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Inability ti eat after throat surgery

Posted by BethCasbeer @bethcasbeer, Jan 22, 2018

Has anyone had throat surgery and been unable to swallow and eat afterwards? If so , was there any treatment for it?

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My wife could not eat until she got physical therapy and practiced exercises for months. She had a stomach tube installed PEG to ensure nurishment until she could eat more normally. Currently she can eat at about 25% of the past rate, so it takes a long time but is possible. We kept the stomach tube and use it at night a few times a week to keep her weight up. Many who can’t drink their calories (shakes, etc.) lose too much weight and weaken their immune system during chemo and get other problems that could have been avoided. She has kept up her weight for many years thusly...

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My husband lost his ability to swallow prior to actual SCC throat cancer diagnosis Feb 2017; PEG feeding tube inserted then and he hasn’t swallowed food or liquid since. His tumor was 3.6cm at base of throat preventing food or liquid from passing. He had 7wks of daily radiation with a weekly chemo treatment, we started speech and swallow therapy after PEG was inserted, during treatment when he could and then home therapy since treatment stopped May 1st, only to finally have ENT say no cancer is better than not swallowing; in Sept we sought new opinions at Moffitt Cancer Center (we live in TampaBay FL) to have them confirm that this standard radiation therapy used caused “collapsed occlusion of esophagus”, or they fried his esophagus shut. Lesson learned: make sure you reseach and ask questions early on your treatment journey, we blindly took oncology and ENT at their word, no one shared their therapy could totally fry shut his esophagus... My recommendation to anyone battling HNC is to immediately start swallow and speech therapy and always have a HN oncologist on your team, this is one cancer that requires more than community oncology knowledge and treatment services. Stay strong all; I’ve been a lymphoma warrior for over 5yrs and now battling metastatic breast cancer (thank you lymphoma) as I remain a positive caregiver to my husband.

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Thank you for sharing your experiences. I am asking for a friend, and your replies are helpful.

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