Any thing better to drink than water?

ac
ac Member Posts: 88 Member
in Head and Neck Cancer #1
Hi,

I drink a lot now because of the lack of saliva.But I find that drinking water doesn't really sooth the throat as much as it used to because it tends to make it less moist or "dry" it by giving me the feeling that it's clearing the throat of moist mucus.

I'm not sure if what I said makes sense. But I sometimes feel that drinking milk or soy milk soothes my throat more. I was just wondering if anyone has found anything better to drink besides water. I don't want to be drinking milk all the time.

Thanks very much.
«1

Comments

  • Hondo
    Hondo Member Posts: 6,636 Member
    #2
    Hi Andrew
    Good question, as for me all I do is drink water and use Stoppers 4 dry-mouth spray through the day and at night. I tried some of the other stuff with lemon in it just made it worse, I tried coke too much acid. I do drink tea and that does help and like you soy milk in the morning, that is about all I found so far.

    Thanks
    Hondo
  • NJR
    NJR Member Posts: 82
    #3
    To Drink
    For me it has always been Gatorade or Mountain Dew. It is hard to explain but a month and a half after ChemoRadiation my taste buds are schizophrenic. Those are the only two things that have yet to cause me nausea or pain at any given time but I can't taste either. I used to crave orange juice and apple juice but now even a sip is like giving me a tablespoon full of Tabasco sauce.
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    #4
    Nothing beats milk for me.
    Yep. Water makes me feel drier. :p I do drink a lot of milk per day, and have finally weaned my self down to 1%. Can't be doing with the skim, it's like water. I also drink Slik Unsweetened Almond Milk or the Regular Flavor Almond Milk. Not as good as milk, but better than water.

    For a long time, I subsisted on flat Mug root beer. Had to be flat, and had to be Mug. Also Pappy's Sassafrass Tea is better than straight water to me, for some reason. It tastes like Root Beer.
  • Hal61
    Hal61 Member Posts: 655
    #5
    Milk binging
    Hi AC, I couldn't drink anything but water for many months, even milk. I was able, ,but none of it tasted any good. I tried Gatorade, weak ice tea, some lemon in it, so I just settle for the water that tasted like sweat. If you can drink milk that's great. Like Sweet said, it's not hard to go from whole to 2%, to 1% if you do it in stages if your concerned about fat.

    I was eventually able to handle milk, then vanilla shakes. At 1 and 1/2 years out, I can drink most things, even soda. Water tastes like water now, and mostly I drink it or juice. Liquids are like food, one day, no go, next day o.k. Keep sampling.

    best, Hal
  • Kent Cass
    Kent Cass Member Posts: 1,898 Member
    #6
    Hal61 said:

    Milk binging
    Hi AC, I couldn't drink anything but water for many months, even milk. I was able, ,but none of it tasted any good. I tried Gatorade, weak ice tea, some lemon in it, so I just settle for the water that tasted like sweat. If you can drink milk that's great. Like Sweet said, it's not hard to go from whole to 2%, to 1% if you do it in stages if your concerned about fat.

    I was eventually able to handle milk, then vanilla shakes. At 1 and 1/2 years out, I can drink most things, even soda. Water tastes like water now, and mostly I drink it or juice. Liquids are like food, one day, no go, next day o.k. Keep sampling.

    best, Hal

    7Up
    A few months post-tx I found 7Up/Sprite to be awesome, and drink it still, along with my morning Ensures. During tx, though, only water and melted ice. Do like the flavor and sting of A&W, but seldom venture that far. Trial and error time.

    kcass
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    #7
    Kent Cass said:

    7Up
    A few months post-tx I found 7Up/Sprite to be awesome, and drink it still, along with my morning Ensures. During tx, though, only water and melted ice. Do like the flavor and sting of A&W, but seldom venture that far. Trial and error time.

