Help with vomiting, extreme nausea, and pain medication

dabydibi

Hello,

This is my first post. My mom had surgery for stomach cancer on 9/13/07. They removed 3/4 of her stomach, some lymph nodes, and part of her pancreas. She had chemo and radiation therapy which finished in May 2008. After the five and a half weeks of radiation were finished she has had non-stop problems with pain, nausea, and vomiting. So far she had a CT and PET scan and is cancer free.

Unfortunately, she doesn't feel any better. She feels sick everyday and takes Percocet for pain management. She can go days without vomiting but then she can vomit everyday for a week or two straight. She is down to 116 pounds and we are becoming quite disturbed. She does take Ultrase and Reglan on a regular basis but they really don't seem to do much.

Our doctors are quite vague about how to help her from here since their respective duties in her treatment are finished.

Any information or advice you may have on what foods to stay away from and what foods are good to eat would be much appreciated.

Has anyone else ever had this kind of reaction to the surgery and treatments and if so, does it ever subside? It's been over a year since the surgery and more than six months since her last chemo treatment. We need help!

Thanks so much,
Angie

Tomissimo

Well, amazingly enough I had
Well, amazingly enough I had my surgery on the exact same day as your mom did. Not quite the same surgery as I had my whole stomach and bottom third of my esophagus removed though. Weight loss is a big problem, for example I am 5'8" and down to staying a stable weight now at 105 to 108 lbs. I was 165 before everything started so I've lost over a third of my body weight.

After surgery/treatments I noticed many differences in my tastes and preferences. For example I have become lactose intolerant and processed sweets: cake, donuts, ice cream, candy, and especially chocolates are hard on my system and make me feel sick. Certain foods that gave me 'dumping syndrome' I stay away from as well, for example grape juice.

On the other hand I technically eat healthier as I eat primarily fruits and vegetables as they taste the best to me. Meat is fairly hard to get down so I eat baby sized pieces and chew thoroughly.

Another confusing note is sometimes food bothers me and other times it does not. My wife's friend is a dietician and she mentioned to keep a diary/log of what you eat and what causes problems and what goes down well. It helps to diagnose particular foods that cause problems, or even if you notice a trend of foods with common ingredients that cause problems. For me that was dairy, eating cereal caused a lot of pain as did ice cream etc.