Eating and drinking when you have salivary gland cancer

Salivary gland cancer and its treatment can affect how you eat. There are ways to make it easier to cope.

Dry mouth

If you've only had surgery for your cancer, you might not notice a great deal of difference in how moist your mouth is. Your other salivary glands will make enough saliva to keep your mouth moist.

Radiotherapy to your head and neck can cause a dry mouth. You might hear your doctor or nurse call this xerostomia (pronounced zero-stow-mee-a). It can make eating and talking very uncomfortable. This can last for several months, but some people find the dryness is permanent.

Your doctor can prescribe artificial moisteners for your mouth or stimulants for your salivary glands. You might find it helps to carry a bottle of water with you all the time, so you can keep taking small sips to moisten your mouth.

A dry mouth can cause other problems, such as mouth infections or tooth decay. It is important to have regular check ups with your dentist.

Some of the following tips might help if you have a dry mouth.

• Suck on ice cubes, ice lollies or sugar free sweets.
• Moisten your food with sauces, gravy, cream, custard or ice cream.
• Chewing sugarless gum can make your salivary glands produce more saliva.
• Use lip balm to keep your lips moisturised.

Loss of taste

Radiotherapy and some cancer drugs can affect your taste buds. So your sense of taste might change as soon as you start treatment, or some time afterwards.

Some people say their food has a metallic, bitter or salty taste. Others say that all foods taste the same. Taste changes are often temporary with chemotherapy or targeted cancer drugs. 

Radiotherapy to some parts of the head and neck can cause long term side effects. These can sometimes be permanent. Before you start your treatment, ask your doctor if it’s likely to affect your taste.

Weight problems

Some people have lost weight when they are diagnosed with cancer. Pain when you are chewing or swallowing, can put you off eating. It can also be difficult to eat during treatment. Once treatment finishes you may need to build yourself up again. This can be difficult if you are still off your food.

Choose full fat versions of food such as milk and yoghurt rather than the low fat versions if you need to put on weight. You might also find that it helps to eat little and often, rather than trying to cope with a whole plateful in one go.

Liquid food

Your doctor can prescribe liquid food, which contains all the vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates you need for a balanced diet. They can also refer you to a dietician.

Difficulty chewing

Surgery inside your mouth or jaw might make your mouth numb or painful. This makes chewing difficult. You might find it hard to move your lips or hold food in your mouth when eating. You might need to eat a soft diet for a few weeks while your mouth heals. After some time, usually you can chew again normally. 

Numbness might be due to damage to the nerves in your head and neck. In this case difficulty with chewing might last longer. 

Some people need to have reconstructive surgery after cancer surgery. Or you might need a new mouth structure (dental prothesis) to put in your mouth to help you chew and swallow. 

Sweating of the face when you eat

This is called Frey’s syndrome or gustatory sweating. It can happen after surgery to remove a parotid gland tumour. 

When your surgeon removes the parotid gland they also cut the nerves in the area around it. As part of the healing process, the nerves that control saliva production sometimes link to the nerves that control sweating. This means that when you eat, rather than producing saliva you produce sweat. You might also feel warm and have some reddening on the affected side of the face.

Treatment

For most people the sweating is very mild and doesn’t need treatment. Talk to your doctor if you do have it and you are finding it difficult to cope. There are treatments that can help including creams that you put on your face to help stop the sweating. Having botox injections put into the area might be able to help. You can have the injections more than once if they don't work or stop working. Very rarely your doctor might suggest surgery.

Difficulty opening your mouth due to a stiff jaw

Certain muscles in your face help to move your jaw. The muscles can become stiff during radiotherapy or surgery to the head and neck area. This is called trismus.

It might be difficult to eat or chew if you are unable to open your mouth properly. Your doctor or dentist may suggest some gentle jaw exercises to help prevent this from becoming a permanent problem.

Your speech and language therapists at the hospital may help if you’re concerned. 

Cancer Research UK nurses

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