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Mouth Ulcers
M husband has AML and is 7 weeks post transplant. He’s spent most of the time in hospital due to viruses but the mouth ulcers were a real issue with eating. He found all the mouth washes stung so he used oxetaine solution(which has a milky consistency) to loosen up the mouth ulcers, to stop ulcers sticking to gum which has soothing effect and then used oral lidocaine as a mouthwash and this immediately took away pain and enabled him to eat. It was fantastic and sometimes it lasted up to 3 hours. He had about 9 ulcers but only 1 of them was really severe like a canker but it worked. I hope this helps anyone else with ulcers
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Hi lara my my son had hes transplantt 2weeks ago and he's got the mouth ulcers and can't tase his food any tips on the best thing to eat with taste in his mouth
Hi Gabby. The taste issue will go for several weeks. My husband still struggles to eat due to the taste food but it’s slowly got better and better. Not being able to have spicy food doesn’t help matters. I’ve probably spent a fortune on buying loads of different foods for him to try and having read other peoples experiences each individual person is different and it is very much trial and error. I started with things he used to like and worked my way through and then moved onto other things. Currently he will eat ready brek, 2 specific m & s meals, 1 specific tesco soup, kp nuts, cashew nuts, m & s Strawberry milkshake (3 a day!), Mac Donald’s chocolate frappe, neopolitan ice cream, fingers of fudge , plain hula hoops!! Portions of meals are small so everything else fills the gaps. We had a very good nutritionist in hospital and she just said pile on the calories and she suggested adding in the nuts for more protein. He lost 3.5 stone due to chronic diarrhoea for 10 days, two weeks after the transplant but is slowly putting it back on again.
When he was just having chemo he found liquorice very good as it has a strong flavour but is not so good now
I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful but I’ve spoken to medical and non medical people and the only suggestion is to just keep trying different foods but things he used to like such as pizza, chow mien, roast dinners he no longer likes as they taste different and he finds bread too dry
I hope things improve for you
Lara
Hi Lara, thanks for that great tip which I hope some of the patients currently going through transplant will find useful.
I was told that mouth ulcers are fairly common early post transplant, or it’s certainly fairly common to get a really sore mouth. That in turn makes eating very difficult at a time when it’s important to get as much nourishment as possible, though it’s often difficult already due to a lack of appetite.
The weekend I was let home from hospital for the first time after my transplant I developed a fungal infection in my mouth, which turned my tongue white and lead to very painful splits in the surface of my tongue. It was agonising at the time and being immediately after coming home it lead to a period of intense depression as I was admitted back to hospital a couple of days later.
I ended up having to have a series of about four mouth washes to be taken in sequence and it took around a week to take some effect.
Good tips on the taste too. It does take a long time for taste to come back and foods that you liked before transplant taste totally different. It’s a case of trial and error to find things that you can at least tolerate and don’t taste too bad. If you have a sore mouth, liquid based foods such as soups, milkshakes, soft ice cream and such help, as you don’t need to chew. Cold foods like ice cream and iced lollies help with soothing a sore mouth too. The nurses in hospital used to make me nutritional milk shakes mixed with ice cream which were yummy and kept me going.
I hope your husband is doing ok. At 7 weeks he still has quite a way to go but persevere and hopefully he will be able to look back on it all. It’s now over 6 years since my transplant and it’s now like it never happened.
Best wishes.
Steve
Thanks lara for you tips me son loves pizza to hope every thing goes well for you x