What Are You're Experiences With Phlegm?

Hi @bluebee and welcome. Swallowing requires the use of approximately fifty small muscles and gravity. Trouble with these damaged and/or aging muscles can begin to make eating difficult. The scar tissue doesn't help either. Believe me, I have been eating carefully and swallowing deliberately for many years post since cancer treatment.
I understand there are some surgical procedures which can rectify swallowing issues but prior to that, therapy can also work wonders when given good instructions and following up on exercise routines. For example, I was told to keep my chin up when swallowing. This was actually a very big help from something so simple. Breath in prior to swallowing was another suggestion to prevent food or liquid inhalation. Remembering to do these things is the hard part.
When we lose a foot we don't stop walking; we just figure out a new way to walk. I don't enjoy being the last one to finish eating. I don't enjoy coughing because I drank something ice cold but that is sometimes the result. We all have our bag of hammers we carry and we just have to figure out how to carry them. Physical therapy is often a helpful way to do that. Good healing.

My larynx surgery and radiation (35) was 20 years ago. Over the last 3 years I have been suffering from scar tissue in my larynx making it hard to swallow especially when lying down. My ENT suggests I take swallowing therapy and I honestly don' t see how that could hlp a lump in my throat.
Any thoughts?

I guess everybody's different. Thank you for the reply.

Thanks for the reply.
I hope things will keep getting better and better for you.

Thank you for this info William. I just found this forum and appreciate your feedback!

Hi @longboat1 and welcome to Connect. My experience with taste is it never was the same after radiation but I would just say it is different, not bad, just different. I found tastes I formally shunned whilst others I have gone away from, particularly very sweet desserts.
Dry throat is still an issue more than twenty years out. Phlegm was a few years until it seemed to clear up or I just got used to it and it slowly went away. It took two full years for about eighty percent of the healing process and about a half dozen more for some lingering nerve effects to vanish. I sneeze brought me to tears for roughly ten years due to the pain shock. I'm OK now.
As for you, there is a lot of good throat pain and meds advice on these feeds, certainly more current than what I had in the first decade of this century. Good healing.

Al,
My husband had issues for at least three years. It gradually went away and he is not having those issues anymore

I finished radiation/chemo treatment for tonsil cancer 14 months ago. My taste has somewhat returned but lack of saliva is still a problem. Phlegm has been a problem, sometimes worse than others. My nose is clear but phlegm in theback of my throat is currently an issue. I started back on azelastine nose spray a few days ago. Two sprays morning and night. That is giving me some relief already. I also have and continue to drink a lot of water.

Thanks, William.
I hope you're doing well.

At eight months, that may be one of those issues you might have to deal with for a year or more if all other attempts to resolve it fail.
For me I had an ENT take a look a couple of times without any real help until things cleared up literally two years out.
Our healing from radiation is so very slow. The body’s response to radiation is unlike anything else we ever experienced. For many of us, we have symptoms and issues for many years that we either learn to live with or we just get used to these things as normal in our everyday lives. Phlegm and mucus however are not socially accepted public issues. I had at times said simply to annoyed people “Forgive me. I am recovering from cancer treatment.” Then I could turn and hack up a lung with impunity.
Hang in there. Time will pass and you will feel better.