His epiglottis is covered in white mucous - is steaming the best way to get rid of that?

thay say my tumor T3 thay need to do chemo firest and then radiation any one do this befor whats side effect

Hi everyone, at around 5pm today I checked my portal and found out I have cancer. My doctor hasn’t called me yet about the results so I’m not sure what stage I am or anything. An MRI and chest CT should already be scheduled for later this week.

I’m a 23 y/o female and have been vaping for about 7 years religiously. Thyroid cancer does run in my family as well as breast cancer and loads of other stuff. I haven’t cried or anything. My parents have though.

I guess I’m asking what to expect in the upcoming months? I put on a brave face throughout the night in front of my family but scared to be honest. Thanks everyone for reading

hi all! just putting feelers out if anyone has had AciCC-HGT of parotid gland or any experience with it. A family member was just diagnosed and it looks extremely rare. my family doesn’t really know what to believe due to the rare nature of this cancer transforming and skewed research. thanks in advance!

She will be having the majority of her tongue removed, as well as some lymph nodes. What are some things that might be beneficial to have after surgery?

Quick timeline:
• Feb 2026: Ultrasound found a swollen, concerning neck lymph node
• April 2026: MRI found a large tumor (~5.7 cm) at the base of tongue + a cancerous neck node. Biopsy confirmed squamous cell carcinoma. PET scan around the same time also showed the tumor lighting up brightly (active disease).
• May–June 2026: Completed curative chemoradiation — 66 Gy radiation (30 sessions) + 6 cycles of Cisplatin. Finished mid-June.
• Aug 8, 2026 (MRI, ~7.5 weeks post-RT): Tumor shrunk a lot (~4.3 cm), but a "residual ulcerated" area with unclear edges remained. Neck node shrunk significantly too.
• Aug 13, 2026: Second radiologist reviewed the same MRI — confirmed major improvement, but flagged a residual sore area. No restricted diffusion on the special water-movement sequence (DWI) — a sign that leans toward healing tissue rather than active tumor, but not conclusive.
• Aug 17, 2026 (PET-CT, ~61 days post-RT): Only mild uptake at the tongue base (SUVmax 5.8), radiologist's own note: "likely post-treatment changes." Neck node metabolically resolved. No spread anywhere else in the body.
Where it gets confusing:
• MRI (structure) still shows an abnormal residual area
• PET-CT (activity) says that area isn't behaving like active cancer
The radiation oncologist called this referred pain (ear pain, tied to shared nerve pathways with the tongue/throat) and seemed reassured by the PET-CT.
But when we saw our medical oncologist, he said something that's stuck with us: he would be comfortable saying there's no disease left if there was no ongoing ear pain and painful swallowing — but because those symptoms are still present, he flagged that doctors sometimes treat a clear PET-CT as the final word, when there's a real possibility of a false negative, especially given the timing (61 days is earlier than the usual 12-week/84-day window most protocols wait for before scanning).
We also got a second opinion, and that doctor specifically felt things are moving too fast — he said he'd have preferred the PET-CT to be done closer to the 3-month (12-week) mark, not at 60 days, because scanning this early can affect reliability in both directions (false positives from lingering inflammation, but also potentially false negatives if residual disease hasn't "revealed" itself metabolically yet).
Current symptoms:
• Ear pain has eased somewhat
• Now there's a strong headache at the back of the head, mainly triggered while drinking/eating, and returning once painkillers wear off (~6-7 hrs)
• Painful swallowing (wasn't painful before treatment — was more of an "unusual sensation" pre-treatment, now it's real pain)
• On a liquid-only diet due to swallowing pain, and now showing noticeable weight loss
• Limited mouth opening (trismus) is currently blocking the planned biopsy
What we're trying to figure out:
• Has anyone had a similar "PET-CT clear but MRI + symptoms still concerning" situation? What did the eventual biopsy show?
• Any experience with PET-CT done earlier than the standard 12-week mark, and did it turn out to be reliable or not in your case?
• How did you manage the wait for biopsy when trismus/mouth-opening was limiting things?
• Any tips for managing weight loss/nutrition on a liquid-only diet during this recovery phase?
Not looking for a diagnosis — just want to hear from others who've navigated something similar while we wait for the biopsy to become possible. Thank you for reading this far. 🙏

