Salivary glands and chemotherapy

I don't think we have ever talked about this in the forum. I am about eight years out of chemo and all and all have done well the last few years, except, isn't there always one of those? About five years ago I started having trouble with my teeth. Now I have always thought I took good care of my teeth but all of the sudden it was like war was declared. One by one they were cracking down to the root and infecting. I was having one procedure or another ever since. Finally about four months ago I was down to my last 18 teeth and went to see a specialist at Mass General Hospital was diagnosed within minutes with an extreme type of dry mouth caused to losing salivary glands during chemo. All he could offer me was a referral to another specialist at Tuffs or a medications with many known side affects. On the heals of this was the news six more needed to come out. A little over a week ago after deciding that winning the war was not trying to keep the remaining teeth but to get rid of infection I had the remaining pulled. I am starting to think I will survive this one but am dying for a salad believe it or not. I joked a while back in a post that I had run out of spare parts I guess I had forgotten my teeth.

So lessen learned the hard way after chemo make sure even if you have good dentists like I thought I did talk to them about dry mouth. I thought my thirst had to do with my diversion and medications I am on. If I had realized what it was I could have used different products and been more vigilant about keeping my mouth moist.