Eating during cancer care

Hi @nauden. I know it’s aways our goal to eat healthy, well balanced food. Especially when we have cancer/treatments. I think we feel fearful if we make a misstep and eat something on the naughty-list for food!
Your palliative care nurse was spot on in encouraging you to eat high quality food right now. My Mayo dietician had also told me the same thing but added high caloric, (reasonably) healthy foods. 😅
So she had my husband add foods such as Lactaid ice cream to my smoothies along with protein powder. Lorna Doone shortbread cookies, even bacon!! Basically anything I could get in my mouth that I could tolerate, stay down and add weight! So I enjoyed all the naughty foods that I’d avoided for years. That helped to build some meat back on my bones. (I’d lost 40 pounds that I could ill afford)
After I reached a target weight (it was still a struggle) then I returned to my healthy diet and really, there was no harm done. So enjoy what you can get down!

Often when we go through chemo we lose our ability to taste anything and can also lose our taste buds. That’s what happened to me so even favorite foods just felt awful in my mouth. Cardboard and paste were the feelings I remember.
I learned a few tricks such as putting a drip of maple syrup on food (I sound like Buddy in Elf). But maple syrup actually added a ‘flavor’ to the food. It didn’t taste like maple but it did bring some foods to life.
Tru Lemon products worked for flavoring water. There’s no sugar and it comes in Tru Lemon, Tru Lime and Tru Orange. Made by freeze drying then grinding the food into powder. No chemicals. (Grocery store or Amazon)

There are other tricks and wonderful foods in the website I’ll post below. My husband (who did all my cooking during treatment) followed Chef Ryan Callahan’s “Cooking for Chemo”. webpage. He downloaded the digital Cooking for Chemo recipe book.
I’d encourage you to check out some of the recipes.
https://www.cookingforchemo.org/
By the way, welcome to Mayo Connect. You just gained a new supportive family. ☺️
You mentioned just starting chemo…the nausea is the pits. Don’t hesitate to talk to your chemo team to ask for anti-nausea meds!
May I ask what type of cancer decided your body was a good place to take up residence?

Hi Lori,
I have gioblastoma; had successfull tumor resection January 26 (thank you Dr. Meyer!!!). Thank you for the advice and recommendations. We are currently in Rochester Monday through Friday for radiation; just starting week two of six. Your cancer diagnosis? My best to you, Nancy

Hello @raremiracle2 - I am so glad you found the information helpful and that you will share it. Mayo Clinic does have excellent information available on their site. Eating healthy is so important when a person is not well. I am so sorry to hear about your sister and her current struggles, I hope she can find some relief.

Stay in contact with your healthcare team to keep watch on the symptoms you mentioned for yourself.

You obviously have a close relationship with your sister, do you live close by?

Not sure what to add, but I’ve lost 90 pounds in the last 6 months on chemotherapy. Likely I was a fat guy! I have neuroendocrine Tumors ,NET, that started in my pancreas and spread to my liver.
I can’t eat anything, everything tastes metallic and no taste at all. I’m off of it now for about 3 weeks but no improvement with my taste and the neuropathy has never been this bad. My feet are killing me and I can’t feel the end of my finger tips.
Doctor had me talk to a Nutritionists who really didn’t have much to offer, eat more, no kidding. But, she did say that over 20% of people on chemo die of malnutrition not the cancer.

That’s fantastic news, Nancy! Mayo-Rochester is near and dear to my heart, too. It’s truly a place of hope and miracles isn’t it? My husband and I had to relocate there for 4 months for my bone marrow transplant and then of course all the followups. It feels like my second home. I’m so happy you’re doing well and wish you continued success on your treatment there. 🥰

There are very few conversations in our forum with members who have gioblastoma. When you’re feeling up to it someday it would be wonderful if you’d like to share your experience in the Brain cancer support group. The link is here: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/brain-tumor-support-group/
We never know how many people we encourage with our cancer survival stories.
If you have 4 weeks in Rochester you might be lucky enough to see all the gorgeous spring flowers that are around the campus! They are under all that snow…☺️. Keep me posted on your progress, ok?

Hi @lastround, I can sure empathize with what you’re going through! The lack of taste and the slipperiness of food in the mouth caused by the chemo is so unappealing! Never mind the nausea!
My dietician told me: ‘Calories over nutrition right now’ after I’d lost 40 pounds…putting me well under 100 pounds. That was grim. You lost 90 pounds! That’s significant and you sure need to put some calories back into your body. So anything you can get down that would be a win-win!

