Postby PainInTheAss » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:27 am
I met with a nutritionist during chemoradiation for an "anti-diarrhea" diet since I had a fistula. Bland foods, unfortunately, are the best for the digestive system so you really should avoid the spicy stuff and anything difficult to digest, like fresh fruits (other than melons and bananas). All the things mentioned by others so far fit into the bland food category.
When you have actual diarrhea, BRAT (Bananas, Rice, Apples or applesauce, Toast) is the diet that can get it back under control. You are supposed to only eat only those four things until your diarrhea stops or improves.
I keep reading that people drink pickle juice for electrolytes. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned already. I mostly drank Gatorade to load up on electrolytes in case I got diarrhea (I never got it, so the diet worked).
For nausea, yogurt with active cultures (Yoplait) can help settle the stomach. Clear liquids, like Sprite or Gingerale, are easy on the stomach and provide calories. I've heard ginger snap cookies (made with real ginger) can help, too.
After surgery, I had no appetite and I was supposed to eat a lot of protein for my APR wound. I couldn't eat meat, eggs or anything dry, like bread. My diet consisted of cottage cheese with snack size peaches on top, greek yogurt (higher in protein than regular), stouffer's mac and cheese (this ALWAYS tasted good, even with no appetite and has 13 grams of protein for the small box... you could probably down the big box with no problem), Peanut butter and chocolate, and carnation instant breakfast with whole milk and a scoop of whey protein added (25 grams of protein and didn't taste "chaulky" with just one scoop... this always tasted good even with no appetite). Nothing else sounded good, so that's all I ate.
Ironically, I read about the stouffer's mac and cheese on a post on here! I ate it everyday for two months!
Hope some of that helps!
47yo single mom of 4 (24, 21, 18, 16) at Dx
6/13 - RC T4b IIIc 5LNs on PET CEA 5.4
8/13 - Finish chemorad
10/13 - APR/hyst+ovaries/perm colostomy 2/12 nodes+
6/14 - Finish Xelox 6 rds
1/15 - CT clear CEA 0.2
10/15 - CT/MRI clear CEA 0.7
4/16 - CT clear
10/16 - CT/MRI clear CEA 0.6
5/17 - PET clear? Follow up MRI to verify inflammation