Does anybody with lung cancer who is not on or has completed chemotherapy months ago, find that food and drinks taste horrible? Also does anybody in the same circumstances suffer from constant nausea?
Hi Spanglydangly I am sorry to hear that you are finding food tasteless. This must be very frustrating for you. Has the sickness feeling continued since the chemo stopped, or is this something new?
No one here is medically trained, we are all lung cancer patients ourselves, or supporting someone with lung cancer. You could ask your question in the Ask a Nurse but it can take a couple of days for a reply. I would suggest you do talk to someone in your medical team if this is a new symptom. Do you have a lung nurse you can call or maybe a call to the gp. If symptoms do get worse please call 111 for advice.
I hope this is just a temporary thing for you and passes soon.
Hi Spanglydangly and Hamhat
Have you asked your DR about medication for reflux?
My husband suffers exactly the same symptoms you describe, and they seemed to be getting worse, not better.
At the start of this year 2024, he had chemo and radiotherapy at the same time followed by a lobectomy in May and then suffered hospital-contracted pneumonia.
The massively good news is that the chemoradio therapy killed the tumor and what they removed in the surgery was completely dead. We are incredibly thankful for this and try to hold onto that as his quality of life now is sadly pretty poor.
He says all his food and drinks now taste horrible and he suffers bouts of nausea which make him feel poorly and tired for several days. He is constantly coughing and choking on mucous - so much that he now has a detached lens so is partially sighted now too. He has no appetite and is now dangerously underweight and weak and catches every bug going.
I don't think the medics are completely transparent about the side effects and after they have treated the cancer they don't seem particularly interested in the person or their health and wellbeing.
Hubby has not seen or spoken to his surgeon since the op. He has 6 monthly follow ups, his first in October was over the phone to a junior doctor at 7.30pm in the evening who hadn't read his notes and admitted he didn't know much about side effects!
Lung cancer nurses aren't interested as they say he was discharged to the care of the thoracic surgery team. GP isn't interested and says go back to the lung nurses. I called our GP again this Friday and insisted on an urgent appointment as he was so poorly. He saw a locum who finally gave him a full examination, and was quite disgusted at the lack of aftercare hubby has received. She is sending him for an x-ray just to check for infection. She thinks the taste and coughing may be caused by reflux as a side effect of the treatment. Fingers crossed after 3 days the medication she prescribed seems to be working. He said his dinner last night tasted great although he put so much pepper in it I couldn't eat it 
but he ate a small meal rather than the mouthful he could manage previously.
Nausea was happening every 10 days or so for several days so we will keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't return in the next couple of weeks.
Don't get me wrong we are massively grateful, the cancer treatment was incredible and the staff were wonderful, kind and dedicated. But the follow-up care is shameful. We shouldn't be left for 10 months fighting for help with side effects. Of course, the focus must be on saving lives but there really should be more support for people to achieve as good a standard of health and quality of life afterwards as is possible. Sadly that seems lacking in this country.
