Strong Salty Taste in Mouth

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Joel4
Joel4 Member Posts: 263 Member
edited April 2017 in Head and Neck Cancer #1

i am one week post treatment and have developed a new side effect over the past couple of days.  There is an ever present, strong, salty taste in my mouth as if I swallowed ocean water.  If I try and sip water, it takes on this salty flavor and is super gross.

i do gargle with salt and baking soda several times a day, so maybe that's where the taste is coming from.  Anyone else experience this, and if so what did you do to help?

I'm hoping to start eating some soft foods this weekend, like scrambled eggs, and would love to mitigate this salt taste beforehand.

thank you,

 

Joel

Comments

  • stevenpepe
    stevenpepe Member Posts: 234
    edited April 2017 #2
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    Of course. We all had that

    Of course. We all had that and it's the worst. I've pretty much been experiencing it since last May after going through two rad sessions. It has dissipated a lot now so give it some time.

  • CivilMatt
    CivilMatt Member Posts: 4,722 Member
    edited April 2017 #3
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    taste funny

    Joel,

    Yes, this too shall pass.

    Matt

  • AnotherSurvivor
    AnotherSurvivor Member Posts: 383 Member
    #4
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    Yep, peaches tasted like

    Yep, peaches tasted like pickles.  Actually, everything tasted like pickles.  It took about a month post for it to go away.  

  • Joel4
    Joel4 Member Posts: 263 Member
    #5
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    Cool, thanks for the

    Cool, thanks for the responses!

  • Grandmax4
    Grandmax4 Member Posts: 723
    #6
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    Salty

    The salty taste was my first sign I was getting taste back. Then a couple weeks later, expecting the salt, everything was sweet, from there on, all taste came back slowly and surpriseingly. You are doing amazingly well, my taste didn't start coming back until 2 months after my surgery

  • AnotherSurvivor
    AnotherSurvivor Member Posts: 383 Member
    #7
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    It can be confusing.  At 2.5

    It can be confusing.  At 2.5 months I got some cantalope from Costco, and it tasted very good, and very cantalope.  I got some last week, tried it and got nothing.  Tried something else and got nothing.  I thought I was losing taste again, until my wife tried some and mentioned that 'that mellon was really flat'.   It's going to be a journey.  Thrush, which you may already be acquainted with, messes with taste, and it comes and goes depending on medication and mouth moisture.  So, it's going to vary by the day.  The old-timers here say it does sort itself out.  To me it seems like if you can taste it once, you probably still have it, tho it may receed at times.  Probably we experienced a bit of this prior to treatment, we just didn't worry about it.

  • ratface
    ratface Member Posts: 1,337 Member
    edited April 2017 #8
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    that's great!

    There are five basic taste receptors in the mouth and some research points to a sixth. Your salt receptor in your case is the first to come back. I was exactly the same. It means you are on the mend!

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