Eating Question

Dav1965

I had squamous cell cancer on the tongue and it was stage 4. I had 2 neck dissections and 95% of my tongue cut off. They used my thigh to replace my tongue. This was in July of 2010. I am supposed to be cancer free now. They removed 8 cancer cells from my neck also. My question is. I can finally start eaating soft stuff. Yesterday i tried to eat for the first time and i can not get the food off of the tongue. It was chicken and stars soup. I can eat broth ok. Thanks for any help. David

soccerfreaks

water
David, you will find, at first, and maybe for a long, long time, as I have, that everything goes down easier with liquids. I have found, in fact, that carbonated drinks help even more (ginger ale for example or sugar-free soda). I try to 'match' the drink with whatever I am eating, so I will generally drink cold water with dairy products, for example.

Hope this helps.

Hope and Humor!

Take care,

Joe

sweetblood22

soccerfreaks said:

water
David, you will find, at first, and maybe for a long, long time, as I have, that everything goes down easier with liquids. I have found, in fact, that carbonated drinks help even more (ginger ale for example or sugar-free soda). I try to 'match' the drink with whatever I am eating, so I will generally drink cold water with dairy products, for example.

Hope this helps.

Hope and Humor!

Take care,

Joe

I did not have any part of
I did not have any part of my tongue removed, only a biopsy under my tongue, and radiation. I do know when I was first trying to eat it was really hard because my tongue did not move around the way it should. I couldn't move the food around to chew it properly. It took a really long time to get it back to semi normal. A lot of practice, keep trying to eat stuff. I am wondering if a speech therapist can give you exercises or something to help you out with eating more normally.

Good luck.