UNEXPECTED SIDE EFFECT OF RADIATION

For over a week I suffered from what I thought was an abscess in my mouth which caused my tongue to be very painful especially when eating or drinking. Since I had a dental appointment arranged at Princess Margaret Hospital Dental Clinic, I decided to have Dr Wood take a look at the problem. To my unbelief he told me that it was a small piece of bone sticking out of my gum and rubbing on my tongue. He pulled the piece out and the relief was immediate. Unfortunately the same problem happened again withing a few days and as I was going back to PMH to see Dr.Hope, I called and made another dental appointment for the same morning. This time he poked and pulled and finally removed another three pieces of bone. (I'm not sure which was the worst: - the bone on the tongue or the dentist working on the problem) I found out that this problem sometimes happens after radiation treatments and is caused by the blood vessels being reduced and damaged by the radiation. He gave me two bottles of Perioplus Oral Rinse (Antimicrobial) which I am to use twice a day. We'll see how things go until my next visit with the dentist next week.

QUICK UPDATE

Since my last trip to the hospital in Toronto, I unfortunately caught a bad cold and it has hung on for quite a while. I expect this has something to do my my immune system still not being fully restored. It has caused me problems with coughing and swallowing and my mouth has been very sore. I also had another attack of the dreaded thrush. Thank goodness I still had some prescription drops left so that seems to have helped and it has almost gone now. I have a dental appointment at Princess Margaret Hospital this week so I will discuss some of these issues with Dr. Wood. It is wonderful having all my medical/dental treatments at the same hospital as they are all specialists in the field of cancer treatment. Well today I'm off for a thanksgiving meal with my family so I am looking forward to seeing Sue, Michael and Candice and catching up on the issues in their lives. We have so much to thank God for so lets all have a truly blessed Thanksgiving weekend.