Taste and Saliva

longtermsurvivor said:

Hey John
It's like my taste buds woke up one at a time, and the result was not always immediately pleasant. I could taste sweeet a little bit right away, but the sweet taste of foods faded after just a few bites. Sour overwhelmed me. Lots of foods tasted terrible when I finally could taste them at all. Even meat--- I couldn't eat chicken, especially dark meat, double especially liver for a long long time.

Some tastes never quite made it back for me. Chocolate. I guess I continued to notice change, and improvement, for a number of years post radiation. Maybe 4 years or so.

Adding water to help wash down food even changes the taste. It is not the same as saliva. So some of your improvement will have to await return of salivary function.

Hang in there.

Pat

Enzymes and slime
The lack of saliva also means you don't have the same amount of enzymes in your mouth that you used to have. I tried making up some "artificial spit" for Doug to use when eating starchy things - it was basically amylase in warm water. I could taste it doing its thing (converting starch to sugar) and he said it did make food less gummy, but not so much that it was worth the trouble.

Also, your tongue lacks the "slime" component - you know how (back in saliva days) if you drank orange juice right after brushing your teeth, it tasted awful? That was because the surfactant in the toothpaste stripped off the tongue slime (not sure what it is - that's my next project) and exposed your taste buds more. The bitter/sour taste overwhelms the sweet taste in this case, and so the OJ is UGG.

I'm thinking that foods like chocolate and coffee taste bad/off because you are getting too much bitter and not enough sweet.

I'm sure it's more complicated that just replacing that slime, but it does explain why, even when your taste buds recover, things don't taste right.

MarineE5 said:

Surprised
John,

I for one am actually surprised that you have any saliva and a bit of taste just 2 weeks out of treatments. I didn't get any sensation of taste until about week 4 or 5 and I still have no saliva. I hope you get total recall in both departments.

My Best to You and Everyone Here

It bodes well for you
As John said, if it's beginning already you are ahead of the curve. I'm pedicting good recovery for you at six months?????

Long and Winding Road...
It's a long and winding road....two stps forward, one day back.

It's a very long and slow process.

Water with each bit of food and every other sentence of speech is not uncommon. The bottle of water will be in your hand most of the time for awhile yet.

I lost all taste and saliva as well, but it's pretty much 95% back, both of them.

It's been over 2 1/2 years, and I still have some improvement at times.

Best,
John

DrMary said:

Enzymes and slime
The lack of saliva also means you don't have the same amount of enzymes in your mouth that you used to have. I tried making up some "artificial spit" for Doug to use when eating starchy things - it was basically amylase in warm water. I could taste it doing its thing (converting starch to sugar) and he said it did make food less gummy, but not so much that it was worth the trouble.

Also, your tongue lacks the "slime" component - you know how (back in saliva days) if you drank orange juice right after brushing your teeth, it tasted awful? That was because the surfactant in the toothpaste stripped off the tongue slime (not sure what it is - that's my next project) and exposed your taste buds more. The bitter/sour taste overwhelms the sweet taste in this case, and so the OJ is UGG.

I'm thinking that foods like chocolate and coffee taste bad/off because you are getting too much bitter and not enough sweet.

I'm sure it's more complicated that just replacing that slime, but it does explain why, even when your taste buds recover, things don't taste right.

Enzymes and slime
Yes, yes, yes! I still feel like this all the time. My tongue feels stripped of it's protective slime all the time. I think that is why I like milk so much, it feels better, while water feels like it strips it more.

My taste is not what it was, even 2.5 years later, but I'm just happy it doesn't taste like pure salt, metal and cardboard dipped in wall paper paste anymore. Chocolate is finally pretty tolerable to me now, which is awesome. I've always loved chocolate. I have a chocolate orange cookie I want to try and bake. Should be interesting.

sweetblood22 said:

Enzymes and slime
Yes, yes, yes! I still feel like this all the time. My tongue feels stripped of it's protective slime all the time. I think that is why I like milk so much, it feels better, while water feels like it strips it more.

My taste is not what it was, even 2.5 years later, but I'm just happy it doesn't taste like pure salt, metal and cardboard dipped in wall paper paste anymore. Chocolate is finally pretty tolerable to me now, which is awesome. I've always loved chocolate. I have a chocolate orange cookie I want to try and bake. Should be interesting.

lecithin
I just read a paper in which the researchers were measuring the viscosity of 3 artificial salivas. They concluded that the mixtures did not spread on the tongue as well as real saliva and so were not really effective. They tried adding some phospholipids (our spit has several different kinds) and got closer to the real thing. Soy lecithin contains one of the phospholipids found in spit - I tried mixing some with water and trying the "drinking OJ after brushing" experiment with and without swishing with the lecithin before the OJ. The OJ was much sweeter and less bitter with the swish, but that was only one test and not blind at all. I don't have time to pursue this now, but would be interested in the experience of others.

Lecithin is a common additive to chocolate chips - some of that is to impart "mouth feel" but it also might help with taste.

Oh, and the researchers used various rheometers to test the spreading viscosity of spit and artificial spit - no tongues were harmed in this experiment.

Taste / Saliva
Hi John

2 weeks out with a little saliva and a little bit of taste (no matter how off it may be) is better than most. I know that stale cardboard taste well. Fresh veggies were the first thing that began to taste 'right' to me. About 4-6 weeks post treatment is when selected foods began regaining their taste. It was a slow progression from there. Same with the saliva for me, gradual improvement. I am now over 1 year out and taste is pretty much back to normal and the saliva is probably about 90% or so.

One thing I noticed was that fresh foods tasted much better than canned/processed foods. For example, fresh baked cookies tasted excellent while Chips Ahoy or something similar didn't taste good at all. Cheers.

Jimbo

Jimbo55 said:

Taste / Saliva
Hi John

2 weeks out with a little saliva and a little bit of taste (no matter how off it may be) is better than most. I know that stale cardboard taste well. Fresh veggies were the first thing that began to taste 'right' to me. About 4-6 weeks post treatment is when selected foods began regaining their taste. It was a slow progression from there. Same with the saliva for me, gradual improvement. I am now over 1 year out and taste is pretty much back to normal and the saliva is probably about 90% or so.

One thing I noticed was that fresh foods tasted much better than canned/processed foods. For example, fresh baked cookies tasted excellent while Chips Ahoy or something similar didn't taste good at all. Cheers.

Jimbo

Dry foods, like donuts, are
Dry foods, like donuts, are always tough. Even with increased salva, dry foods like donuts and bread are tough to eat because I find they are so flavorless and just take a lot of work to eat without lmoisture in your mouth.. I don't really eat sandwiches any more because of this. Saliva will increase-- it's early-- but probably like before. I still use Pilocarpine two months out and chew gum, eat spicy food to spur on saliva.