Food ideas?

Hi ER1, 

I'm approaching week 3, taste is out the window yet i can still eat. I'm finding anything really bland works, mashed potato with full fat cream, tinned rice pudding was a nice surprise and ready brek still has its taste. I'm chewing all sorts of sweets just for the exercise but they become awful.  I've resigned to the rig as had a tearful day and was losing weight fast. I've been trying to hang onto eating but as Hazel says, we need the calories!  X

Hi Shab...yes the taste thing is just about par for the course,careful with those sweets if they have sugar in them. Have you been given jaw and swallowing exercises? I did those when I stopped eating. I relied on being pump fed at night and played with what I could eat and swallow knowing I didn't have to "eat" enough to survive

Hi beesuit,  you're right re the sweets, sorry I didn't mention they're sugar free. It's purely so I feel like I've actually chewed, as well as the exercises of course. Especially for the swallow. It does take some of the nasty taste away too which helps. We've had nutritia nurses call to go through things but they didn't show us the pump as we weren't there! We've mentioned it at the hospital but i'm managing with the bolus feeds for now. Its all very trial and error as to how much you can take at one time! x

Hi Sharon.You’re on track lack of taste  isn’t unusual to have gone by this stage I was and still are one of the odd balls I never lost taste but have accentuated taste.

by end of week 3i was getting most of my nutrition and hydration from ng tube. You’ve got it use it. Sweets sadly will harm your teeth as lack of saliva causes  decay. It’s a life long balance. You should have been  given exercises for swallow and jaw I used to do mine on way to treatment and fitted them into my oral routine still do them even now not as often my mouth has never had  an issue opening ! You can tell I type a lot plus I talk a lot .

Hazel x

Yes just do what suits you. I never fed as much as I was told to. Couldn’t take the volume. I asked to be pump fed over night as I was fed up trying to fit small bolus feeds in between all the other stuff

Hi Hazel,  I really thought it was the chemo that's given me the most problems.

The sweet thing is my way of doing extra exercise, it's the strangest thing not chewing to eat. I'm only drinking zero sugar coke and water. My smell sense is on overdrive! X

Thanks Daniel x

Dani! Predictive text :) x

Thanks Mike 

Shab71 said:

My smell sense is on overdrive! X

It was the only way I could taste in the early days. 
I used to blow air the wrong way back up my nose. While I chewed