how long for throat to heal

the club nobody wants to join .  Your throat isn't going to be sore forever, but you are still a "baby" in recovery.  You are probably still cooking from the radiation...but that should come to an end anytime now.  Once you stop cooking you'll see a gradual let up on the sore throat.  Give it another couple of weeks.

p

Hi Douglas,   I also had 6 wks. of radiation. Time, moderation & patience were key elements to recovery. It's still pretty early, if your throat pain is internal you might try a soft diet & supplementing w/ Carnation high protein instant breakfast drinks. They're relatively low on sugar & don't leave the "chaulky" residue in you mouth. I also recently started using Aloe water, as I found regular spring water left my mouth washed out, dry & sore (especially where the last two rad treatments were focused). The good Aloe drink only has 9g of sugar (imported by Rhee Bros.) whereas a not so pleasant (rather bitter) competitors version contains 23g. If your neck is also sore from the burn & peeling area Aloe Vera gel really helped. After 4 wks. out I started supplementing my g-tube intake w/soft stuff (warm soup & rice). I was actuall 9 wks. out before comfortably resuming regular food again.   Best of luck,

Healing takes time, more so than you'd think, radiation treatments do make permanent changes to the tissues and as has been noted in so many different posts on this forum, everyone is different.

I can relate, stage IV-a, base of tongue, 6 weeks of rads, chemo, two neck dissections.  I completed rads in early July of 2012 and, not to be discouraging, things healed very, very and I do mean VERY slowly.  It was 2 weeks after rads ended before I noticed any improvement and it was negligible at that.  It was two months+ before I could eat anything but small, soft and very wet foods.  It was more than a year before I could tolerate ice cream.  It was almost two years before I could eat normally, though I had to make changes.  Depending on the food I'm eating, I have to have water available to sip.  Rads impacted saliva for me (my medical oncologist said that the very dry mouth was likely permanent) but I do have about 75% which sounds poor but it's enough that I can eat any 'wet' food (fruit, veggies, pasta with sauce etc) without having to sip water, but toast, popcorn, chips, etc need to have that water bottle.

As Matt said, you will not - unfortunately - go back to where you were before treatment, though it does get better, you learn how to eat, what tastes you can tolerate, what things you have to avoid (for me it is sour tastes - no more Lemonheads)

Give yourself a chance to heal, it will happen, it just happens so very slowly

Doug, I had about 40 radiation and 3 cisplatin- this week marks 4 years NED. I remember thinking " I would be able to finally eat a meal for Christmas. That didn't nearly happen. Next was my birthday in February and was barely able to swallow. I would say it was a good 6 weeks before I could eat and swallow very bland things like yogurt egg salad Pasta in butter sauce. You will hear people speak of the new normal. Everyone is differant . You will find your water bottle becomes something like your American Express card- you won't leave home without it. I still have issues with what I can and can't eat. I can't eat anything that is tough or dry. My taste is still a little off. Sweet does not taste sweet to me any longer. If I eat steak, it has to be rare and juicy. I eat a lot of soup. For breakfast I use a nutri bullet - a variety of berries, banana kale, spinach and flax seeds. I also put a scoop of whey isolate protein and 2000 mg of vitamin C and use almond milk as a mixing medium. This keeps me full until lunch time. I also take an anti oxidant and multi vitamin with my breakfast drink. If no one has mentioned this to you, make sure you take extreme care of your teeth. so to answer your question, your new normal will be a very slow process measured in months, not days or weeks. Improvements will be slow. Good luck and welcome to the most exclusive club in the word.the survivors club. Stay strong. It's all down hill now