How do I eat after digestive tract surgery?

@katieliz
Yes, eating small, frequent meals is vital after digestive tract surgery! I really like the phrases, "eat like it’s your job" and "food is your medicine, take it like medicine." This is so true!

Prior to surgery, eating and appetite came naturally. After the surgeries, however, I had to remind myself to eat. A whole different way of thinking about a fundamental activity that we take for granted.

Same experience here with dietician giving printouts which I could have done myself.
The food they put on my plate also went against the instructions. What ??? I learned the hard way by getting 2 small bowel obstructions and sepsis. Very sick. I have found due to my anastomosis stricture I can only have liquids mostly but can try very mushy foods eg mashed potatoes and yes very, very small portions several times a day. Not 3 meals a day.A bite here,bite there and the foods must be under the easy to digest column. Therefore amount and kinds of food extremely important. The only thing I cant understand is I thought food was practically liquid by the time it go to large intestines so how is it backing up ? Anyone ?

@hopeful33250
I think what has helped the most is just eating frequently, 5-6 times/day. I was very aware I needed protein (which everything I read said). I tried to always have nutritious snacks in between meals ready to go - fruit smoothies made with protein powder and Greek yogurt; hard-cooked eggs; cottage cheese (with added fruit). I start each day with a good breakfast, I alternate between 2 fried eggs (or scrambled, with cheese), and toast; steel cut oatmeal made with coconut milk, (added chia, hemp hearts, flaxseed, something I’ve always done); or cold cereal with oatmilk (more fattening than other milks).
It was so hard to even want to eat or eat enough when I was getting chemo (just had no appetite - Folfirinox really knocked me), nothing sounded good, but I just keep trying, and then my last 4 cycles they reduced the dosage of Folfirinox (so I could keep going, and raise my platelet count), and this helped. Have to eat smaller meals so my pancreas can digest food okay, so in-between snacks are important.
And when I first started and was really losing weight my oncologist told me very emphatically that I needed to ‘eat like it’s your job’! Then a friend (who is a radiology oncologist) said ‘food is your medicine, take it like medicine’. Both of these helped me to focus.
Hope this helps!

@katieliz

I appreciate you sharing your experience! It does get better. Were there any particular foods that helped you with your weight gain?

Things do get better, I had hit 106 lbs, scared me as I was losing 4 lbs every two weeks (and I looked like a skeleton - well, a very thin person) this went on for about 2 months and I felt I was eating pretty well. This was after Folfirinox and Whipple. Before all this happened, my usual weight was 126.
So now after finishing chemo last month (Whipple was 7 months ago), I am up to 116…and even thinking that if/when I get to 120, I will cut back on the frequent meals/ snacks, as I feel more energetic now that I weigh less than I used to. A different point of view for sure since focusing on weigh gain - my mantra was eat! And eat some more! - for most of 2025.

@hopeful33250
Thanks, Teresa, for the tip. Right now, I am taking a lot of other meds and supplements that I am not adding any more to my diet. I do take Gabapentin at night for some residual pain and melatonin. However, I'll check it out.
Take care.

@projfan
I have been sneezing lately after I start eating. Why is this?

I've posted before about my eating experience after bariatric surgery, but to sum it up:
-- If you haven't explored the instructions given to bariatric surgery patients for how to eat for the first several months after surgery, you might want to do that just to see if there are any tips you might find useful. A lot of work has gone into building this guidance over the years, so you might as well benefit from those studies.
-- If you can't eat a balanced diet, it isn't the end of the world. Prioritize protein (make your own protein shakes if necessary, which gives you total control, and consider tossing in whole frozen fruit or green vegetables if you can handle them). Consider the key supplements: iron, calcium+D, multivitamin, B12, and B1. (Don't take iron and calcium at the same time, since they fight each other.) Ask your PCP to order blood tests for all of those several months after the surgery, and make sure you keep asking for updates to guide your supplement choices over time.
-- There were many foods that triggered nausea for me during the first year or so, but most of them have become gradually less problematic. If you find you can't eat something, try again with a small amount in six months, a year, etc.
-- Consider going through a FODMAP exclusion diet if you are really having difficulty pinning it down. Importantly, it doesn't actually have to be a FODMAP problem (turned out that it wasn't for me) for the diet to be helpful, because it gives you a systematic way to identify challenging foods. The FODMAP exclusion diet is not for everyone, though, since it's very disciplined and takes a long time to get through.
-- I lost the ability to handle garlic, but shallots are fine and make a reasonable substitute. That problem appears to be permanent, but my ability to handle chilis seems to be returning, although it's taken about a decade. It really helps to explain to the wait staff in restaurants that the issue is NOT an allergy and is just a strong preference, because kitchen staff these days are trained to panic about allergies and my issues won't actually kill me, which is very different.
-- Insurance reimbursement rates for dieticians are so low that it's hard to find them. If you do, make sure that they have experience with patients who have had your specific procedure or are have dealt with your specific symptoms.
-- You may find that smaller meals are better, which means multiple snacks instead of full meals. I now manage meal sizes by when I start sneezing; apparently it's a vagus nerve thing, and I know that if I try to push past it, I'm guaranteed to head to nausea and potentially vomiting. I'm not saying sneezing will happen to you (pretty sure it happens to almost nobody), but you can absolutely watch for the earliest signs that enough is turning into too much, and just rigorously stop there.
-- Don't let yourself get dehydrated, which will make it all worse. Track whether you are better off drinking with meals or between meals, since this might impact your symptoms.

Hope something here helps!