This is the middle of week 4 of seven and I lost all sense of taste three weeks ago. Had a PEG placed last week which has helped a great deal. My biggest issue right now is that everything I attempt to drink has an overpowering salty taste. Anyone have this experience and figured out how to get some relief from it?

Hi, Jack
it sounds like all tastebubs except salt have temporarily left the stage, so salt is front and center. What are you drinking?

Drinking only sips of tap water and some ginger ale. The ginger ale gives just the least little relief but any water , even for swish and spit, is salty

UGH... that sucks... have you tried ensure...?

Yep I get Ensure via PEG tube several times a day.... Then I deal with the belching that goes with that. I'm just trying to figure out why, If i'm not taking any salt in anything I eat , that everything has an overpowering salty taste.

Ron said the same thing, he even stopped using salt completely when he salted everything he ate, after 2 yrs he is again using salt and even pepper! So I'd say it's part of the process of going thru this crappy cancer. Sorry but keep positive you just may get all back to normal or as normal as can be.
Good Luck!

Thanks for the heads up..... I'll be looking forward to the end of this crap for sure

Radiation can cause your taste buds to act crazy! Its a temporary thing. You will notice several different phases as you go thru this and your recovery. Some people find seltzer water appealing during treatment. Some have used that to rinse their mouths to help cut the mucous. I would suggest you rinse several times per day with 16oz of warm water, 2 tsp baking soda, omit the 2 tsp salt for now. This will help to neutralize your mouth and if you have any sores it will help to heal them.

Best wishes with your treatments!

Thanks for the idea Christine

Your welcome Jack! Stick with us and we will help you get thru this. We are here 24/7 and can help with all kinds of advice. Im a wiz with feeding tube tricks. Keep up with a minimum of 48az water and 2500+ calories daily and you will get thru this easier. Best wishes with your treatments.

THe seltzer water helped my son a lot when he was in Rad Tx and the salty taste bothered him, too. I was always intrigued by how his taste buds reacted as some once familiar tastes for some things changed so drastically. He said coffee tasted like spaghetti sauce, honey tasted like dirt, chai tea tasted like black pepper. Some "super taster" people have taste buds that react very keenly to foods. I don't know if stress has anything to do with this, but while my son was in surgery, the turkey sandwich I tried to eat for lunch tasted like cardboard to me. I could not taste the turkey at all! When the taste buds started coming back again, it was a very pleasing and surprising for us. One day when Paul had not been able to taste anything sweet, he put one of those gourmet jelly beans in his mouth and excitedly told his daughter (5 year old at the time): "I can taste it!!! we all did a happy dance around the kitchen that day! It's amazing how the simplest things can bring such pleasure and good memories. So, hang in there, the taste buds will get better!

Thanks again everyone

In case it interests anyone, here's an intriguing article from Wikipedia all about taste buds and "super tasters":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

Must be me LOL

My husband lost the taste of salt completely for a while, but bitter held it's own through out therapy. Oddly, fruit (sour and sugar) was one of one of the first things that 'tasted right' when he was recovering. Chocolate is just now tasting good. Everyone is different!

I went through a phase during treatment where everything tasted like pure salt, too. After awhile, I lost taste completely and it went away. After treatment, salt was the first taste to come back. So, once again, everything tasted super salty for awhile. It will pass. Hang in there!

I can remember everything tasting like metal for awhile after radiation. That too passed. What I found interesting was that after my first set of radiation treatments I could not STAND tomato soup which I had previously loved. After my second set of radiation treatments, I again loved tomato soup. Go figure.

Donna

Kevin kept the bitter taste. Everything else was gone except that. He is now back to tasting everything, but every taste is very strong. Sweet things are almost too sweet. All the joys!! Blessings on the rest of your journey. You're not alone!!

Thanks to everyone for sharing their story. Today is the last day of week 4... three to go. I found that using ginger ale and sugarless, flavored soda water has helped a bunch with cutting the salty taste as well as clearing the thick secretions in the mouth and back of the throat. It sort of foams the junk away from the mouth and allows it to be spit out. I do that several times a day and once in the middle of the night and it has helped greatly.
Another tip for anyone interested is that Ibuprofen taken three at a time up to 3 X a day helps a lot with inflammation associated with the burning from the Rads to the throat allowing me to swallow more easily. It works well in combination with the 50 mg fentanyl patch I wear. The dose was approved by my Dr. at Duke.

