Part21.Mouth Cancer Treatments Affects your Teeth

 

How Radiotherapy for Throat/Mouth Cancer Affects Your Teeth

This Episode deals with the effect of Radiotherapy on MY teeth it may not occur during YOUR therapy due to each of us being individuals BUT the information is relevant to radiation when treated in this area.

This machine administers the radiotherapy as you look at it you (in this case me) are strapped down prone on the bed in your personalized fitted helmet/shield to avoid any movement and the machine rotates in an arc around your head.

Your cancer shape and area has been mapped out so that the treatment is delivered with pinpoint accuracy to avoid any potential damage to healthy tissue surrounding the area.

The above Diagram shows how I was treated for my Pharyngeal Throat cancer growing in my tonsils. Please note this does not happen immediately the teeth loss occurred 7 years after treatment. I will explain this image first, then how it led to this conclusion years later.

1. When receiving treatment you do not feel anything just hear the noise of the machine working.

2. In MY case now you can see the track of the beam .

2A. Front on my left top teeth area it was administered on a 90 Degree arc from front towards back teeth area.

2B.Bottom Right Front slightly off centre and arcing approx 80 degrees towards back teeth.

2C.Right top Back area approx 45 degrees 

2D. Left bottom rear approx 20 degrees.

Focal Point Cancerous Tonsil area. In my case 42 treatments.

Side Effects of Radiotherapy on Teeth.

The first symptom that I had was early in my treatment around week 3. It was because my saliva glands had been damaged and had stopped functioning; my mouth was dry- no moisture at all in my mouth.

This stopped the swallowing action as food would not slide down my throat; to counteract this I had a spray bottle of water to manually irrigate my mouth.

I did experience a symptom I called "Roping" I am not sure if it was saliva or a mucus-type fluid that felt like rope in the back of my throat. It got worse when I lay down so I found it easier to sleep upright in a chair to subdue this feeling. This "Roping" symptom lasted a few weeks and then went.

Today my glands do produce saliva again but I still have bottled fluids on hand and use while having a meal as it definitely helps in swallowing. The other point of this is that my throat muscles do get tired trying to swallow. The negative part is I do quite regularly bloat with the fluid intake before my hunger is appeased. If this happens you can have less food but with more regularity. In the earlier stages of my oral feeding recovery, I consumed full cream milk to try to bolster my nutrient level intake.

(This once again would be dependent on the severity of YOUR treatment and the site of your cancer.)

Not only does the saliva help in swallowing, it helps protect your teeth from decay and stops the drying out of gums and teeth. Dr Valley recommended I use a Colgate product named NeutraFluor 5000 plus which I would clean my teeth and NOT rinse allowing it to coat my teeth.

Procedure before Dental Work after E.N.T Cancer Radiotherapy Treatment.

Before starting Ear Nose And Throat cancer treatment at the combined Doctor's appraisal stage there is also a dental checkup. The reason for this is that when under Radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment the above-mentioned symptoms occur.

 If there was a need to remove a damaged tooth it MAY lead to an extended period of an exposed open wound leading to infection (no Saliva) (inflamed tissue from treatment) (suppressed immune system)and the possibility of non or slow closure of wound site.

Regarding the diagram of my mouth now years later you can physically see the track of the radiotherapy treatment. The reason I have separated the areas into red and yellow  THE YELLOW represents the teeth that became brittle and sections of the teeth would break off .

The yellow areas received less radiation than THE RED  because of this the red areas if they broke off the ROOTS were not removed from the gum area. 

As such complete removal of yellow area and NO removal from red area.

While the "red" area teeth are not giving me any trouble my dentist advised the more time we give that area to recover the better and so will look at possible removal later on when troublesome.

IN CONCLUSION. HELP HINT. Please get your Oncologist to converse with your Dentist to identify areas that had high levels of treatment before starting any dental work in the future.

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