Greetings to everyone… so I read through all the comments… my heart goes out to you all… I too been dealing with all those issues in different stages of my ‘after’ surgery and RT struggles…. You have probably read of the long difficult operation and transplant I had to endure… a long road ahead was set after that… Here’s some of what has helped somewhat… For the stiff jaw daily mouth/jaw exercises was a must initially, then after a few months, morning after getting up should become a routine thing to do… it helps but one should ‘talk’ even when alone in order to exercise the muscles and vocal cords… after months in the hospital I started using my throat for speaking which changes your voice a lot.. now five years later finally I have begun to sound like me… even though I still don’t have any feeling in the front portion of the outer frontal jaw/face area, kinda like being a puppet is what I feel like… the saliva or lack of it… for some fortunate ones it will come back but not 100% or even 80% and it will not be the same, so dealing with this becomes a challenge… water helps, juices help but without sugar and natural flavors, one can add gaseous water if needed, this does two things I have found, it moisturizes and aids in getting rid of most of the mucus/phlegm, but don’t drink it to often, it’s bad for the teeth…. I was strongly advised to not go to any Dentist, to go to a Specialist Dentist trained and knowledgeable with Oral Cancer patients otherwise one can suffer unwanted injuries or problems. Oncologist can normally advise on this… the suction pump seems like a good idea and I will follow up on this for sure..so thank you for reenforcing it for me… but please for your own good and health do try to have discipline in what has been suggested or prescribed unless or one will suf the consequences down the road…. Please if anyone has any more information, advice or tips… I am all ears… my very Best to you all…

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