Cancer Survivors Network

Hello Ladies,

When I had my tissue expanders implanted in November I came out of the anesthesia with a problem with my tongue. I did not have full movement and it draws to the left. I thought it was swollen, but turns out that the intubation for anesthesia caused damage to my hypoglossal nerve that 'innervates' the tongue.

Everything I have read says it is self resolving, usually within a few days. Well, it's about 7 weeks and my improvement has plateau'ed. I have a lisp, eating is difficult, speech is difficult, saliva kind of 'pools', and if food gets into a certain area of my mouth I cannot move my tongue to dislodge it. I have lost 10 pounds (silver lining, I guess) because eating has become such a chore.

Has anyone else experienced this or heard of anyone who has?? I decided to give it 8 weeks and then see if my PCP will refer me to a neurologist or maybe a speech therapist. I make my living over the phone, so I need to be able to speak clearly. My anesthesiologist says its rare and self-resolving, my PS says he has never had a patient suffer this type of problem, my general surgeon had to look it up and says the literature offers no treatment, just says it will self-resolve. Some of the websites I visited said that the damage could lead to atrophy of the tongue----yuck!! All my docs will check with colleagues and give me any guidance they can come up with, but it is really getting me down.

Your thoughts/insights would be appreciated.

Chickadee