surface peeling on tongue flap

team stevens
team stevens Member Posts: 46
edited March 2014 in Head and Neck Cancer #1
hi, my husband & i are new to the group..wish we knew about it sooner. mike had a complete dissection of the tongue in april with a free flap made from back muscle & skin.lately when he rinses, he's noticed some of the surface peeling off, nothing major. we think it may be scar tissue from the rad. fyi, he had his last chemo on july 29 & last rad on july 30. if anyone else has had free flap & noticed surface peeling, any advice. his onc. wasn't concerned.

Comments

  • rmkbrad
    rmkbrad Member Posts: 176
    #2
    skin loss
    I did not have the surgery your husband had but I did have some skin come off from the back of my throat during radiation. A lot of blood during a coughing spell and the next day I coughed up a big chunk of tissue. When I talked to the doc's about it they told me is was not uncommon.
  • team stevens
    team stevens Member Posts: 46
    #3
    rmkbrad said:

    skin loss
    I did not have the surgery your husband had but I did have some skin come off from the back of my throat during radiation. A lot of blood during a coughing spell and the next day I coughed up a big chunk of tissue. When I talked to the doc's about it they told me is was not uncommon.

    skin loss
    thanks for responding. what's odd is there are fine hairs attached to the scar tissue when my husband coughs up the thick saliva/mucus. we know this is because the free flap was taken from the skin on his back. we go for a followup with the surgeon next week for a ct scat & to see if the trech tube can come out. having mixed feelings about the tube
  • Greg53
    Greg53 Member Posts: 849
    #4
    team stevens said:

    skin loss
    thanks for responding. what's odd is there are fine hairs attached to the scar tissue when my husband coughs up the thick saliva/mucus. we know this is because the free flap was taken from the skin on his back. we go for a followup with the surgeon next week for a ct scat & to see if the trech tube can come out. having mixed feelings about the tube

    Team Stevens
    Sorry you find yourself here, but welcome to our little club. You'll find lots of good information here and more important a bunch of great people.

    I was different in I had right tonsil SCC with mets to nodes on both sides of neck, so I didn't have the flap procedure nor did I have a trach. However I definitely had the sloughing off of the skin in my throat. This happened at about 4 weeks post treatment. My ENT indicated it was scar tissue from the rads that was working its way out and fairly normal. It was pretty disgusting and lasted only about 2 weeks for me. During that time I would have some nasty coughing spells to get it up, but it went away in a relatively short time. Hopefully some of the others who had a trach and the flap will join in here.

    Good luck and keep posting to let us know how everything goes.

    Positive thoughts!

    Greg

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