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Nutrition during treatment

cindylou416
cindylou416 Member Posts: 30

Hi everyone

I was curious to know what everyone is doing with respect to nutrition during treatment…. Is anyone doing juicing? Green smoothies? Any tips on the proper diet to stay well and have some energy?

Thank you

Cindy

Comments

  • maggiehopley
    maggiehopley Member Posts: 81

    I think it really depends on what your treatment regimen is. Both my neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemo treatments left me with taste changes and gastrointestinal issues that limited what I could eat. Fresh vegetables, like salads, were a huge no-no because they made me throw up. I ate a lot of easily digested "white" foods like mashed potatoes, cheerios, toast, etc. I could eat vegetables that were very well cooked such as canned green beans or baked beans. I could eat applesauce but not apples. I drank Orgain Protein shakes and gatorade. Now that I am finally finished with active treatment (14 1/2 months later), I am able to re-introduce more nutritious foods.

  • maggie15
    maggie15 Member Posts: 622

    Nutritionists recommend staying hydrated and eating enough protein so that the good cells damaged by treatment can recover. As maggiehopley said, what you eat depends on what your side effects are. I ended out with severe anemia so I had to eat red meat and iron fortified cereals. I then had to deal with the GI issues from the iron I was prescribed. Some people have minimal side effects so what you can eat depends on your situation.

    If you take supplements you should let your doctors know what they are before treatment starts. Some antioxidants lessen the effectiveness of the toxins. I had to temporarily stop taking vitamin A prescribed by an oral surgeon to help heal a bone infection since it would lessen the effectiveness of radiation. A multivitamin is OK but you don't want to take anything that will reduce the benefit of chemo or radiation.