Any Food ideas ?

adamson091654

sweetblood22 said:

You are doing great, Dominic!
I think you are doing so well. Maybe add an extra boost or ensure a day. Coconut water is great for hydration and potassium and replacing electrolytes, better than sports drinks. Plus more calories than water. Not as many as sports drinks though. Plus gatorade gave me terrible heart burn and burns my mouth even now i cant tolerate it but i can do coconut water. At your stage of treatment with out a peg tube I wouldn't consume or drink anything with out calories.

I lost my taste within four rads and by five I couldn't smell. By the Sunday after the tenth one, that was my last meal for a long time. That next Monday after rads, the roof of my mouth came off in a huge sheet. My mouth and tongue wouldn't stop bleeding. So if you have 18 down and you are eating that much by mouth, you are doing great! Keep it up!

I am so glad that you want to keep trying things. That's wonderful. Good luck with the lo mien and the chow mien.

MRPs Meal Replacement
I have been doing protein shakes for years (56 years old) from my weight-lifting. I will start my treatment (the exact same treatment as yours) on 2/2. I will use Whey protein with a MRP called The Ultimate Meal (a powder that gives you all nutrients you can use. ) I will eat what I can for as long as I can (supplemented by the MRPs) then if I get the PEG I will continue the MRPs w/water. I am new to this but I hope this plan works...

harper rose

adamson091654 said:

MRPs Meal Replacement
I have been doing protein shakes for years (56 years old) from my weight-lifting. I will start my treatment (the exact same treatment as yours) on 2/2. I will use Whey protein with a MRP called The Ultimate Meal (a powder that gives you all nutrients you can use. ) I will eat what I can for as long as I can (supplemented by the MRPs) then if I get the PEG I will continue the MRPs w/water. I am new to this but I hope this plan works...

food issues
I am 4+ months out on stage 4 tonsil cancer. I had a feeding tube put in at the start. It had to be removed at week 5...my stomach rides high and the tube was beyond painful! I could hardly walk with the dang thing in. I had two tastes, bad and terrible. I lived on malt-o-meal and vanilla yogurt and water. Taste came back a couple of weeks after treatment....my hands down favorite thing is curry! It smells good and you can put anything in it, yea veggies!!....I still cannot do sweets or fruit....I never have had a sweet tooth (luckily) but I miss apples. On a side note....until my throat rebelled, I took small sips of tonic water throughout the day to cut the mucus! Works amazingly well! Asked my onc if it was ok...she said if it works, go for it.
Hang in there, Hugs HR

Neckcancerchick

What to eat
Eat everything you can, even if it tastes terrible, very soon every taste bud will be gone! I am a month out of recovery, I too was on Sisplatin every Wednesday for 7 weeks and I have no taste buds, they came back for like 3 weeks and now they are gone again, eat everything with plastic spoons and forks it makes food taste better! Drink allot of fattening milkshakes and ice creams, anything really good and fattening! Good luck my friend I have been there and I know how it feels! If you need someone to talk to, I am here!
Melissa

Neckcancerchick

harper rose said:

food issues
I am 4+ months out on stage 4 tonsil cancer. I had a feeding tube put in at the start. It had to be removed at week 5...my stomach rides high and the tube was beyond painful! I could hardly walk with the dang thing in. I had two tastes, bad and terrible. I lived on malt-o-meal and vanilla yogurt and water. Taste came back a couple of weeks after treatment....my hands down favorite thing is curry! It smells good and you can put anything in it, yea veggies!!....I still cannot do sweets or fruit....I never have had a sweet tooth (luckily) but I miss apples. On a side note....until my throat rebelled, I took small sips of tonic water throughout the day to cut the mucus! Works amazingly well! Asked my onc if it was ok...she said if it works, go for it.
Hang in there, Hugs HR

Sweets
I too have no taste for sweets! I am a little over a month out of neck cancer and I had taste buds and they went away already! I opted not to do the feeding tube but I lost allot of weight and it was painful to eat or swallow! I am still so depressed, nobody seems to understand that eating is important and it's hard to eat when you have no taste and it's painful to eat! I am losing more and more support each week and I am bummed, I also have Lymphadema on my face, I look so weird to me! Did you get any of that? Did they remove a tumor? I had 1 removed in October 2009 and another in July of 2010 both from my neck and tongue. I don't get the bad mucous anymore like before, I took Glcoperalt twice a day, I too live on ice cream, milk shakes, ensure, coffee and water, now my bones are feeling the effect and fighting me, I need to start a multi vitamin with calcium and iron, sorry to be a bummer, I just hope in 4 months I will be at your point

