white tongue from chemo

yes. chemo can not only dry out your mouth big time but can cause thrush. I believe there is a mouth wash available that will help. Biotene??? There is also a toothpast to help combat this but I'm sure other women will come up with better ideas.

It's important to take care of this. The white some can be brushed off, probably. If that's what it is.

 Important to drink a lot and keep mouth from getting too dry. It can affect the health of your teeth and gums...

Good luck!

Definately tell your team about it.  There is an anti-fungal mouth wash which will take care of it.  Now on the nutbar side of the continuum, this is what I thought about when I had the sores and thrush:  it's basically that your whole system of good bacteria and bad bacteria, along with the bad c-guys are getting killed off.  Without the good bacteria, your natural complement of yeast/fungus grows out of control, and works its way from the gut to your mouth, where it shouldn't be.  I started taking Bio-K yogurty-milk, which is like yogurt, thin, packed with millions of good bacteria. You can get it at health-food stores, and in Canada, some grocer chains carry it, like Loblaws.... I can say it took care of the problem. I also found after I took it, I stopped having those weird smell aversions....some things just smelled so nauseating... No one is talking about this, and my medical team really dismissed this. I later got a naturopath to help me over the effects of chemo, and she thought it made perfect sense. But it doesn't take much to try it...It's not cheap (maybe $3 a small pot which is good for a day or two)  Otherwise maybe try an organic yogurt with live bacteria).  Avoid refined sugars and refined flours, - try adding fruits and vegetables and whole grains, even a little change will help.  But by all means, check with your medical team.  I know we tend to want to self-doctor ourselves through chemo and there's a lot of not-so-good things we can do to ourselves...get a green light from your team before you do anything, including supplements, which may interfere with your treatment....

I agree it sounds like thrush, which I had chronically throughout my 4 AC Chemo.  Get it looked at sooner rather than later because, if it is thrush, it can become entrenched and can even become resistant to the antifungals.  Mine would just seem to be resolving and then with the next infusion - BAM, white tongue, yucky taste again and it made eating that much more difficult.

I also agree with Kath and drgnfly about our natural balance of bacterium being out of whack.  If you can't eat dairy, you can take probiotic capsules (i.e, acidophilis, bifidus, etc.), which is a good way to rebalance your digestive system overall.  My oral thrush didn't really resolve until a couple of months after chemo.  I think my natural defenses were so worn down that most remedies were useless and I just needed time for my body to heal itself.  

Hi I had this exact problem.  I was tested for fungus and it was negative.  Turns out I had stomatitis which is common.  There isn't much to be done and I was told it would go away in time, and it did. 

Good luck

Teresa

Hi Debi:

I had the same problem after second and third Taxotere tx -- developed oral thrush -- Ugh!

I was using Biotene but it didn't clear up the thrush, so my onco presribed Nystatin.  You can use it as a mouthwash or you can swish and swallow, which I did (as per directions).  Everything cleared up about a week after my last tx.

Here's to a s/e-free 2009!

Linda