamol will make u feel sick without food so try scrambled eggs or porridge which will just slide down.

I used to take 2 x 30/500 cocodamol, and diclophenic  tabs together,  I slept loads but did help with pain.

Try sipping iced water it will numb.

Take care

Amanda

Hi sue sadly you’re at the stage where things from now on will progressively get worse. Once the pain hit all we can do is proactively manage it. See your team tomorrow and see what they say by end if week 3, start if week 4 I went from virtually nothing ti co codomol and then topping up with oramorph    Then my n g tube was fitted and all medsx c went in via that I maintained swallow by sipping water as king as I could. Mrs nausea if the chemo meds are holding if there’s kit of others you csn be given but ask as we’re all started in the cheapest ones. 
I credit my pain management and use of feeding tube in enabling me week 3 of recovery ti start eating sift foods and having a good recovery. I also walked daily if only round the garden. I slept a lot as well and delegated everything else to others. I had ulcers full length if my tongue snd had gelclair for that. Watch out fir the mucus that may be next to hit you. 

You will get there these next weeks will happen take everything one day at a time. 
renenber laxido as well ehrn on opiates 
hazel xx