What did you eat during treatments?

myself back to when I was getting radiation.  After rads I only used my tube because of the 5FU....but didn't use my tube at all during rads.  I couldn't eat mashed potatoes, but could eat potato soup because the pieces of potato were small...also I chewed everything up well, and washed it down with water.  Another favorite was cheese and califlower soup....Cream of rice cereal...I added a lot of milk to make it soupy.  Also soft boiled eggs.  Don't forget avacado....it can be mashed and mixed into a smoothie of any flavor.  I do remember drinking 1/2 gallon of milk a day.

My thoughts on the Unjury protein  powder was that because a person can get the unflavored, it can be added to anything to up the protein....be it a soup, or cereal....or even plain milk. 

I used a lot of L-Gluatamine powder mixed with water....it's supposed to help heal rad burns in the mucous membranes.  It's an amino acid...and was sold right in my Onc's office, but can be found at the health food store.

I'll keep trying to remember what else I ate....food was pretty limited, I'd think it'd be easier to remember.

p

Hi Laralyn.  Sorry you are having issues.  When I was doing chemo and radiation in May and June, I ate a lot of watermelon and cantelope.  I also ate a lot of raw vegatables like cucumber and squash.  There was a long time this is about all I ate.  Even now, I am having problems eating and swallowing.  I do several Boosts a day and try to get the Boost Plus or High Protein.

I still have problems with bread and fried foods so I normally stay away from them.  My tastes have changed as well.  Where I used to like pizza and spaghetti etc, I find the sauce is too acidic.  I also am not eating spicy foods which is another big change for me.

Hopefully, you will find somethings that you can eat easily, but don't stop looking and trying other things.  Somethings I have found have surprised me!

Good Luck!

Hi Laryn, 

I experimented with a lot of food. I had the luxury of family who could help me go to our nearby store and get food that I felt like testing out. I still don't have a PEG, and went through rads and chemo and by week 7 the throat was at it's worst. I'm doing adjuvant now and hope to survive without the PEG. I tested the following foods, in the following order of 'difficulty' of swallowing. I hope this helps you. 

Also, I have a really powerful blended that I use to "pulverize" the food and make it very liquidy so that it's easy to go down. Here's a list of my experiments. All of them are mixed with ENSURE as a base liquid. Note that you may react different than me.

Blended foods - Difficulty: High

Banana, Avocados, Peanut butter, Sweet Potatoes, Yam, Chickpeas - I could tolerate this in the early days. But once the sores got worse, I had to stop. These fruits are way to thick and sticks to the mouth after blending so I had to go for easier foods. Further, avocados and bananas have 'latex' on them and should be the first ones to be avoided. 

Blended foods - Difficulty: Medium

Spinach (blanced), Papaya, Cantoulope, Blueberries, Cooked Crimini Mushrooms - "Softer" and less sticky type fruits and veggies. However, once the mouth sores got worse, I couldn't do this and had to mix the medium and easy ones together. It's all about the liquid thickness, had to reduce the thickness. Blueberries generate quite a lot of 'little seeds' and getting them in the sores are painful so it'll need to go with ensure.

Blended foods - Difficulty: Easy

Watermelon, Cucumber, Carrot Juice, Half boiled Pasteurized Egg (can be eaten alone) - These are probably the 'thinnest' type of liquid blends that I could use. Some of them taken along will 'sting' such as carrot juice, but if I mix carrot juice with Ensure it will be ok.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

When my husband was going through treatment he had severe mucositis and nausea. The only thing he could eat was poached eggs or chicken noodle soup. But since that soup has very little calories or nutritional value, I rarely served it. He mostly survived on those Scandishakes that the docs recommended. That and Ensure, which he hated, but it was the only way he could get nutrition. He almost begged for the tube halfway through treatment.

Now that we're weaning off the tube, I'm experimenting with smoothies. He still hates Ensure and I have to admit, it's pretty yucky. As far as the smoothies it's hard not to make them sweet or without dairy in order to pack in the calories and protein. But have you tried cottage cheese or plain yogurt? Maybe you could make a smoothie with cottage cheese and veggies like carrots or avocados, or throw in an apple or banana, then add protein powder, flaxseed meal, peanut butter, almond butter, or ground nuts. As I recall though, bananas burned when he was going through treatment....so maybe forget the fruit for now. I have a NutriBullet and that works great for smoothies. Maybe try creamed soups with veggies and put everything in blender, then add cream, olive oil and unflavored protein powder? My husband liked my pea soup (I make it with yellow peas) and Campbell's tomato soup with cream and cheese.

I think there are smoothie recipes on the superthread. Have you checked that out? 

It's all just trial and error as I'm sure you've heard a bajillion times before.

Edited to add: This is a good website that has lots of tips:

http://www.dana-farber.org/Adult-Care/Treatment-and-Support/Patient-and-Family-Support/Nutrition-Services.aspx#Resources

Good luck to you!

I ate by mouth during both of my radiation treatments because my Oncal doctor was very unwise about things like a PEG tube. It was very hard for me to get anything down but what my caretaker did was to make watery grits and eggs types of food. It is hard to remember back on that time because I been trying to forget that part of life. I now live with a PEG tube and wish my oncal doctor knew about them too, as it would have made life for me a little better back then.

Tim