Cancer & Chemotherapy

shadygardener

I’m on chemotherapy for breast cancer and have bad diarrhea for 2 weeks after treatment and feel better for 1 week. My problem is that I’m struggling to eat enough to keep my strength up. I really need to lose weight but this isn’t good. My nutritionist said I’m losing muscle instead of food, eating little like I do. And they said I should try to get 75 grams of protein daily. But I’m wanting potatoes. Any suggestions?

1poundatax

I don't have any personal experience with chemo but I know when my mom was getting chemo it helped if I served her very small portion sizes. She said that just seeing a large amount of food on her plate made it hard to eat but she could deal with a little food. I don't know if this is a common experience or not. She could tolerate eggs, so I would give her only 1/2 a scrambled egg at a time. Later she would eat the other half. We also used Boost or Ensure. It would sometimes take an entire day for her to drink one but she was getting some nutrition. I hope other people have some suggestions that will help you. My prayers are with you.

Fflpnari

do you like any protein shakes? Anything you like to nibble on throughout the day? Peanut butter on toast? with crackers?

AnnPT77

When I was going through chemotherapy**, one of my friends made me a delicious dish that was basically mashed potatoes enriched with sour cream and cream cheese, which was very tasty and had the extra calories I needed. If you eat dairy, would something like that appeal to you?

I know that there may be phases where things don't taste good, or you're feeling queasy or having other digestive side effects. Getting in calories is really priority one, with nutrition close behind. If you eat dairy, do you like yogurt? Greek yogurt is a great protein source. The plain type can be used pretty much as you'd use sour cream, or you can get flavored types in a huge range of flavors. (It's possible that the live-culture types might help your digestive system, but I don't know - depends on what's going on. For sure, eating it during chemo helped me fight recurring yeast infections. (Chemo is *not* a fun hobby! 😬) If you don't eat dairy, but would consider soy foods, soy milk or silken tofu have quite neutral flavor, but can be be blended into other foods (like, say, potatoes 😉).

How about something like sweet potatoes? Would that sound good? That would have some other micronutrients. Do you you like peanut butter, and will your digestive system tolerate that? That has a good complement of calories, and a bit of protein. (There also exists peanut butter powder - some common brands are PBFit and PB2 - that you can mix into things, that have protein but less fat, if fat is hard to handle.) Have you tried meal replacement drinks, or milkshakes (or nondairy equivalent, if you can't eat dairy)? The meal replacement drinks really differ a lot by brand/flavor when it comes to palatability, so it might be good to try different brands/flavors to see if any go down well.

I don't know what chemo you're doing. I did adriamycin/cytoxan for 3 months (4 x 3 weeks), then Taxol (also 4 x 3 weeks). I had levels of nausea that are no longer common for most folks on the A/C. I found that the sooner I could force myself to eat (and keep it down), the sooner I felt better; and that small amounts of food frequently worked better than big meals less frequently. I found that I could start with fairly bland and easy-to-eat things like the mashed-potato dish, chunks of banana, yogurt, maybe cream of wheat or oatmeal, and then work my way back to normal eating. Drinking plenty of water (or herb teas, etc., that weren't contraindicated) also helped.

I feel for you, what you're going through now. Hang in there, one day at a time, and you can make it through this. I know it's tough. I'm cheering for you!

** also for breast cancer, stage 3 (locally advanced), a bit over 20 years ago, and still no evidence of recurrence now.

Be_theBest_Me

My best advice.... please don't hate me. You need some thc. My cousin was battling lukemia and that was all that helped her!! My youth pastor at the timehelped us get it.haha she was able to eat again!! Gained weight back!! I miss her like crazy!! Protein shakes helped her a whole lot!! Oh and pb cookies!! 1 cup pb 1 cup sugar 1 egg bake exactly 10 mins @ 350!! Please check out cleaningforareason.org they help cancer patients take a lil break!! Get ya a couple of free cleans!!!