Eating after a total laryngectomy

After my surgery will I still be able to swallow? And is there any food I cannot eat after surgery?

#laryngectomy #totallaryngectomy #cancer #laryngeal #larynx #voice

FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Is there any foods people who've had a total laryngectomy people have difficulty eating?

It depends. I´m gonna show this picture again, so when they take the voice box out sometimes the cancer is a little more extensive in some people so they have to take tissue from maybe other parts of your body to reconstruct the throat and so that can take some time to heal or maybe some foods just don't go down as well as they did before. The other big thing is radiation, some people have the surgery after they've had radiation and when you've had radiation to this area usually the salivary glands are affected so you have a dry mouth so sometimes food just doesn't go down as easily, so you know things that are moist and slippery are easier or you need to always have liquids in order to get the food down. With that said radiation can be in this area too that makes the tissue stiffer and so the food once it gets into the esophagus just doesn't move through the esophagus as easily or quickly as before, can become narrow so it kind of depends on your situation.

I can, I can support what you said that every time I have a meal I try and have a bottle of water with me as well you know just swallow it down because you know there is a slight change in the esophagus isn't there so and it's gonna work differently. I eat everything and anything.

So moving on then, obviously it's gonna take people longer to eat a meal, because a lot of a lot of people, a lot of patients I work with say "what can I do about taking longer to eat a meal" it's not really much unless you have a glass of water or some fluid isn't it really, any other tips you can sort of add to what you said or not?

There's a couple of things that i'd recommend, one is I would try to get away from three large meals, that's kind of how we were brought up, breakfast lunch dinner and I think it's but, especially when it takes longer to eat, just have smaller amounts but throughout the day, don't don't just limit it to three large meals. I also think if you, and I hear this a lot from people, why they don't want to go out socially is that you know they feel like they're making everyone wait for them and my recommendation is to actually eat before you go to a social event and then when you get there you have something that is fairly easy for you to swallow like you have a you have the soup or you have something that seems easy on the menu to eat and then you have that and then you know you're not starving and so people aren't waiting for you to finish, I think it makes it socially easier and more comfortable.

Well thank you I will definitely take some of them pointers that you've just mentioned. Can you describe that for me now please, what a person's routine is, if that person's just had a laryngectomy, what their daily routine would be like, when you think about management of the stoma and if they've got a voice prosthesis that type of thing really what would that day look like in managing this

Usually most of it occurs in the morning, usually, it kind of depends on what you're doing at night if you have a a tube or a base plate something over the stoma with your HME but typically you need to get up some of those secretions during the night that accumulate accumulate or that things are drier maybe at night, and so if you feel like you have secretions kind of sitting there in the morning so that's a routine, some people use a little bit of saline in the stoma to help break up the secretions and and get them cleared. If you wear a base plate it's a routine of putting maybe something on the skin so it doesn't get so irritated with the adhesive or some people have glues or other products that help the adhesive stay better, so it's getting that base plate set up in the morning and maybe a new HME, cleaning the the prosthesis during the night some of those secretions kind of sit in the prosthesis so you need to clean that prosthesis out. What else what else am i missing

I guess you know getting ready for the day if you're going to you know go out I always suggest you have like an emergency kit or something that you always take out with you just in case like you blow a base plate or you lose your HME, or you know, just to have you know, supplies ready to go with you if you if you do leave the house

Yep, no I'm again right with what you just said there, in the morning I get up I clean inside of my stoma, frankly it's dryer in the night fresh basically from wearing a base plate and today i'm wearing a Lary button so I just that's fine to leave it clean and I always you know I always carry a spare HME or Lary button or baseplate with me in case they do if they ever fall out i'm gonna be able to replace it you know.