Rehabilitation after oral cancer is a difficult road.
If cancer is not treated, it will be over after the operation. When the body becomes different from before, how to adapt to this body and live a new life is the most important thing to pay attention to. Especially oral cancer, it is easy to affect appearance, and the most important thing in daily life is "eating". If you can't open your mouth, you naturally don't want to eat, and your body is prone to malnutrition and weakness.
Lack of communication with people, whether cancer patients or not, may affect mental health, especially because of the pain and stiffness of the mouth, and being forced to "reduce social interaction" in the case of irritability and discomfort, which will slow down the postoperative recovery of patients. However, because it takes a long time to recover, at least 1~3 months, and the process is very painful, just like two sides tearing open their mouths, many people are unwilling to recover, but they lose the opportunity to recover.
The normal mouth opening should be 4.5 cm, but patients with oral cancer are originally lesions of oral mucosa, and the muscles have hardened due to the influence of tumors. After treatment, about 30% of them will open their mouths only 65,438+0 cm because of nerve pain caused by surgery, scars and hyperplastic tissues, oral muscle stiffness and muscle fibrosis caused by radiation, besides pain and ulcer, and even the smell of eating.
How to recover after oral cancer surgery?
Because the function of the oral cavity is probably eating and talking, it is usually divided into these two types. You can practice swallowing skills while practicing tongue movement, adjusting mouth shape and restoring the function of speaking.
Swallowing skill
Generally speaking, the process of swallowing is divided into four stages. You must chew and stir in your mouth first, and then push it back through the action of your tongue. This part needs the assistance of cheek muscles and a strong tongue to make food play a full role in the mouth. Again, when swallowing, you must control your throat to prevent food from reaching the nasal cavity and finally entering the esophagus, so the role of epiglottis and tongue root is very important. Swallowing exercises mainly focus on the muscles of the tongue and cheeks.
Use liquid food: Don't chew food too much, practice swallowing from a simple part first, but if you have spare capacity, you can chew it gently. The feeling of swallowing reflex in the throat changes the temperature and taste of food: for people with swallowing difficulties, the temperature can also be * * * swallowing reflex. Press your tongue with a spoon when eating: the main purpose is to hold your breath for the reaction of your tongue. Hold your breath before swallowing food. Don't swallow it quickly, cough hard after swallowing to avoid food getting stuck in your throat. If you can't swallow smoothly, you can look up and shake your head sideways, and remember not to drink water when swallowing. Open mouth movement
Simple, tool-free exercises can actually help relax muscles, increase the range of oral activities, and significantly improve swallowing and language clarity, so these exercises can be carried out before meals. But for the already fibrotic and stiff muscles, there are still some auxiliary tools to help the mouth expand.
For example, put your hands behind your cheeks, put a tongue depressor between the upper and lower molars, pull your mouth out into a "I" shape, and consciously open your mouth with the help of external force to maximize expansion. If the fibrosis is serious, at least 3 times a day, each time 10 minutes, for 3 weeks, each time at least 4 cm, to ensure that your mouth is at least 3 cm after one round.
Oral movement/tongue movement: the mouth is open and closed to the maximum, and the chin moves to the left, right, front and back to the maximum; The tongue also moves up and down, left and right in the mouth, trying to top the position of the left face and right face of the mandible, so that the tongue can lick the teeth and turn over. Lip movement: practice lip flicking, lip curling and water absorption with a straw, but don't let water drip when the straw leaves the mouth. Instead, try to put a straw on the upper lip so that it won't fall off. Cheek movement: close your lips, put your hands flat on your cheeks, squeeze up to your eyes, and then push down to make your lips droop.