Prostate radiation. I'm at 18:28 sessions; I've got questions

@mjp0512 You may want to start a food diary. I found that when I eat or consume a lot of dairy foods in a day, my fecal urgency gets a lot worse the following day. However, my gastroenterologist says, "Everybody is different!"

@ededed - I'm a cravings eater. My freezer might be full but if I want a T-Bone and don't have one, I'll get one. Same holds true for everything else. I can go weeks without the thought of cheese, ice cream, broccoli, etc., but when the urge hits, I go get it and eat it till it's gone. No change in bowels even if I decide that 1/2 gallon of ice cream is breakfast, lunch, and dinner or I steam up 5 lbs. of broccoli and do the same. I just live with it. No big deal anymore.

Prostate cancer, I've found, is a never-ending series of new normals. The sooner THAT realization hits, the sooner you get on with living. Do some of the new normals suck? Absolutely! I'd much rather pee on my own than self-catheterize 6 times a day but that's just not the new normal.

My husband finished his 22 of 25 sessions today but has not experience warm pain. However, when he had his 23 of 25 sessions, he experienced cramping pain on the lower left stomach. They immediately sent him to ER at the next building. They diagnosed him with diverticulitis and put him on 7-day antibiotics. He's fine now but has to do complete diet change.

@mjp0512
There could still be a connection to diet. Foods that have a fair amount of myristic acid set my gut into overdrive. The foods that have myristic acid include anything with palm oil, palm kernel, coffee, beer, wine, (but I can still enjoy hard liquor) . Yep, new normal is where it is at.

@mjp0512 Yup, that’s why I go to the Deli around the corner instead of the supermarket when I get those cravings.
They only sell the really small bags of Fiery Cheetos and Nacho Cheese Doritos!!😋

@heavyphil - Cheddar cheese Pringles are my downfall. I do appreciate that they list all the chemicals on the label. And, they come in those small tins so when I eat the whole tin, it's only 370 calories. 🤣

@ededed - Any diet without coffee is not worth getting out of bed for.

@mjp0512 I can tolerate 1/2 cup of coffee per day. That is down from my "old normal" of 3 cups per day. I won't lie, I miss those 2 1/2 cups.

@prettypass2000 Some 30 years ago, I went to bed, and my abdomen was a bit sore. About 30 minutes later, I took some TUMS hoping that would relieve some of the discomfort. About 30 minutes after that, I put my clothes on and went to the hospital because at that point, the discomfort started to become real pain. In early diagnosis, there was a problem because I had sushi for dinner that night, and if they treated me for some food contamination, it could make the alternative worse, and vice versa.

Hours later, a nurse came to me asking me to stop screaming in pain so loud as I was scaring other patients. Finally, after their tests, they gave me some morphine (good shit stuff—I knew I was in pain, but didn't care), as they had determined that I had a diverticulitis rupture.

A friend of mine where I worked also had diverticulitis, and his diet was probably what your husband follows: no nuts, no spicy food, nothing with seeds (e.g., tomatoes), etc. I asked what other options there were. So, I had my descending colon removed and my transverse colon attached to my rectum. There have been some unintended consequences from that proceedure but nothing as rough as that diet. You both have my sympathy.

@ededed I normally make an eight-cup pot each morning. My wife has a third of that before 9 AM (any more and any later, she's not going to bed that night), I have one-third for breakfast, and the last third for an afternoon drink (and I sleep soundly). Since I've been doing the radiation, I just make a six-cup pot and my wife and I split it in the morning.

That works for ME, but as you've probably seen in these forums, everyone is different.