Fascinating thread. To the original poster, I fear your questions may have been somewhat lost in the discussion here. Be patient. Clearly these hyper-sensitivities, whatever the cause, are not uncommon in this challenging context. Don't take it personally. Also, every treatment, and every reaction, is different.

I'm about two years out from my chemo-radiation treatment, went through loss of sweet, then loss of taste-in-general, but never lost my sense of smell. I didn't *notice* an enhancement of smell, but my wife tells me I smell everything before eating it now. I don't feel this is new, but she says so, and perhaps I'm just "testing" for spice levels, since my poor scar-tissue mouth could NOT handle spice for a long time. Most of my taste has returned, I can handle "medium" spice, and my saliva function is about 65% (guessing). I also did go through a period of hyperacusis (greatly increased sensitivity to clanging noises......most annoying), but this, too, has passed. Aside from the dry mouth, my long list of side effects has generally faded away (yay).

Ah, one that stumped my Oncologist was that foods such as pasta sauce would trigger my neck muscles to spasm and cramp.........this was a new one to him!

Wishing everyone going through this, as patient or carer, patience, strength, hope and good support. It can be an incredibly challenging time, and I encourage you to gather as much support as you can. If you don't need it, bonus, but if you do, it's best to have it ready and waiting in the wings.

Last point; for me one of the worst parts was some very bad psychological reactions to the cocktail of drugs used to manage the treatment - whether it was the Fentanyl (an opiate) or the steroids (got the blame from the docs) I'll never know, but for those with sensitivity to drugs, beware! And good luck.