Hi all,
Just wondering if anyone has had the same as me. I know taste changes are normal after radio therapy but wanted to know if anyone had gotten worse a few months after treatment finished? I'm three and a half months post radio therapy and recently feel my saliva is more dry (than usual) and my taste is getting worse?? I could be imagining it but think that my taste is getting weaker. Has anyone had anything the same?? Xx thanks!,, I'm such a worry wart.

We all can recovery differently but for most this process takes appx 2 years post Tx with out first year seeing the most changes. During that time we all have ups and downs so don't be too quick to evaluate your progress. My taste and saliva which I think go hand in hand improved slowly and in bursts. I saw improvements at 4 most PT, 5 months, the biggest at 14 months and a tad more at 24 months. Be patient is my best advice.

Everyone's taste changes all the time due to a variety of reasons some which David mentioned. Taste buds per say have a life cycle of 10-14 days in everyone and die off continuously, and regenerate, and everyone has a diffetent amount of taste buds to begin with anywhere from 2000-5000. In our case, more died off in a differerent way from chemo and radiation, and more were destroyed than can be replaced, plus treatment destroying or damaging the salivary glands, and the nerves that tranmit taste to the brain, all has an effect on taste.

There are other things can effect the change of taste too like medications, infections, certain foods, eating hot, spicy or irritant foods or anyhing else that may dull the senses. It takes time, and some taste senses come back sooner than others, and other salivary glands may compensate for the loss of damaged ones.

There is more to taste than just tasting. It not only involved the 5 taste senses...salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami, but other senses are inloved such as memory, smell, hearing, seeing and feeling, so using all these senses may help improve taste, and eating food warm, cool or room temperature, instead of hot, improves taste too.

Saliva can be produced by smelling lemons or drinking lemon water. Taste can be acquired too by introducng different foods, and I just keep trying different foods to expose my taste buds to them.

If you ever want to see the amount of taste buds you have, you can place a round sticker, the type used for loose-life paper holes, on the tongue, and place a dot of blue food coloring in the center of it. The papillae will not turn dark color, so you can count them, and the higher the number of these the better your taste is.

Thanks David and Paul, you would never think there was so much involved in just tasting! The reason I was asking is the very first symptom I had before I noticed my tonsil was that I noticed when I ate a piece of that pre sliced processed cheese it tasted different, almost like it was just chemicals (lol it probably is but it's all I could taste). Now three and a half months post treatment I had a slice the other day, I can't remember if I'd had it since treatment but I thought I had and it went back to tasting normal. But now after retrying it, it has that chemical taste back again. I'm really scared that it may mean my cancer is not all gone and is beginning to grow again.

Shell, it sounds to me as if you're just going through the normal process of continual change in taste, salivary function and various other sensory inputs post-TX. Plus over time we naturally tend to forget exactly how things tasted before the cancer and treatment, just as we forget exactly how moist or dry our mouths were - for comparison purposes.

It's easy for me to recommend that you not worry so much (I'm a worrier too), so I won't. But I will say that time will show you many different things and that as David and Paul have written, it's always in flux for us folks.

I found the only consistent taste I maintained was for sweet things. But then I've always been a sugar addict.

Take a few deep breaths, keep trying things and whenever you feel anxious come in here and talk to us!

Thanks David, I feel so helpless when my anxiety starts spiralling. I had a persistent cough not long ago and was coughing up a bit a blood, not much but enough to have myself convinced that cancer was not only back but travelled to my lungs. Its exhausting living in fear. I have my pet in 8 weeks, it'll be a long wait but once the holidays are over and I'm back at work that will pass the time more quickly. I even rang a big cancer centre in Sydney
"just in case" the news isnt good after my next scan so that way I won't have to go on a long waiting list to see the surgeon. I can always cancel if it's not needed. Thanks heaps for your replies, it really does help.

Shell,
Keep that good attitude going! It seems to me that my life has more to do with my perspective than with what actually happens. You're very resourceful to plan ahead and call the cancer center "just in case", but sometimes we just have to learn to let it go after gnawing all the gristle we possibly can out of things! :-)
I had more than 1/2 of my tongue removed a few years back and I know that I can't really "taste" food the way I used to, but eating is still one of my favorite things to do, 'coz I eat a lot of "comfort food" that I grew up with or healthy fresh veggies that I've learned to love over the years. It really is secondary what my taste buds are signaling to my brain-what's important is what my mind makes of it; a taste-fest fit for a king and delivered daily with a great big smile!
You really ARE loved!
Gordon

One thing that most, if not all of us, experience post Tx is "now what?". We all live with the Big R hanging over our heads. Everything from a sore indigestion to a cold can send us over that cliff of reason. Some also experience some form of depression anywhere from mild to severe, requiring medical intervention.

Another thing to look out for is thyroid damage from the radiation. Depending upon where you were radiated and how much, if any, damage was done to your Thyroid, it may not recover resulting in a host of symptoms that may clue you to that irreversable damage. Mine were constantly being cold, in Florida, in September. Look up Hypothyroidism.

First year post Tx is both physically AND mentally difficult. Good news is it's mostly uphill from now on.

David, the cold is definitely something I relate to. I spent the first summer after my treatment wearing sweaters indoors in Los Angeles. I still have a persistent chill even on 100 mcg of Synthroid (next blood test is next week so we'll see if that's enough). Can't imagine having to live with actual winter!