    kcass

    Wow
    I cannot believe you guys that can do carbonation and stuff like Gatorade. It still burns my tongue and I'm like 2 & 1/2 years out. :( I don't understand why my damn tongue still hurts so much. It still feels like I just scalded it on a 190 degree beverage.
  • Cathelen72
    Cathelen72 Member Posts: 33 Member
    #8
    Coconut water
    I really like all natural coconut water or ginger ale.
  • Husker Fan
    Husker Fan Member Posts: 65
    #9
    Warm tea..
    After throat surgery and 3 weeks into radiation, I find warm (not hot) tea is soothing on the throat. Can't do milk, makes the mucus worst. Carbonation burns, lots and lots of water.
  • Hondo
    Hondo Member Posts: 6,636 Member
    #10
    Cathelen72 said:

    Coconut water
    I really like all natural coconut water or ginger ale.

    Yogurt Drink
    I found something new that I like and just started it a week or so ago. It is a Yogurt drink; I mix 4 big table spoons of yogurt with a cup of coconut or pomegranate Kefir and a half cup of Soy milk. Then I can mix all my Probiotic and powder Fiber in it and boy it is good all the way down. I have to stay simple as I too can’t handle anything with carbonation in it.

    Hondo
  • NJR
    NJR Member Posts: 82
    #11
    sweetblood22 said:

    Wow
    I cannot believe you guys that can do carbonation and stuff like Gatorade. It still burns my tongue and I'm like 2 & 1/2 years out. :( I don't understand why my damn tongue still hurts so much. It still feels like I just scalded it on a 190 degree beverage.

    Trust me
    It is subject to change. The deal with Gatorade is that it contains Sodium and the Mountain Dew is lightly carbonated. I neglected to say I had to let it go flat. I still can't tolerate a coke. What gets me is that even a flake of pepper, grain of table salt, or even slightly acidic juices feel exactly as you describe. Scalding.
    Please tell me something. Did you by chance go through a period where you had the ability to smell as well as a blood hound? Even though I couldn't tolerate such things my sense of smell could pick them out in sealed IV bags and syringes. It became quite a game for the nurses to come into my room and have a syringe full of one substance or another and I could identify it from across the room without ever seeing the container. It was one of the most miserable periods of my entire ordeal because I could smell every foul odor there was to smell and no one around me could, so I was automatically crazy until I proved it. I never figured out why, but one of my nurses said that she had heard of it happening, but I was the first to ever demonstrate it.
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    #12
    NJR said:

    Trust me
    It is subject to change. The deal with Gatorade is that it contains Sodium and the Mountain Dew is lightly carbonated. I neglected to say I had to let it go flat. I still can't tolerate a coke. What gets me is that even a flake of pepper, grain of table salt, or even slightly acidic juices feel exactly as you describe. Scalding.
    Please tell me something. Did you by chance go through a period where you had the ability to smell as well as a blood hound? Even though I couldn't tolerate such things my sense of smell could pick them out in sealed IV bags and syringes. It became quite a game for the nurses to come into my room and have a syringe full of one substance or another and I could identify it from across the room without ever seeing the container. It was one of the most miserable periods of my entire ordeal because I could smell every foul odor there was to smell and no one around me could, so I was automatically crazy until I proved it. I never figured out why, but one of my nurses said that she had heard of it happening, but I was the first to ever demonstrate it.

    Nose of a blood hound
    No, but I used to be like that before my treatment. I lost my sense of smell during rads and taste and smell have not some back to where they used to be. I was a supertaster before, and I could smell things others couldn't all the time. Not anymore. My gram said something smelled off in the fridge and I couldn't smell it. It was an onion with a rotten spot and I couldn't smell it. That's bad.

    I think if you blind folded me, and asked me to smell and taste ingredients and identify them, I would not be able to identify most. Before treatment I could do that for sure.

    You are the first person I have heard that has experienced that. That is pretty crazy.

