Bitter taste returned

The only thing that I found that works is Patience.  At one year since start of treatment my taste changes at least weekly, sometimes day to day.  There have been temporary periods when things were 'stable'.  I have found that even 11 months since end-of-treatment the old generic salt and soda gargle still helps.  Also, tastes alter taste.  If I go on an extended expresso binge saliva volume and density changes, and the entire range of tastes with it.  I also suspect that  lymphedema factors in somehow.  Mine subsides to almost gone, flares back up, and then I seem to experience a change in taste.  Can't say if it's casual or causal, but they seem to correlate.

Today is the anniversary of the start of treatment.  I'm NED and the only sign of the tumor is the fibrosis in the target area. My lead oncol says he will be very surprised if there is a relapse, but I'm years away from the word 'cured'.  The new normal is weird mouth.  I have enough saliva that I don't need the dry mouth products, but the saliva changes.  Taste is mixed.  I pretty much got the full range back, but different.  Sweet is very hard to tolerate, and I can pretty much pick up the various corn syrup forms just by smelling the bottle, so a lot of packaged products like salad dressings are out. 

Salad itself is a biggy, thru the next month I'm still on blood thinners and have to maintain the same level of vitamin K.  I was eating salads when I started on the meds, so I have had 8 months of mandatory salads every day.  They have gotten progressively more sophisticated, and I now have supplies of different olives from most of the world (Amazon Prime!).  The tastes from the salads are 'true', no loss or change from before, so I eat lots of unprocessed foods. 

I came to the conclusion that a lot of my old taste was 'acquired', a long time ago in some cases.  Coffee was foul two months ago, but that addiction was reacquired with no problem.  Alcohol is out right now, not a good mixer with Warfarin, but trial sips of beer have been pretty bad.  Milk Stout tastes like root beer.  Come January I will be reacquiring a taste for rich peaty single malts. My people are seafaring Scots, my first serious outdoor activity post-treatment was in September,  easily beating the pathetic Anglo-Saxons in sailboat races. 

My lymphedema is frustrating.  I have the head support thingy for sleeping, do the exercises and massage, and it'll be gone.  Even if I keep doing that, two days later it will be back.  Any exposure to cold on my neck is like a bolt tightening on one set of muscles, so I have to wear scarfs.  Fortunately, there are a great many fine woolen plaids to choose from.

Wytrbt,

NED is No Evidence of Disease and is generally celebrated at all clean doctor appointments.

I did try miracle fruit and it was fun and interesting.  I did it with Oranges and found some satisfaction.

Matt

My impression is that while there are general tendencies, nothing is a hard and fast rule in recovery.  A salty taste seems to come back first, followed by a bit of dry mouth.  As the abused tissue recovers that all changes in individually different directions and degrees.  At one year, changes keep coming for me.  Since I don't seem to have much choice, I just follow along.  There seems to be a lot of chemistry at work in taste, and as I've said taste alters taste.

  If I go a day or two without coffee, rare but still possible, the thickness and quantity of my saliva changes considerably.  If I don't drink a good amount of water in a day, the enzymes in my saliva seem to concentrate.  My mouth is still moist, but the concentration can decompose a piece of gum in under ten minutes.  The first time that happened I though, well, bad batch of gum.  But steady experimentation demonstrated it was the saliva.  Impressive, hopefully it kills off things like viruses while it's at it.

I'm not sure what is what on some taste changes, adults tend to lose their sweet taste as they age, so maybe treatment just amplified mine.  My wife has never been able to tolerate different whiskey tastes, still likes sweet.   That's weird.