Taste changes during chemo

Hi Clarebear85 welcome to the forum .  Please don't feel guilty about consuming alcohol, we all do it and you are not alone. It sounds like the choice has been made for you with the taste of Alcohol now. It is a known side effect from Chemo of the changes to the taste buds for both drinks and foods and it doesn't seem to have any rhyme nor reason to who gets which effects   It may be that certain foods like spicy food or coffee or any real strong flavours.  

Hi. I found with chemo I could suddenly eat spicier food as wasn't tasting the spice and I hate spicy food. Strange how these things work

I find tea, coffee and alcohol all taste bitter in the 10 days or so after chemo and then it gradually improves.  First cycle was the worst but I've managed to work on the wine issue and find I can drink it earlier now....  Just takes little training :-). In all seriousness, the tea is the most affecting thing for me as I do love my tea. 
I also suffer from oral thrush after chemo which gives a horrid feel and deadens my taste even more.  Have just finished last of four cycles so looking forward to my diet becoming more varied again.
I find spicy foods are good, as are fresh fruit and veg (especially cherry tomatoes).  Fresh pineapple is supposed to be good too.

Along with reduced/changed taste, I seem to have a heightened sense of smell which isn't pleasant.  I'm convinced I can smell chemo on my skin and even barely scented moisturisers can turn my stomach.  

Have your chemo team given you drugs to help with the thrush? I had tablets to take from about ten days after my chemo to help prevent thrush. 

Hi, thanks for replying.  Yes, they gave me a mouth rinse (Nystatin) for all four cycles plus a course of Fluconazole for the last cycle (last Tuesday) which I'm taking now.  I'm hoping that will kick it into touch.  

The Nystatin is vile isn't it. I had fluconazole every cycle and had no thrush. The other thing to request is mouth wash which I also had every cycle 

This sounds so bad I am not there yet but terrified x

The thing to do is take medication before you get the side effect. My oncologist was amazing and at the end of my first session chemo I was presented with a huge goodie bag of medications. I had boxes of laxido to help with constipation bottles of mouthwash to take after every meal Nystatin to help with thrush don peridone to prevent sickness dexamethasone steroids fluconazole tablets and an injection to help WBC for day after chemo. So much information that when I got home I had to ring the chemo unit to go through it all again so I could write on boxes. Became a bit of a bedroom pharmacy in my bedside cabinet. I like to think because I had it all I pretty much sailed through chemo

Sounds like they were really on the ball - my first cycle nystatin was rather more cure than prevention so I requested it for subsequent cycles and then got a really good Day Unit Sister who gave me the works for the last one.  

Yes, I've just got the mouthwash for the last cycle... could have done with it a bit earlier but never mind :-)

And agreed, Nystatin isn't the tastiest!