The Mask and Weight Loss

Yep. My hubby had to have his

Yep. My hubby had to have his mask refitted about 1/2 way through.

mask

I wondered about the same thing. My husband lost a lot of weight (75 lbs) during treatment for tonsil cancer, but never had his mask remade. An aquaintance of mine, whose husband went through treatment for base of tongue cancer at the same time, had to have his mask remade half way through due to weight loss. I think it's very individualized. Everyone looses weight in a different way, therefore, I think the changes in the way the mask fit would also be individualized. 

My husbands lost about 20lbs

My husbands lost about 20lbs and hasn't said anything about refitting of the mask.  That's a good question. 

Mine

actually got tighter around week 3, I felt like it was strangling me...

Its back to what it was tho..

Chicklette said:

Thank You

Thanks for the responses.  I guess we will have to leave this in the hands of the experts.  My husband was weighed today and was disgusted by how much weight he has gained.  But, I'm sure he will lose a lot of it once he starts treatment, so I'm not concerned at all.  I just have a feeling he may need a refitting in a few weeks.

Mask and Weight

It's good that he's gained weight. I gained over ten pounds before starting treatment and lost 25 overall. I'm not that big - i was at 185 to start and now at 160 post treatment. He will lose weight, probably a lot. I hope he's tried all of his favorite foods, I'm still in the wonky taste bud stage where I have some taste but it's strange tastes. Beer all tastes like oranges for example.

I lost weight in the face but the techs didn't think I needed to re-make the mask. It was so tight at the beginning so I was glad it became a little bit loose. I'm at 4 weeks post treatment and beginning to get my strength back a little each day. Good luck on your journey and try to stay positive!!!

Don

Dieticians and the "don't lose weight" message ...

One thing you're told in early treatment, when freshly diagnosed and trying to take everything in is "don't lose weight during treatment"

It's actually bogus.  There are a variety of scholarly articles and studies that demonstrate that losing weight during treatment has no measurable impact on the clinical outcomes and quality of life scores.  (Talking about the cohort of people who were already over-weight or obese).

In fact, if you force yourself to eat during therapy and are suffering dysgeusia (taste loss/distortion), especially the kind that makes food rancid, you can develop some pretty significant food aversions and aversion-based swallowing problems.  If a person is already heavy, they should have NO WORRIES at all about losing weight during treatment.

The radiologists and technicians and nurses will all tell you that re-fitting the mask is routine, something done on the same day, and is not disruptive to treatment.

What bugs me is that the dieticians will IMPLY that it's a major problem, and create a lot of stress around the issue.

The message should be "during treatment, make best effort to be at a HEALTHY WEIGHT (or above), if you're already carrying around extra calories it'll help you get through, don't worry too much about the loss as long as you stay above X kilos.  Your focus should be on hydration, protein and nutrition in that order, calories can be last on the list"

Incomplete Advice Given Early

Yeah, the thing about the dieticians is they usually get their message imprinted on you very early in the game, when you're still dewey-eyed and impressionable and eager to fight hard and be compliant across all fronts.

But it just isn't backed by the science.  Weight loss BEFORE treatment is very bad:  indicative of an aggressive and late stage cancer eating up healthy mass... but weight loss during treatment is scientifically substantiated as FINE (unless you're already underweight or at risk of dehydration & malnutrition).

Personally, I put on 8 kilos in the early weeks of treatment based on their bogus advice - as soon as I found out I had cancer, I started a healthy "cancer diet" with all these cruciferous vegetables, lean protein, great diet .. and I felt so strong.  These idiots were advising me to eat pizza, big macs, anything and everything, because I had to pre-empt any weight loss (I was already 30k or more over my ideal bodyweight, and it was a non-issue, but because they got in early with an ignorant point of view, it caused physical problems and a lot of compliance-distress as it became harder.

Fighting cancer is hard enough, listen to your body is the best advice .. iif you can't eat .. don't.  Just find ways to maintain hydration, protein, nutrition (in that order of priority).

As a foot-note:  Apparently protein is vitally important to the recovery-speed.  You should start with your bodyweight in kilos, and then basically double it .. and that is the amount of grams of protein you should want each day.  (As protein is the foundation of body-repair).  Also raw veges and foods rich in enzymes.  (So example, if I'm 100kg body weight, I want 200grams of protein per day).

It's not that hard to do, even on a PEG, if you supplement any formula (eg sustagen) with the kind of protein supplements bodybuilders use (eg musashi)