Saturday, October 22, 2016

Dental issues after cancer

Yep.  It can happen.
It is happening to me.

Last night, my mom asked if it was from the cancer, chemo, or just from my genes/oral hygiene.  I have a feeling its a combo of all of that.
But, can I express that I had daily chemo and lots of it...both IV and orally.  During that time, I used a sponge or a baby toothbrush (no joke) and could not floss or use listerine.  I only used Biotene when I could tolerate the taste (let's make that another topic for another day).  The chemo's main goal was to kill off my blood production so my bone marrow would reset, so to speak.  I would stop making platelets, hemoglobins, and especially we wanted my ANC to drop to as close to zero as possible.  I really feel this played a big part in my dental issues today.