Jack - It's good you found something that helps with cutting the salty taste and the mouth secretions. About the Ibuprofen, I was glad to hear that your Doctor approved the dosage. During his Tx, my son was taking way too much of the Ibuprofen while he was on other pain meds and even argued with me about what he could take. I became concerned and when I checked with the doctor's office, they told me he had been taking way too much Ibuprofen and that it could damage the liver. After that, I had to keep the Ibuprofen in my car and just leave a small daily amount with him when I was not there. So be really careful. Keep up the good progress and thanks for the update!

Jack:
Please focus on staying hydrated. Towards the end of my treatment I got terribly constipated and it was due to pain meds (Particularly Fentanyl patch; Doc told me they absorb a lot of your hydration).
As for salt, that's funny it came up. We all react differently but 5 years out and some foods leave me with an overpowering salty after taste that can last hours. So that may hang with you indefinitely. I sure won't complain due to being able to eat and receive some sort of taste!
Best Wishes,
Steve

how long before taste came back for you?

I have no taste at this point but still have three more weeks of chemo/ rad to go . I get the impression it takes some time to get the taste buds back.

This is only a temporary thing. Everyone is a little different in this. I would say most of us had some sort of taste a month post radiation with improvements being seen all the way til 2 years post rads. Usually about 2 or 3 months after finishing radiation you will see a huge difference from where you were.

i too got the salt taste very strongly after radiation, and also foods i used to love had no appeal. it does pass, and until it does, hydration really helps.

Thank goodness ... Frankly right now I have no hunger at all and am really having trouble just getting enough ensure in me to keep from being down more than about 3 # a week

Kevin wasn't hungry either. He forced himself to eat scrambled eggs in the am and then Ensure the rest of the day. Truly, forced himself. He lost 54 pounds, but had it to lose so it's ok. He's perfect now! Has gained back maybe 5 pounds.

My doctors and nurses and also nutritionist all warned me about losing weight. They all told me their goal was for me to not lose any weight. You must push yourself to maintain your weight, once it starts dropping off you will begin to feel lousy.

Push to take in a minimum of 48 oz of water and 2500 calories daily. Getting more is even better. Dont skimp one day thinking you will make it up the next. It doesnt work that way. That will end up landing you in the hospital for malnutrition and dehydration. Once things get rough, you can go downhill very quickly so please push yourself.

You can get Carnation Very High Calorie (VHC) thru the green Amazon link on the main forum pages. This will help OCF with a small kickback. Carnation VHC has 560 calories per can so it will help you to easier get your daily calories.

Everything tastes salty to me after the surgery. I found that brushing with Biotene Toothpaste helped. It also helps with dry mouth.

Msmac: How long did the salt taste last? I'm 7 weeks out of treatment and everything tastes like pure salt. Fruit is especially vile tasting. That, and the hyper-sense of smell that I have, is making it nearly impossible to eat anything (which I desperately want to do so that I can get off my PEG). Oatmeal and Cream of Wheat with loads of brown sugar are tolerable for solid foods as is avocado but I'd like to be able to eat more than that. Ensure and Scandishakes are getting old and don't taste great, either.

Thanks.

Coming up on six years out from treatment and if I eat processed food (Boxed, packaged, etc) and don't stay VERY hydrated I get an overwhelming salty taste. Not that I'm complaining because my diet has continued to expand and now includes a little bit of spice (I used to love "Hot & spicy" foods). Just keep trucking, experimenting, and stay hydrated.

Best Wishes,
Steve

Lefty, try distilled water. All other water tasted terrible to me after chemo but the distilled was okay, a great suggestion from my niece who drank it while she was pregnant. Karen

That's a good idea about the distilled water! My son could even taste the salt in the low sodium soups and even accused me of putting salt in his chicken noodle soup after he had expressly told me to get the low sodium soup. The taste bud for salt must be very active. It's coming up on 7 years for my son since he completed treatment but I remember how he said that certain areas of his tongue had certain tastes of their own and it seemed to him that each of the taste buds had their own reaction to taste. It really does get better, though and soon you will see small improvements and each one will be a celebration! Paul would try everything on specific parts of his tongue to see what reaction he would have and the day that he could taste the sweet taste of one M & M, it was a celebration - he was so happy, you would have thought he had invented sliced bread!

I taste salt w/o eating or drinking anything. It does seem somewhat less pronounced lately. I actually find that eating things that are normally salty or would go well with salt taste better than sweet things.