Chemo knocks down rapidly dividing cells such as cancer cells. Unfortunately our entire digestive system is coated with fast growing cells and so our guts and mouths can be impacted too. We often lose our taste buds and the ability to taste the foods, along with having everything we put in our mouth feel slimy or like cardboard. It’s awful!

A few things I was able to tolerate sometimes…that seemed to change daily: Swanson Canned white breast of chicken. I could nibble on that. For some reason I was able to ‘feel’ the salt or taste it? Anyway I could pick away at a few pieces of that on my plate, a triangle of bread, applesauce. But I could not even get tuna past my mouth!
Smoothies made with Lactose free ice cream went down ok. Pudding and yogurt worked sporadically. What I loathed was the ‘taste’ of the protein powders added to make everything healthier.
Other things were tiny bites of a toasty cheese sandwich. They had to be small so that I couldn’t actually feel the bit of cheese! I couldn’t handle the feel of cheese in my mouth. But occasionally I could eat a little cheese spread on crackers. Or my husband would put cottage cheese in a blender and make a little cup for me in the hospital so I could spread that on crackers to nibble. The tiny Ritz sandwich crackers with peanut butter or cheese went down ok.
Banana bread with a drop of maple syrup spread on top. Oatmeal with a couple drops of syrup. Not sure the mechanics behind maple syrup but a few drops of that negated the metallic taste of foods!
Whatever you can find to get down, do it! I lived 2 days on Rice Krispie treats! My dietitian said to ‘go for it’! She even brought some up from the cafeteria for me.

I’m so sorry your feet are feeling the neuropathy from the chemo. We can also get what’s called chemo feet. Small amounts of the chemo can seep from the capillaries and cause burning in our hands and feet. That will eventually fade. I used aloe cream on my feet and palms to help cool things down but only time will clear that. The neuropathy will also take some time. For most people it does fade completely. Hopefully it does for you too. Though some patients never quite get rid of all the pins and needles.

Are you finished with the chemo treatments for now? What’s the next step?

I'm with you . Chocolate pudding I can eat, my 89 year old mother makes the homemade kind with the skin on top.
If your having trouble with balancing your suger mix in corn starch, it helps to balance things.
That's what my tumors in the liver did, they sucked all the glucose out of me.
Finished chemo a couple weeks ago, 6 months, have a Dr appointment Monday. Next scans are Friday the 3rd of March and appointment the 6th.
Then they tell me what the maintenance program will be.
I'm terminal stage 4, so buying time is my only option.
Got diagnosed last spring. Had no symptoms, got a huinia fixed and they noticed something on the liver.

@grandpabob Thank you for starting this conversation! Like many others, having a loss of taste and related senses can be so danged frustrating. As if we don't already have enough going on, we cannot see to find something appealing to us. And heavens forbid if things we smell might make us nauseous on top of it all, right?

Like others have mentioned, finding something to eat, regardless if it is "healthy" or "right" is what I can try for. My husband is not really on any restrictions. So, sometimes I want a little 1/2" piece of cheese, or something a bit spicy, or a piece of chocolate. Bread often goes bad for me, because I might want a slice, but then that's it. Maybe half a hard-boiled egg, with pepper on it. I do try to get protein powder into me to keep up my strength, and will fix a smoothie with greek yogurt, berries, almond milk, and flavored protein powder. I found a brand of greek yogurt called Zoi that is very creamy and has a great taste. They make several different flavors including orange cream and honey! I do need to temper my food based on kidney disease guidelines, so it is a constant challenge.
Ginger

It’s a gift for us to buy time, isn’t it? So many of us are in the same boat with you…we enjoy the time we’ve given.
Oh wow, I haven’t had homemade chocolate pudding in years! I remember sometimes moving the skin to the side so I could eat that last! My mom cooked homemade butterscotch pudding too! Same thing. Now I don’t eat pudding at all because there’s too much sugar. I’m back to having to mind be mindful of my diet again. I’m sure not longing for the repeat days of chemo, but I do miss the ‘devil may care’ attitude I got to have about my diet. 😂

My adult son was treated for Stage 3 Thyroid Cancer with Radiation and Chemo almost 4 years ago and still cannot eat food, only drinks Boost and Instant Breakfast. His taste buds were destroyed and he says that food feels like mush in his mouth and it makes him sick. He lives alone and I am so concerned about his health outlook, yet anything that I offer to fix for him he says no and I have bought him several items but he says that he just can't eat. He talks about how good food smells and how he wishes that he could eat. Do you have ANY suggestions that I might try. Blessings to all who are having to suffer with the side effects of cancer treatment. BAZ 10