Newly diagnosed Nasopharyngeal Cancer.

Hi,

I'm sorry that you have been diagnosed, I remember how shocked I was when that happened to me. I was in the similar situation, issues with hearing for 6 months and the GP thought it wasn't cancer so I had to push for referral. I finished my treatment at the beginning of June.

I haven't used any hearing aids so I struggled, I wasn't sure what to do. Positive is that the hearing started returning during my first course of chemotherapy. Please see my profile for more info about my diagnosis.

I am sure you will get more responses on the forum, although our cancer is rare, the treatment for it is similar to other head and neck cancers.

Hi I'm new here.

I am 2 years post NPC stage 3 treatment 6x chemo then a 6 weeks break befor 30 x radiotherapy + 6 chemotherapy. I also had hearing loss before I was diagnosed, also severe headaches. My cancer spread to both lymph nodes in my neck, but as Rose stated after the first round of chemotherapy my hearing started to come back.

I would highly recommend having a feeding rig fitted as it's a life saver, I couldn't eat solid food for around 2 months, treatment is hard but very doable, talk to your team if you have problems with pain they will always help you.

I'm doing really well despite the usual side effects, dry mouth and my taste is very up and down, part and parcel of the treatment, but I suppose that's my new normal so I accept that, just had a fantastic 3 week holiday in Vietnam.

I hope all goes well with your treatment take care

Thank you...I read your profile which was really insightful.  Because I have been living with constant heavy nosebleeds since January I felt I knew that it was cancer so I wasn't shocked when the Consultant told me.  I had a PET scan this week which might change the staging of it potentially as it has spread to one lymph node in my neck.

I bought some Apple Airpods Pro 3 and I can actually hear again but I hope that in time my hearing comes back naturally during treatment.

Hi...when you say 6x do you mean 6 sessions or 6 weeks of daily sessions?  I am still learning about treatment...I haven't had my options yet.  With respect to lymph nodes, does the chemoradiation therapy deal with that too or are they surgically removed?  A friend of mine had thyroid cancer and they removed her lymph nodes.  Thank you.

I hope you will get the scan results soon so your treatment can start. I am glad to hear you can hear again, I wasn't aware that these Airpods could help and I found it so frustrating. 

Wishing you all the best and if you have any questions we are all here for you.

Hi,

During my 6 weeks of radiotherapy I had 1 session of chemotherapy per week (cisplatin). 

The chemotherapy I had before the radiotherapy shrank my lymph nodes significantly and my hearing came back significantly if not better than before my consultant was very happy with the results of the chemotherapy, he also told me before any treatment that there was no need for surgery as the radiotherapy/chemotherapy would be more effective. 

Hopefully as your cancer has only spread to 1 lymph node they will be able to save one of your saliva glands, unfortunately mine had spread to both lymph nodes so my saliva glands have been damaged so now I have quite a dry mouth, however chewing gum helps a lot.