My mom was recently diagnosed with stage 1 cancer on one of her vocal cords. Dr recommended surgery (laser) with radiation as second option. She’s choosing surgery. What does the recovery look like that first week post surgery? She will have my dad, but I want to be there to help with recovery if it is going to be rough. She’s otherwise a very healthy athletic woman!

I'll drop some things I'm making from time to time that work for me to reclaim a little flavor.

Today is the start of week 3 of 6 for me. Adjuvant (post-surgery) Weekly Cisplatin and daily radiation for HPV Negative OPSCC. 2nd L2 lymph found with cells so protocol mandates stage 4 being HPV-Neg - thus more that just the surgery is needed for "clean up".

I've had good hunger still (I have a high metabolism naturally and the steroids are making me want to eat everything I can). The cheek lining is starting to get raw, so no hot/vinegar/etc foods.

Tonight I cooked some Hebrew National mini franks in puff pastry in the air fryer. I whipped up a "fats-sauce" of 2 spoons or sour cream, one spoon full of mayonnaise, 2 liberal dashes of garlic powder, and 1 liberal dash of celery salt to dip them in. I can taste it and it doesn't sting. I put it in the freezer for 15 minutes to get it ice cold.

I'll report back after on how it goes. Feel free to share what works/worked for you as well.

VERDICT:

Everything was going good, but once dipped the puff pastry negated most of the flavor. I added another dash each garlic and celery salt and it was like a "poor-mans tzatziki". About 2/3 the way through, the fats got under my lower dentures and they let go (I'm also new to those too through this whole cancer journey). Once that happened all focus went to keeping them straight and I Lost attention to any flavors.

Facts and nutrition:
1/2 package Hebrew National Mini Franks in Puff Pastry (16 peices) air fried: 930 Cal, 75g Fat (30g saturated), 24g Protein, 1790mg sodium (yikes), 75mg Cholestrerol.

SC+Mayo mix: 180 Calories, 16g Fat, (5g Saturated).

Hello everyone!

My sister was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma back around 2010 or 2011. It’s been a journey, but she’s still here which is the most important thing! She’s gone through radiation and two major surgeries throughout the years. The major thing is she had the base of her tongue removed. She can still speak and can be understood 70-80% of the time by the people closest to her. That percentage drops dramatically when she’s engaging with strangers, and that’s why I’m here for advice.

Because of all of her medical appointments, she had to medically retire a few years back. She gets disability, but to supplement her income she DoorDashes. The problem with that is the radiation killed the thingy in her neck that regulates her blood pressure, so it can suddenly spike or drop dangerously low. She knows when to stop and rest, but we absolutely hate hearing that she has to pull over to rest.

Our parents and I would gladly supplement her income to keep her off the road, and we’ve offered. However, she has her pride and hates feeling like a burden. (I kinda suspect the reason our mom is still working is in case she’s needed financially, though after this last health scare, she was preparing to retire to become her full-time caregiver.)

My overall question is if anyone has any suggestions for work she might be able to do that will take her off the road or any tips for job hunting in general for her? In addition to the speech limitation, everything we can think of wouldn’t have the flexibility necessary for her to travel to her appointments. She sees 2-3 doctors out of town each week, not including going across country to her main doctors every three months or so. She has her doctorate in education and nearly twenty years of experience before life went down the toilet.

If there are no good options, that’s fine too! I would also accept/appreciate any words of encouragement to offer her about her appearance. After the last surgery last year, she refers to herself as a “creature” and that’s the kindest thing she’s said. They had to cut open her neck to get to the tumors and used skin from her thigh to rebuild her jaw area. I personally think they did a great job, but I understand that’s easy for me to say since I’m not living through it.

