Hi Kerri,
I'm sorry to hear you are having this problem. My daughter, Chelsea 18 years old, also had swallowing problems post surgery. She had a large tumor and we were told that this was a posibliity due to the size and location. She ended up with a paralyzed right vocal cord and some temporary nerve damage. She went 99 days without being able to swallow anything. They put in a feeding tube through her nose at first, hoping things would come back to normal soon but after 5 weeks they placed the peg tube. There are a number of things that the head and neck discussed as a treatment plan, one of which was injection of botox into that area that would help with the swallowing. Seemed like it would have been a pretty simple procedure that has a great outcome, but for her they ended up doing a more complex vocal cord surgery that would also help her swallowing. Unfortunatly, she had 3 more unexpected surgeries where she was intubated and that messed up the vocal cord surgery. Finally, after she failed her swallow study texts, her head and neck surgeon told her to go try to eat something soft like mac and cheese and if she started choking stop and try something else. He said a good trick was to put your chin down towards the chest when you swallow and that it's usually eaiser to swallow cold things. She tried it and plowed her way through most of the food in the deli case. Her first of two rescetion surgerie was 6/18/06. She stills eats slowly and with focus but is doing very well. I notice that she seems to choke more often on her own saliva. She had 6 weeks of radiation and there could be some swelling on the nerves that are still healing so hopefully that to will get better with time.
I would talk to a doctor though. There might be something as simple as those botox injections that might help you.
Chin to your chest. Take care......Michelle