    For some reason, one of the things I could always still smell, was my peg tube and that nutrin peg tube food smell, which made me incredibly nauseated.
  • ratface
    ratface Member Posts: 1,337 Member
    #13
    sweetblood22 said:

    Nose of a blood hound
    No, but I used to be like that before my treatment. I lost my sense of smell during rads and taste and smell have not some back to where they used to be. I was a supertaster before, and I could smell things others couldn't all the time. Not anymore. My gram said something smelled off in the fridge and I couldn't smell it. It was an onion with a rotten spot and I couldn't smell it. That's bad.

    I think if you blind folded me, and asked me to smell and taste ingredients and identify them, I would not be able to identify most. Before treatment I could do that for sure.

    You are the first person I have heard that has experienced that. That is pretty crazy.

    For some reason, one of the things I could always still smell, was my peg tube and that nutrin peg tube food smell, which made me incredibly nauseated.

    Nose of a Rat perhaps
    My sense of smell seemed to get better proportionally to my loss of taste where it was keenly attuned to my surroundings as far as laundry fabric softeners scents, cigarette smells from several cars over and personal fragrances as well as foods cooking. It reversed itself to pre- treatment levels as my taste got better. It now remains a little better than it ever was. It seems you had an exaggerated response with the bloodhound capability but there seems to be a direct correlation with the loss of one sense and the heightened awareness of the rest. Have any of you seen that old episode of MASH where Hawkeye loses his sight but is then enchanted by the sound of a rainstorm? I have no scientific evidence that the senses account for lost efficiency other than this television reference which is certainly to be proof positive?
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #14
    Corona...
    LOL, on occasion....

    Usually water is the only think that truely will satisfy my thirst.

    But I do drink a lot of milk....and a few cups of coffee each day.

    As Dawn knows, my wife is a coffee fiend, and that goes with the 15+ bottles of flavored creamers in the fridge.

    I prefer my coffee military style, strong and black....(true military style, you pour the proportional amount (whatever it comes in) into a big 5 gallon bucket, bring it to a boil, then sift the grounds out with your teeth while you sip it from your canteen cup)...

    JG
  • Greend
    Greend Member Posts: 678
    #15
    Carbonated drinks
    My doctor told me that I was NOT to drink sodas and if I had to it had to be a diet drink because the carbonation coupled with the sugar would wreak havoc on my pearly whites. I can say that in 15 years I have had less than 1/2 dozen sodas (those were with bourbon)and maybe 10-12 diet sodas. I usually drink water but I have found club soda helps at times to get the "gunky" feeling out of my mouth.

    Trial and error.

    Denny
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    #16
    Skiffin16 said:

    Corona...
    LOL, on occasion....

    Usually water is the only think that truely will satisfy my thirst.

    But I do drink a lot of milk....and a few cups of coffee each day.

    As Dawn knows, my wife is a coffee fiend, and that goes with the 15+ bottles of flavored creamers in the fridge.

    I prefer my coffee military style, strong and black....(true military style, you pour the proportional amount (whatever it comes in) into a big 5 gallon bucket, bring it to a boil, then sift the grounds out with your teeth while you sip it from your canteen cup)...

    JG

    Military style coffee.
    Geez, John, why don't you just save time and chew on the grinds then. Eek.

    For some reason I have the image of John and Shelley's freezer and fridge filled with nothing but dunkin donuts coffee, creamer - namely pumpkin spice this time of year, and grouper. I dunno why. ;-)
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #17
    sweetblood22 said:

    Military style coffee.
    Geez, John, why don't you just save time and chew on the grinds then. Eek.

    For some reason I have the image of John and Shelley's freezer and fridge filled with nothing but dunkin donuts coffee, creamer - namely pumpkin spice this time of year, and grouper. I dunno why. ;-)

    Military Style
    LOL, that was when in the field..

    I had an old salty commander one time ream me out for washing the black sticky tar gunk out of the old percolator type coffee maker in the office.

    Seems that is where all of the flavor had accumulated over the years. Who'd a thunk it....

    Grouper....mmmm a few more weeks open season, but the weather has been too bad for me to get to them.