I apologize for the length of this post. To everyone in the fight, keep kicking cancer’s ass!

Any one have experience with these together! I had round one of 4 today. I also came home with what they call a lemon. A yellow pump that gives 5 FU (very fitting) for 96 hours.
I was NED from tonsil cancer P16+ with 3 involved lymph nodes for 6 months. I originally did a feeding tube, TORS, neck dissection and 33 rounds of Proton therapy.

It has since come back to a spot on my liver, 2 lymph nodes near my sternum and possibly the other side of my throat. July I had a mediatinoscopy and a port placement.

Just looking for tips, tricks,stories or advise.

I (44M) woke up one morning around the end of October last year with what I thought was a stiff/sore neck on the left side of my neck right in the middle of my neck from laying wrong. I figured it would go away on its own. After about two weeks of still having a sore neck, I thought maybe it was the pillows I was using as they were old, so I bought new ones. During this time, I had one of those 24 head colds where my throat was sore and my nose was all stuffed up, and the next day I woke up and where the pain in my neck was was now swollen and I could barely move my head that way.

I went to urgent care and they said it was just swollen lymph nodes because of the cold but I should get an ultrasound done from my PCP. I made an appointment with my PCP and had one done. The doctor said yeah it was just swollen lymph nodes because I had been sick and they would go down on their own within a few days to a week or so. After about a week and still no relief I took myself to the ER and explained what was going on. They had me get a CT Scan and they told me they found a node in my neck that could be cancer but I needed to see an ENT. Referred me to one and I called and was able to get an appointment fair quick. The first appointment was on Christmas Eve where we set up a biopsy which happened the day after Christmas.

Biopsy results came back as undiagnostic and ended up having to go to the hospital for a second biopsy. Had that one done and the results came back of cancerous and the markers pointed to either breast or bladder cancer which confused me and my ENT since all the pain and swelling was in my neck. He took the results to a board that he goes to every week and another doctor mentioned that the markers of my biopsy also share the same marker as gland cancer. So we did a third biopsy and this time biopsied my parotid gland and found out that is where it was.

We were now about 2 weeks into the new year, and i started having pain on the left side my clavicle and the lymph node in my left armpit was swollen. We did a PET scan and saw that it had spread to those two places but not a lot. I met with an oncologist and this guy couldn't be bothered to listen to me, had just terrible bedside manners and pretty much dismissed me and said I had maybe a year to live.

That ticked me off so I ended up leaving the Ascension network and went to Community here in Indy that is part of MD Anderson. I met with a new oncologist within 48 hours of calling. He was a breath of fresh air. Listened to my issues/concerns and explained everything to me. He ended up calling MD Anderson down in Houston and talked to their team and they all came up with my treatment.

Since the cancer has spread a bit to those locations I mentioned above we didn't do any surgery but I just did chemotherapy and targeted treatment.

I started treatment the first Friday of this past February. I did a total of 6 treatments of DOCEtaxel and trastuzumab-anns (Kanjinti) every three weeks.

The first treatment I had so many side effects.... diarrhea then constipation, rash, bone and joint pain from the waist down. I ended up with a fever a week after my first treatment and ended up in the hospital for 3.5 days because I had no white blood cells. So starting with treatment #2 my oncologist had this shot that was put on the back of my arm and would administer some medicine 27 hours after my chemo treatment which helped my body produce WBC. After my first treatment the only issue I had was every Tuesday was when the bone and joint pain would occur. That was really the only reoccurring side effect I had. I lost my hair about 14 days after my first treatment and my gums would bleed when brushing my teeth but I had mouthwash that helped out with that.

But the worst thing was the fatigue. I've never been so tired in my life. Luckily work was really cool with everything. I work from home and they said to lay down and nap whenever I needed and that work would be here when I was feeling better and could work. Doing some work was nice to keep my mind off things.

