I'll be your ray of hope here but take everything I say with a grain of salt because I think I am an exception to the norm. I did not have any side effects, except for a red neck, until I was in my sixth week of treatment. At that point I had the cracking and oozing skin on my neck and bad mucositis in my mouth. The mucositis probably lasted about two weeks after treatment and my neck healed up after about a week. I never really lost my taste either, except sweet, which came back after about a month. I'm sure there are side effects I have yet to experience that will take time to show up, but I finished on July 31st and have been doing really well here lately. I am also in the process of dealing with either a blood sugar issue or an immune system issue, so you're never actually quite done with everything!

So, I am young and I healed really fast, so I'm basically just here to say that it is possible to fare better than the doctors expect. Hang in there!!!!