As I remarked elsewhere, I am starting to have some food cravings and I am nowhere near being able to swallow anything. I just hope that when I am able to start eating again, that I will have enough functional taste buds to have food taste good.

I don't think there's much of a problem with PEG dependency because that's just a willpower problem; the real PEG problem, for those who may have a choice, like during radiation, is not knowing about or dealing with things like trismus and swallowing. I would recommend to anyone that they get the PEG, maintain it by flushing with water, and just taping it out of the way as a backup -- Having it doesn't mean one has to use it, but not having it means one has fewer choices.

Even now, I have to constantly remember to do some jaw stretching to keep trismus at bay.

Eating with damaged food-processing equipment is hard work and it may be quite difficult to ingest a sufficient number of calories daily to keep one's weight up and support the healing process. During and post radiation, I kept the swallowing exercised by taking my meds by mouth and also my hydration -- I used the PEG almost primarily for food.