A trip to the dentist and then I get my mask

On Tuesday I met with my dentist in the morning to discuss some of the issues with radiation treatment and then in the afternoon I had my mask made and another CT Scan performed with the mask holding me in place on the machine.

The reason for the visit to the dentist is that one of the side effects of radiation treatment is on oral hygiene. There are two primary dental issues that can occur. First is radiation treatment can kill the jaw bone. That creates complications with any dental procedures performed in the future. Fortunately I spoke to the radiation oncologist and with the iMRT techniques they are using that will most likely not be a problem. The second problem is dry mouth. Radiation treatment can effect the salivary glands and cause dry mouth. This can occur while receiving the treatments and also be a permanent side effect of the treatments. I did not realize the part saliva plays in oral hygiene. It provides a protective coating to your teeth to help prevent cavities. I spoke to the dentist about it and one suggestion was that I chew sugar free gum or sugar free candy when dry mouth starts. This helps generate saliva and protect the teeth. Another thing to do is use fluoride rinse.

In the afternoon I went back to the radiation oncologist office and had my mask made and yet another CT scan done. What they do it have you lie on the CT scanner table and then they put the mask on you. Its a heated up plastic mesh that the form to your face. There is a type of plastic frame on the side that is used to hold the mask to the scanner. Once that cooled on my they took another CT Scan. This one is what will be used to create the computer model for my radiation treatments. I did some research on the side effects of radiation treatment and there is a drug that can be used to help reduce the damage to the salivary glands during treatment. I asked the radiation oncologist about it and he said it was originally developed in the 1950's by the government as a way to protect people against a nuclear explosion. (Doesn't that just sound so much like the 50's?) It didn't work and got put on the shelf. Then sometime in either the 70's or the 80's a drug company purchased it to see if it could help protect against some of the collateral damage of radiation treatments. The way it works is they inject it into each shoulder 15 minutes before each treatment. I will be having 35 treatments so that will mean 70 shots. And of course a side effect is nausea so the prescribed a nausea medicine to go with it. It will mean quite a few more shots than I would like and yet another thing that can cause nausea but to help protect against long term damage I am willing to give it a try.