    Dawn, we usually have enough fresh fish that I rarely freeze any fish. Usually if I do, I make a fish chowder with it, adding a little Sherry just as you pour a hot steamy bowl....makes for good cold weather food.

    Dead on as for the Pumpkin Spice....she has creamer, coffee, ice cream, candles, hand soap...hmmm, have I forgotten anything....other than the Halloween painted pedi-toes.

    JG
  • sweetblood22
    sweetblood22 Member Posts: 3,228
    #18
    Skiffin16 said:

    Military Style
    LOL, that was when in the field..

    I had an old salty commander one time ream me out for washing the black sticky tar gunk out of the old percolator type coffee maker in the office.

    Seems that is where all of the flavor had accumulated over the years. Who'd a thunk it....

    Grouper....mmmm a few more weeks open season, but the weather has been too bad for me to get to them.

    Dawn, we usually have enough fresh fish that I rarely freeze any fish. Usually if I do, I make a fish chowder with it, adding a little Sherry just as you pour a hot steamy bowl....makes for good cold weather food.

    Dead on as for the Pumpkin Spice....she has creamer, coffee, ice cream, candles, hand soap...hmmm, have I forgotten anything....other than the Halloween painted pedi-toes.

    JG

    Sticky tar gunk...
    Yeah, that doesn't sound like something I want to drink. Sounds like something you can stick a spoon up in. I think I will stick with my tea, thanks. :)

    I'm going to need to try a seafood chowder type thing some day. Poached fish was still hard for me last time I tried, but that was months ago.
  • D Lewis
    D Lewis Member Posts: 1,581 Member
    #19
    xylitol water?
    I saw my dentist today. She mentioned a new drink that is intended for folks with dry mouth. It has xylitol in it, and apparently some kind of fruity flavoring as well - pomegranate-blueberry I think. Problem is, it coats your mouth but apparently has a liberating effect on the lower intestinal tract. Seems like a poor trade-off.

    Ditto on the milk for me.

    Deb
  • NJR
    NJR Member Posts: 82
    #20
    ratface said:

    Nose of a Rat perhaps
    My sense of smell seemed to get better proportionally to my loss of taste where it was keenly attuned to my surroundings as far as laundry fabric softeners scents, cigarette smells from several cars over and personal fragrances as well as foods cooking. It reversed itself to pre- treatment levels as my taste got better. It now remains a little better than it ever was. It seems you had an exaggerated response with the bloodhound capability but there seems to be a direct correlation with the loss of one sense and the heightened awareness of the rest. Have any of you seen that old episode of MASH where Hawkeye loses his sight but is then enchanted by the sound of a rainstorm? I have no scientific evidence that the senses account for lost efficiency other than this television reference which is certainly to be proof positive?

    smell
    My sense of smell did coincide with the loss of taste which two months out mostly still remains, however for me it was so acute that I could tell the smell of saline solution and Heprin in closed syringes when they flush my multi ports. I could tell the smell of morphine and several other drugs that I had identified on my own before I even realized what was happening. It was a double edged sword though, as most of everything I was smelling was so strong that it almost made as ill as the smell that sweet described with the PEG tube. Fortunately being one of the last remaining smells that overwhelm me I was able to get some silicone bandages that blocked it completely for a day at a time. I believe that was my big problem with the Ensure and the PEG tube. The sick sweet smell wanted to make my sick before I ever poured a can.
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #21
    D Lewis said:

    xylitol water?
    I saw my dentist today. She mentioned a new drink that is intended for folks with dry mouth. It has xylitol in it, and apparently some kind of fruity flavoring as well - pomegranate-blueberry I think. Problem is, it coats your mouth but apparently has a liberating effect on the lower intestinal tract. Seems like a poor trade-off.

    Ditto on the milk for me.

    Deb

    Xylitol
    Is a naturally occuring type of sweetner or sugar alcohol.... It's also used in some gums and drinks, plus I think it has cavity preventers as well.

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