What questions should I ask my oncology dietician?

Great question, same question, currently in cheo radiation phase and struggling maintaining bowel consistency. The wrong food can spell disastrous results for sure.

@leeb123 Had the same side effect and MANY more. Have finished chemo and radio. At this stage I'm mostly concerned about weight gain and building muscle and relief from the other side effects I still have. I want to see if I can do anything about my bloodwork results, for example: low red blood cell count, hematocrit, low potassium, creatinine, lymph absolute, alkaline phosphatase, etc., etc.
It was very hard to get enough nutrition during treatment, so find out as much as you can while you're sitting through a chemo treatment or vegging out on the sofa.
Let us know how your treatment is going and I hope everything goes well.

@leeb123 Also, "bowel inconsistency" will probably be with you for a while. My bowels are still wonky, but much improved over time. My chemo was roughly a year ago (3 months of it), then radio in the spring. So it's been a while. Trying to learn patience and just going with the flow, even when the flow is more like a tsunami. Best.

@slowdo, how did the consult with the oncology dietitian go? What did you find out?

This topic is of interest to me as I have had three surgeries in the upper digestive tract for a rare form of cancer. While I have not had any chemo or radiation treatment I have lost weight and continue making choices to maintain a healthy eating plan so I can feel good and maintain my weight. I understand how difficult it can be to eat after any cancer treatment. I have also had several meetings with a registered dietician. I noticed that @leeb123 and @slowdo have both mentioned bowel consistency.

I wanted to invite all of you to a discussion on Connect: "How Do I Eat After Digestive Tract Surgery?" Here is the link to that discussion: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/how-do-i-eat-after-digestive-tract-surgery/

In this forum, you will meet many members who also have problems with bowel consistency, as well as other issues of nutrition, including @jimdiehl, who had Low Anterior Resection Syndrome (LARS) after rectal resection and radiation therapy. This member is now a flight attendant and has posted about dealing with bowel problems following surgery and radiation. Here is a link to one of this member's posts, https://connect.mayoclinic.org/comment/1350713/.

I wish you all the best, especially during this holiday season, when food and drinks are being provided, which we know will be a challenge for us!

@colleenyoung Context: male, 71, normally 165#, currently 140#, up from treatment low of 127#, so of course, adjust any numbers for your situation Was prescribed a 300mg potassium pill once a day by my med. onc. and had a good long talk with the dietician. Some of what I recall: be sure to take or get vitamin C to help with metabolizing iron (I'm taking Floradix), eat lots of healthy fats (omega-3 etc.) like salmon.... no Trans-fats, try to get 65g+ of protein/day, hydration important for creatine, blood urea levels. To gain weight try to eat 3500 calories/day (2000/day for me will maintain current weight). Resistance exercise should go along with the big calories. The idea is to break a little muscle tissue to encourage new muscle growth. Calcium, of course, is important, but in my case my diet is more than sufficient. I consume a lot of dairy, too much according to nurse practitioner whom I also saw. Also cut back on sugar intake. Has anyone noticed a big increase in sugar cravings during/after treatment? I've heard conflicting information about sugar and tumors, some say it feeds cancer cells, some say it doesn't.
Some of supplements I take: B-12, zinc, biotin, potassium, iron and vit C, D-3... also kombucha (for gut), dandelion and cinnamon to slow angiogenesis, and importantly, get nutrients from my food.
I'll post more when I run across my notes. Anyone else have nutrition advice for gaining weight and muscle or anything else??

Interesting that you asked about sugar. Before chemo I basically didn't like sweet food except for ice cream. After chemo (finished 3 years ago), I love sweet things. Thankfully, I'm not craving them.

@susanafc Interesting how our taste and sense of smell changes after treatment, isn't it?