Neckcancerchick

Dragons7-7-2010 said:

food suggestions
DominicM,

I am 6 weeks post treatment SCC tonsil cancer stage 3 HPV+, 3 treatments of cisplatin, doxetaxel, 5FU 3 weeks apart with 30 rads. I finished radiation treatment December 3, 2010 and chemotherapy November 30th. I managed without a PEG. Though in my case I did have weight to lose so that was not so bad in my mind but the doctors were upset with me. I still have significant taste loss but there are foods that worked for me:

Pasta with alfredo sauce - home made, store bought and from a restaurant. Specificaly, from the store I liked Barilla alfredo and pasta found in the refridgerated section.

Cheese, any kind worked for me but expecially sharp cheddar left out at room temperature

Salad dressing: I put blue cheese or ranch dressing on many things that helped them go down.

Soups: Homemade turkey / chicken broth helped when I had no appetite
New england clam chowder

yogurt - particularly vanilla and especially greek yogurt as it is more nutritious and has more calories and protein

eggs, scrambled, sunny side up etc.

Carrot Juice - I like Bolthouse Farms or Odwalla

Canned Asparagus is very soft and easy to get down to give you a source of green vegetables
Avocados

canned smoked vienna sausages

and then there is the baby food route I found stage one pears a good fruit source

Much depends on if you get mucositis / stomatitis or thrush - sores in your mouth.
I got all three and so much of what people considered bland would burn my mouth and throat

Finally, if you have one near you I found Smoothie king to be a great source for nutritious shakes / smooothie. Partcularly the peanut power plus, I like the plain vanilla or the chocolate as it has almost 1500 calories and lots of protein if you get the supersize. And it has a healthy source of sweetener compared to fast food type places.

And remember water water water - hydrate hydrate hydrate
That was my biggest issue. And if you lose your taste for water as I did then try adding either mint leaves, lemon slices, lime slices, cucumber or orange slices to the water.
At one point in my first week all water tasted like salt water and that made it difficult to get my daily water intake as doctor ordered.

I highly recommend a recipe / cancer advice book I got from MD anderson

Eating Well Through Cancer authors Holly Clegg and Gerald Miletello MD
I am sure you can order it online via amazon etc
ISBN 978-0-9610888-8-0 should help you locate it.
or check out how to order it via the website mentioned on the book back cover http://www.hollyclegg.com/

Hope this helps and feel free to send me a message if you would like any more food tips.
~ Eileen Cibil AKA Dragons 7-7-2010

Sole mate
Wow, reading your post you sounded just like me, I had weight to lose too and opted not to have the feeding tube also the doctors were really pushing it and I was like no, no, no! I even went so far as to try the surgery but something told me not to, and to this day I am glad I didn't! I was having a really hard time eating and still am! I finished my 33 rads and 7 weeks of sisplatin 7 treatments in all 1 a week, December 6th 2010. I am down like 30 lbs, I had taste for like 3 weeks, no taste for sweets at all, and then I woke up one day with no taste again, I am really upset about it too because I was able eat and I love food but now I am lucky if I can get anything in, ice cream which I loved now tastes like tin cans, weird?? and I was eating meat which now tastes gross and I get sick thinking about food when I put it on my mouth. I am coming on here because I think I am getting on everyone's nerves, my husband, my mom and dad, my friends which have never really been a good support system and my doctor because he said my sores were looking good but yet I have no taste again and my lymphadema is worse! I was doing good but not feeling like being happy anymore, I want to complain! I need my cancer patients support again because they understood me

Pam M

Neckcancerchick said:

What to eat
Eat everything you can, even if it tastes terrible, very soon every taste bud will be gone! I am a month out of recovery, I too was on Sisplatin every Wednesday for 7 weeks and I have no taste buds, they came back for like 3 weeks and now they are gone again, eat everything with plastic spoons and forks it makes food taste better! Drink allot of fattening milkshakes and ice creams, anything really good and fattening! Good luck my friend I have been there and I know how it feels! If you need someone to talk to, I am here!
Melissa

Feel For You
Melissa,
Welcome. I can't tell you (but you can guess) how bitter I would have been if my taste buds had started coming back, then went away again. Sorry to hear about that development. I was lucky; my taste came back pretty quickly, even sweet (although it often fades quickly). Have your docs seen this with other patients? Sorry, too that your nearest and dearest can't be more sympathetic. Hoping your ability to taste comes back soon.