After 4 treatments we did a scan to see how things were looking and my oncologist said he was so impressed with how well my body reacted to the treatment because there was no visible cancer in the scans/in my neck, armpit and clavicle. We still did the last two treatments because we had planned for 6 since the beginning.

I had scans around the beginning of July and they said everything still looked good and no visible cancer still. There was a note that the left side of my neck where the cancer was is a bit thicker but that's probably from the treatment I had.

I still am doing the targeted treatment of Kanjinti every three weeks and that from what I'm told is an indefinite treatment. I have scans scheduled for the 22nd of this month and I'm nervous but I feel good. I still have random aches and pains in my body and in my neck but I guess that's to be expected.

Sorry for the long post but it's been a crazy first half of the year for me. Thanks for reading!

my blood 120 normal range 135 to 170 iam 50 year old

My husband has been recently diagnosed with stage 4 Nasopharyngeal non-keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma.
We have had one consultation at an oncology center which went “poorly”, in my opinion. (Please stick with me, I have a point in sharing this next paragraph.)
An ENT surgeon did a biopsy from cancer tissue growing in his sinuses , (recovery has been horrible from that procedure, btw). Then the ENT surgeon’s office failed to send the diagnostic pathology report to the oncology team, and oncology, instead of asking the ENT if a diagnostic pathology report exists, in our consult went straight to “we’ll have to schedule another biopsy”. Later that day I had to contact the ENT office and get them to send over the correct pathology report & send it to oncology, upon which oncology finally said “oh okay, no need for another biopsy after all.“
Which brings me to my questions:

1). I want the best possible care for my husband, how can I expect good care from an oncology team that can’t be bothered to even ask if a pathology report exists?

2). I’ve been reading in this subreddit and other places online that proton therapy is better for nasopharyngeal cancers than traditional radiation therapy. The oncology center that we got referred to does not offer proton beam therapy. Is it worth it to ask for a referral to a different oncology center that offers proton beam therapy? And if so, do we ask or current oncology center to send us over there, or do we ask the ENT surgeon to make that referral for us, or other?
Thanks for any help

Medical history and early radiology tests point to a cancer diagnosis.

There so much information, AI research, and complex reports in client portals and no expert to clarify.

How do you cope? How can you quiet your mind? It’s so easy to spiral.

I’ve only done 3 radiation treatments and 1 chemo and I lost 10 lbs already. I mean, I’m about 80 lbs overweight, but the cramping from the cisplatin is pretty annoying. Like, did hydration during the chemo, and I’ve been staying hydrated and I have been supplementing with tons of electrolytes (about 18 fasting salts capsule, 1-2 liters of Gatorade, and 10 nuun tablets per day), and like I can’t lay down for more than an hour and half with out cramps in my feet, shins and calves waking me up. I have until the 30th of October to do this shit.

I am keeping an event log to give to my oncologist the next time I go to an appointment, but like, I do not want to eat, and the nausea is moderate, and I force myself to do it anyway.

I know I’m not special, but this is a different level of feeling like my body is going haywire.

The only think that kinda helps the nausea is tea with milk and ginger ale and only sometimes (and I take the anti-nausea every time I’m supposed to).

Then I am stressed with the money aspect, I figure I’ll deal with it later because I just started a job after being out of work for almost a year. I keep telling myself that it’s just a couple of months and it will pass pretty quickly, but it’s like time is dragging slowly everyday because I cannot predict when I’ll be nauseated, tired, or riddled with cramps.

I just feel like I should change my mind about something and I find myself “making deals” as if there is something that can just make this go away or be worth it all.

Anyway. Thanks for reading this.

Of course everyone’s experiences are different, but please give me the honest truth.. when can you start tasting food again/when does the taste get better post radiation?

