Michael Douglas says oral sex caused his throat cancer

[RiffRandell]

48. I was an oral cancer caregiver to my husband and am pretty disgusted by some of the responses here.

He was age 39, light smoker/drinker and had a lump in the neck. Diagnosed Stage 3, lost 70lbs, given 50/50 chance of living, had a feeding tube, radiation that burned his neck and throat, coughed up mucus into a bucket for months.

It's a horrible cancer to go through. He is 7 years in remission, back then they didn't test for HPV+ tumors but I think it's mandatory now because HPV is now the highest cause of oral cancer. The HPV virus (4 strains) that causes cervical/oral cancers are the ones that don't cause genital warts.

Was his caused by HPV? Don't know. I do know it's extremely serious, I always get my pap smears (no problems) and my OB (or insurance) will only test for those strains if it's abnormal.

Gardisil....got my son the vaccine and will get it for my daughter when it's time.

This website is full of info and helped us so much in dealing with it: http://oralcancerfoundation.org/

Here is the info on the HPV connection: http://www.oralcancerfoundation.org/hpv/