Why, exactly, do so many foods taste like rubbish after chemo?

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For about 10 days after each of my R-CHOP chemo treatments, most food and drink -- from water and breaded fish to tomato pasta and various meats -- taste horrible. The effect slowly dies off, but never completely, over the following 11 days to the next treatment, when it all kicks off again.

The closest I can come to describing what it tastes like is: What you would imagine an egg carton left in a damp fridge for a month with a few copper pennies in it would taste like.

I'm not complaining (well, not too much, as there are worse side effects), but does anyone have any insights into what's happening physically or chemically to make stuff taste this way?

I can tell my sense of smell is involved as well as the taste buds.

FormerMember over 4 years ago

I don’t no why it happens but it’s a real pain. I loved sweet stuff. But now only love savoury bits. My head says that looks yum, then to sweet and it’s yuk. This is now 8 years on. Try to have sucking sweets that are quite strong. Ginger biscuits. If you like them. Strong tastes are better. Good luck.

Lolie over 4 years ago

My sense of smell was never affected during R-CHOP but every cycle I had a few days of the metallic taste followed by at least a week of everything tasting like cardboard. Food smelling fantastic but tasting like rubbish wasn't fun.

I don't know the science but I do know that it happens with other chemotherapy protocols, too. It wore off for me within a couple of weeks of my final treatments.

Throughout my treatment time, some strong flavours were unaffected so I gravitated towards things I knew would taste "real".

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Why, exactly, do so many foods taste like rubbish after chemo?