Hi All!
My sight went down hill during my treatment and I mentioned it to the Oncology Specialist and he could not understand how that could be, my hearing hasn't changed but that was always a bit crook, it has been 5 weeks since I finished my treatment and my eyesight is still not the best but it is improving, I only wish my taste buds would start to to improve so I could at least taste the drinks if I mixed them but every day I add smoe cordial or juice to my diet to no avail.
Love TREV

Hi Trev
It will change i went through the same and i am starting to enjoy certain foods now
there are foods i cant eat at all but i am eating proper food

Hi Tricks, good to see you up and about after your slight (er) hiccup. Hope you are feeling much better. Good man - keep it up!

Evening Trev,Re:eyesight.Were you on Cisplatin?According to Cancer.org .uk"Blurred vision can be a side effect of high doses of Cisplatin for some time after treatment has finished, but usually gets better on its own"
I dont know what they mean by high doses, but Brian reacts against all medication whatever the dose, you may well be the same.
Good to read you are improving, this illness really does teach us patience. Brians progress has been slow, but 3yrs on, he's now enjoying most food & drink with just the occasional relapse. All the best, Fran.

Hi Trev,

Cisplatin is a chemo drug with rather unpleasant side effects and blurred eyesight is definitely one of them. It took over a year before my eyesight returned to normal, it got a lot better within a few weeks, but after 18 months I would say (and so does my optician) that my sight has returned to what it was before the treatment.
The other thing to remember about chemo is
' Anticancer drugs therefore, affect all actively dividing cells regardless of their type, be they cancerous or not'
For loads of info about Cisplatin, click CISPLATIN but the chemistry is way over my head.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dr Vinod K Joshi,

i too have had the blurry eyesite with cisplatin it also gave me kidney problems,its good to hear jenni that you are reaching new milestones as it gives me hope that soon i may be able to eat something, chocolate burns my mouth something rotten but i am only 6 months out of treatment.i am noticing some changes like a little more saliva etc but still no tastebuds to speak of.have a nice day love shirl xxx

Hi Shirl,
It does take ages before these things recover. I got depressed at about 6 months, as I was told that the taste buds and saliva were about as good as they were going to get.
They certainly didn't tell me before I had the treatment that I wouldn't be able to eat chocolate for a year! I found that it just stuck to the roof of my mouth - horrid. I found that as with so many things I had to return to childrens products, and I was able to eat very small portions of chocolate such as buttons, or smarties to start with. I think that Chelle gets hre chocolate fix from chocolate muffins. Unfortunately my diet has changed in some major ways and I need to use a lot of butter to help me swallow bread, and I find it very difficult to deny myself anything that I want to eat, after so many months of trying to tempt myself, and so the weight has now piled back on, and I am more overweight than when I started.

hi jenni
i am six months out and can tell you i have been very depressed the last couple of weeks it seems like without food there is nothing to look forward too .yet there is much more to look forward too but sometimes you cant see the wood for the trees.chocolate sticks in my mouth and burns it jenni were you like that at 6 months?its the savory stuff i miss and yet i was a chocoholic!!! as for the weight jenni when the time is right for you it will come off.have a good day love shirl xxx

Hi Shirl,

You are describing exactly how I felt after 6 months. It doesn't help that the consultants (I presume you are seeing Dr Boote) don't seem to know how much more recovery there still is to go. Pauline reassured me, and she told me that my tastebuds and saliva glands would still make quite dramatic improvements. Althopugh it is tough now, don't despair things really will improve, and you will find other alternatives to what you can't manage. I even went for a curry recently, although it was only a very mild and creamy one.

Jenni

hi jenni
i see dr dubois he has told me that i will get taste buds back but they wont be like they were.he thought the saliva would be more of a problem but that is coming back slowly.i like dr dubois a bit eccentric but lovely and smiley all the same.i have more energy these days and i have cut the mst down to half now but i wish they would be more honest with us at the start.they told me 6 months and i would be back to normal.i have come a long way but its still the lack of eating getting me down.have a nice day,love shirl xxx

Jenni & shirl

I'm almost exactly a year since I finished 6 weeks of daily R/T, I can eat almost anything and taste seems to be back to normal.

A few weeks after the end of R/T I mentioned the lack of taste and the hospital put me on a soluble zince supplement - it worked a treat for me.

200 minutes
I am a firm believer in the healing properties of zinc ~ it is fantastic for cold sores which one of our boys gets when he's rundown. It stops them in their tracks and they don't get to see the light of day if you get onto it immediately.
It has crossed my mind that it might be beneficial for Trevor but didn't know that it was available in a soluble form. Thank you so much for that information. I will definitely be finding some this very day for Trevor.
Cheers
Deborah

thanks for the mention of zinc,seeing my consultant today so i will mention it to him.many thanks shirl xxx

Hi Guys
I went into the local health food shop today to ask if they had soluble zinc and of course they had a syrup or powder form. The guy said that if there was an odd taste when taking the syrup it was usually an indication of zinc deficiecy ~ why did I want it? I said about Trevor having had chemo and the whole bad taste/no taste thing and said that is surely an indication of needing zinc. Here's hoping everyone soon has a boost in their taste. 200 mins ~ you may very well achieve saintly status!
Deborah
xo

Robert has been taking zinc which has greatly improved both his saliva and his taste but I am now wondering if this is what has caused his lump as the consultants think it's a blocked salivary gland from over stimulation.

He's having a CT scan on Monday which hopefully will be able to tell us more.