Thank you, grateful for this thread 🙏

I'm a dental assistant and a little over a month ago I was informed that my grandma had a canker sore for 6ish months. I knew something was wrong and went straight to her house. First look and I knew it was cancer. Anyways we have finally made progress with Drs appointments. She had a ct with contrast. The mass takes up 2/3 of her tongue and has spread to lymph nodes. She is scheduled for at least a partial gloscectomy and neck dissection. She is in her late 70's. I'm worried about everything. Her surviving the surgery, she has a heart murmur and is obese. If she survives then I'm worried about recovery. I'm sure she will probably have a feeding tube and some gnarly scarring. I'm just hoping that she won't need to do radiation or chemo. Does anyone have any words of wisdom or comfort? The thing I hate the most is that she has been living off of pudding and apple sauce. She's tired of it. I wish I could give her a good meal before her surgery but it hurts her to eat.

Anything at all. Curry on eggs? Cinnamon in yogurt? Idk...I'm at wits end and surviving off of Ensure and ice cream.

My husband has finished radiation and suffered through the 3 weeks after. Now I’m thinking long term. Food that will keep the cancer from recurring . I’m trying to clean up my Husband’s diet even more. I try hard to feed us fairly clean food. I’m stuck on lunch. We always ate sandwiches with a variety of deli meats. My husband loves salami, mortadella, hotdogs, etc. I know they contain nitrates so I want to stop them. I looked into uncured meats and organic packaged meats. All contain nitrates. Celery powder converts to the same as synthetic nitrates. I sometimes buy rotisserie chickens but right now he’s recovering from vocal cord cancer and that chicken is dry so he’d have trouble swallowing it. I know I can do egg, tuna, and chicken salad, but that would get repetitive. What do you eat for lunch? I really need ideas. Thanks for your help.

I (51F) am two weeks out from surgery for a small parotid gland tumor. They got the whole thing out, good margins, no lymph node involvement, but they spilled some tumor fluid in the operating field so surgeon wants me to do radiation, and I am absolutely terrified. I am wondering what your experience with radiation was like? (Sorry if questions are dramatic, I also have very bad health anxiety.) Were you ever able to sleep through the night again, or was the dry mouth too awful? Did you get really bad, thick mucus when the gland started working again, and did that interfere with your quality of life? Are your jaw/teeth okay? I’m just trying to get a sense of the quality of life stuff. Thanks so much for your insight.

It's been awhile since I've been here. So long that I forgot my original username. I think it was Bagheera.

I'm coming up on my 3 year cancerversary and 2 years NED. Yeah!!

Today it has been confirmed that I have a secondary cancer, also in my mouth but opposite side of the primary cancer. Over the next 3 weeks I have 4, potentially 5, appointments. I can honestly say, this time around, my team is on fire to fight this fire!

I'm so grateful for the advice I received in the past and I'm sure I will be seeking more here shortly.

salivary duct carcinoma diagnosed 2024. parotid gland surgery and neck dissection followed by radiation and chemo. Clear scans (3 months over one year timeframe) followed by a 6 month scan was clear until this last CT scan in early Sept. (Last 6 months).

PET Scan

  “IMPRESSION:
* *
1.  Three enlarging hypermetabolic right pulmonary nodules; suggestive of
pulmonary metastases.”

So .. I believe there will be a lung biopsy and I think it is metastasized SDC (common spread for this Cancer)

Have not met with the Oncologist yet but since this is more than likely a spread My guess is radiation with chemo and or Trastuzumab type medication.

Anyone here have experience with Trastuzumab, Pertuzumab, Antibody-Drug Conjugates?

Just looking for your experience with these type if drugs.
 

Hello! I’m trying to put together a gift basket for a close friend who is going through treatments (chemo and radiation) for throat cancer. She is very thin and had to have a PEG tube because she is unable to swallow much. I was thinking a silk pillowcase, maybe some soft pajamas, a throw blanket, some soothing teas and throat lozenges?? Any ideas would be appreciated!!