Eating on chemotherapy

Hi everyone, my mum started chemo in December, after her 4th session she had a scan and we received the AMAZING! news the chemo has shrunk the cancer a little, (she is pallative chemo so we'll have longer time with her) 

Now after the scan results we were told she could have a break for a further 3 weeks to get her strength back up, her taste buds came back shes managed to put a stone on in just over 1 week! Now shes just started her chemo again yesterday and already lost all her taste buds! She says food just tastes disgusting but cannot explain it.. when this happened before she was managing literally a quarter of soup per day, making her weight drop right down to 6 stone, the only way shes found that helps a little is by eating strong mints before and after each mouth full of food ... 

I'm asking does anyone have any tips at all on how to manage her taste buds, so she wont be put off by taste and lose any more weight, also cold is effecting her badly, whe was eating two large tubs of ice cream per week but now the chemo has effected her it's back to plain boiled water .... 

 

Any kind of advice is much appreciated thank you

  • Hi Nicole91 and welcome to the forum. 
    I'm glad to hear that your Mum responded well to her last round of treatment. I'm sure it was a real lift to you all. 

    I'm sure that some of our members will respond to you soon but I just wanted to signpost you to this area of our website which may be of help.
    I know that having this awful taste is common during chemo and I remember there being some posts from other members recently who commented that bland food during chemo was actually worse and that stronger tasting foods were much more palatable. You can read the thread here

    I hope this helps. 
    Best wishes, 
    Jenn
    Cancer Chat moderator

  • I've found salmon to be a good meal choice whilst on chemo. You can still taste it and it doesn't get that bitter gone off taste like other fish. I just have it with broccoli. I guess it's different with everyone though. 
     

    Other things I eat a lot of and can manage is Veg or minestrone soup or scrambled eggs xx