METALLIC TASTE AND CHEMO

Hi. Here is some info I just grabbed off the web about taste changes, specifically the metallic taste that people get in their mouths during chemo.

WHAT ARE TASTE CHANGES?
Taste changes are common during chemotherapy. The exact reason for taste changes is not clear, although it is thought that it is a result of the damage to the cells in the oral cavity, which are especially sensitive to chemotherapy. About 50% of patients getting chemotherapy experience taste changes. Drugs most commonly associated with taste changes include carboplatin, cisplatin, cyclophosphamide, dacarbazine, dactinomycin, doxorubicin, 5-fluorouracil, levamisole, mechlorethamine, methotrexate, paclitaxel, and vincristine. Most people report taste changes involving a lower threshold for bitter tastes and a higher threshold for sweet tastes. In addition, the association between taste of food and chemotheraphy may lead to taste changes. Chemotherapy loss of sense of taste can occur purely from the association of an experience of nausea and vomiting with chemotherapy. Taste changes may occur during therapy and last for hours, days, weeks, or even months after chemotherapy.

MANAGEMENT
The following tips can help people who are experiencing taste changes. Depending on the cause of taste changes, different tips may work better for some people than for others.

- Choose foods that smell and taste good, even if the food is unfamiliar.
- Eliminate cooking smells by using an exhaust fan, cooking on an outdoor grill, or buying precooked foods. Cold or room-temperature foods also have less of an aroma.
- Cold or frozen food may taste better than hot foods.
- Try using plastic utensils and glass cookware to lessen a metallic taste.
- Try sugar-free, mint gum or hard candies (such as mint, lemon, or orange) to mask a bitter or metallic taste in the mouth.
- If red meats don't taste good, try other protein sources such as poultry, eggs, fish, peanut butter, beans, or dairy products.
- Try marinating meats in fruit juices, sweet wines, salad dressings, or other sauces.
- Flavor foods with herbs, spices, sugar, lemon, or sauces.
- To avoid food aversions caused by nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy, do not eat one to two hours before and up to three hours after chemotherapy. In addition, avoiding favorite foods just before chemotherapy helps prevent aversions to those foods.
- Rinsing with a salt and baking soda solution before meals may help neutralize bad tastes in the mouth (½ teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of baking soda in 1 cup of warm water).
- Keep a clean and healthy mouth by brushing frequently and flossing daily.
- Zinc sulfate supplements may help improve taste in some people.

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I may forego work today. When I start to move around, bend, twist, turn, I start to feel nauseous. Could be that I'm hungry. I'll eat and see. Though, even just sitting here I feel like I have a little break of sweat on my forehead from the nausea. Not much to say today.I've been praying for Obama and his family, as well as all of his appointees. Maybe if we all prayed for them it would help our country and help our world. Maybe if it's less important to be right than it is to be loving, compassionate, and cooperative, the world would be a better, safer place. IMAGINE if all of the negative time and energy spent criticizing and pointing the finger of blame at Bush, Obama, the government, the military, the republicans, the democrats, conservatives, liberals, was put to good use? Wow.

I send you my blessings,
Sue