Sore on tongue from treatments: What helps?

Posted by vickie1320 @vickie1320, Aug 9, 2023

Hi everybody,

My husband has 9 more radiation treatments & 1 more chemo to go. He is having bad pain due to a huge, quarter sized open soar on the right side of his tongue. Everything we try is painful. I put a numbing drops on it & it burns like hell. If not for this, he would be doing so much better. He does not have a feeding tube & doesn’t want that. Does anyone have a suggestion on what to try?
Thank you all for your support. I don’t know how I would get through this without you❤️🙏❤️

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William Olsen, Volunteer Mentor | @hrhwilliam | Oct 26, 2023

In reply to @thebgyn123 "Thanks William I am 10 weeks post radiation. That's helpful to know it's not overnight healing." + (show)

Healing after radiation seems to take tenfold longer than normal healing. Consider that blood vessels, tissue of all sorts, nerves, etc etc have all been attacked along with the cancer cells. It takes a lot of time to rebuild the body after such an invasion.
Good news is that eventually we heal.

Colleen Young, Connect Director | @colleenyoung | Oct 30, 2023

In reply to @555777 "what did the tumor feel like in your nose? Painful. just a sore nose all the..." + (show)

@555777, do you have a tumor in your nose? How are you doing?

bestfriend60 | @bestfriend60 | Nov 23, 2023

In reply to @hrhwilliam "It’s experienced by myself and many others that the effects of radiation will continue to bring..." + (show)

Hi,

Question my boyfriend had Squamous cell cancer on his tongue. He had radiation and chemo treatments a yr ago. He still experiences metallic taste in his mouth, it bothers him so the taste as he describes it like blood.

His words below this!
.
I'll tell you what is really bothering me besides the swelling , and the constant burning feeling , is this F,en , metallic flavor I have in my mouth.
Its seems as its just flowing out of my tongue , but I don't think it coming from my tongue , it weird , and hard to discrbe.
But the more I salivate , the more prominent it seems to be .
Also when I have a cough , not now but in the past ; and I go to hack something up it taste kings like blood .
But its not , its got something to due with the chemo drugs ?.
I don't know , I would have thought that I be beyond that by now.
See these are the things that drive my crazy .

Can anyone identify with this?! Please help me with this.

Thank you very much

William Olsen, Volunteer Mentor | @hrhwilliam | Nov 24, 2023

In reply to @bestfriend60 "Hi, Question my boyfriend had Squamous cell cancer on his tongue. He had radiation and chemo..." + (show)

No need to describe your taste issue. Blood, licking an iron pipe, eating steel, tingling and stabbing pains on the tongue, all sound about normal after radiation. Some Chemo patients have also reported some of this for a short time after chemotherapy ends but it seems more common in radiotherapy.
Magic Mouthwash (doctor prescribed) usually with Lidocaine seems to help folks. I chewed cinnamon Dentine gum or sucked on Altoids (strong as they are) and sipped cold water to fight metal mouth.
Radiation can and often does cause neuropathy of the taste buds. The good news is that it goes away in time. There is healing time from injuries, then there is healing time from radiation. Radiation healing time can literally be years.
Probably in another year or so he won’t notice this taste so much if at all. Keep in mind our view is much better from this the green side of the grass.

lisek | @lisek | Nov 25, 2023

Get magic mouthwash. It's a perscription compound with a few things in it including lidocaine. Numbs the mouth fot half an hour so my husband could get some food down.

That said, my husband insisted on the stomach tube (I was scared of it). It saved him. The painful sores go on for a few months after radiation. He was able to at least take in enough calories by tube to keep going and then supplement as much as he could by mouth. It turned out to be easy, clean and not messy. I was glad we did it because it helped him not only survive, but the docs found some ulcers and a pylori in his gut that we were able to treat which could have caused worse health problems later. (they give you an endoscopy to insert it). All is well. He got the tube out 2 months after end of radiation, when he was finally able to get down more calories by mouth. Still struggled with sores, but used copious magic mouthwash and hydrocodone to eat. Two more months of that until sores seemed to heal... So far....