Just don't feel like eating...

crb · 02-18-2014, 07:15 PM

I am 5 days out from 1st round of chemo and I have no appetite. Is this normal? Nothing tastes right, and I can barely even get through my beloved coffee in the morning. Having minor GI issues as well, so very leery of eating anything too extreme. Forced myself to eat a banana, yougurt, and a bit of dinner (pasta) tonight.

I am doing OK with fluids, sticking to mainly water, tea, or Gatoraid. Should I go with my gut and just eat if I am hungry, or force myself to eat more?

sassy · 02-18-2014, 07:31 PM

CRB,

You do need to try to eat some to keep up your strength. I remember well how nothing tastes right and some things may actually be uncomfortable in your mouth.

Try making a milkshake with Ensure. Soft foods leaning to the more bland like Apple sauce, bread, bananas. Rainbow sherbet was a go to for me. And be sure to drinks lots of fluids.

Hang in there and take good care of yourself!

CoolBreeze · 02-18-2014, 07:33 PM

What is your chemo? You don't get steroids? Those usually make people hungry!

I think you know the answer - you have to eat. You don't have to overdo it but you should try to eat nutritious foods to keep your body going while doing chemo, and if you are going to have surgery after you want to be strong. For you it's temporary so maybe you can find a few things that you can enjoy that are healthful, you just have to experiement.

I lost my desire to eat entirely after my gamma knife treatment and it won't return. I couldn't care less about eating and I was down to 88 pounds but of course, that's not good. My doctor has ordered me to gain weight!

It is not easy to eat when you have no desire for food but I give myself permission to eat what I want. I used to be a super health nut but can't do that anymore so I just eat what I can and what I want. I found a cheesecake I like and I have a piece every night to keep weight on. My husband cooks a healthy dinner and I eat some of that whether I want to or not - once we sit down I find that I can eat. But for me, it also hurts a lot so I can't eat too much.

I eat a piece of toast or something for breakfast and sometimes a piece of fruit for lunch. My weight has gradually moved up and I'm in the mid-90s.

I know when the food tastes weird it makes it worse, I remember those early chemo days! See if you can find something that satisfies you in another way - soup, steamy and hot, maybe miso soup would be something you can taste and help you eat. That's when I started liking sweets, because that was all I could taste, so maybe a milkshake, add some protein powder. I never had a taste for sweets before but now I do and so I let myself eat them - my doctor says any calories are good ones when you lose as much as I did.

Anyway, you don't have to eat the way you always did because after your chemo is over you'll get back to normal quickly but you should eat nutritious meals as much as you can tolerate. Watch your white counts, sometimes you can't eat raw fruits or veggies because it'll be too low.

Good luck.

crb · 02-18-2014, 07:56 PM

I was on steroids the day before, of and after chemo and it seems my appetite was normal (sleeping was NOT though!). Just the last few days nothing sounds appealing. I did go and buy some applesauce, protein drinks, and nuts to bring to work for throughout the day.

The coffee thing is weird - I LOVE my coffee and was completely dependent on it morning, noon, and afternoon...now I'm a bit depressed because it doesn't taste right at all. Thankfully, no withdrawal headaches to report though

I am about 15 pounds heavier than I should be, so I won't be wasting away anytime soon!

sassy · 02-18-2014, 09:09 PM

Same situation for coffee with me. I switched to hot tea in the morning which seemed to taste better. My other favorite drink had always been
Ginger ale, which I thought would be great for my stomach, but it tasted equally as weird and actually made my mouth burn. I think it was the carbonation. So I became a green tea drinker at that point. Water actually had a metallic taste to me so I usually drank green tea.

suzan w · 02-18-2014, 09:16 PM

Nothing tasted right for me either. Mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs kept me going!

fauxgypsy · 02-18-2014, 10:04 PM

When I had chemo, most things did not taste right. Cooked spinach and cooked bell peppers were the worst. Coke and pepsi smelled like perfume and I could smell them across the room. I don't know what they would have tasted like, I couldn't get past the smell. For some reason cottage cheese and pineapple were one of the few things I ate. I also drank one of those probiotic yogurts every day. It seemed to help with the digestive disturbances. Bland foods were better and even with the steroids I didn't each much. Mashed potatoes were a staple too.

BonnieR · 02-18-2014, 10:30 PM

My oncologist gave me permission to eat whatever I wanted. She even encouraged milkshakes and burgers if that's what it took. This is a time for calorie dense things in small, frequent meals. Like cheese and crackers , yogurt , ice cream, peanut butter, soups. Baked potato. Whatever appeals to you. I drank a lot of Ensure too. I didn't feel like cooking so ate a lot of those Hormel prepared entrees. Beef tips in gravy and that sort of thing. Pre packaged mashed potatoes. Not my normal fare. But it was no- brainer nutrition There were some little frozen brocolli/cheese snack things that I grazed on. Can't stand the sight of them now!
Just find what works and hang in. Won't be forever. Just for now
Keep the faith

jaykay · 02-19-2014, 04:25 AM

My sympathies with the coffee! I'm also a coffee lover and pretty much stopped drinking it after my 1st chemo when my taste buds went crazy. I switched to tea - green as well as other varieties. I also found 7-up tasted ok as did vitamin water.

Happy to say that your taste buds will return. Eat whatever tastes decent to keep your strength up

Best,
Janis

Nurse4u2day · 02-19-2014, 08:08 AM

I started to lose my appetite after round 1 of chemo despite Iv steroids. By the time I hit round 3 my appetite was completely gone , including lack of fluid. I knew as a nurse that I was in a danger zone , grabbed my chemo book to read what to do and then called my Doctor. I was so weak I couldn't even stand ( should have gone to Er ) I started to drink Ensure and it was a godsend . I would drink 1 can and force myself to eat a boiled egg. I would drink enough to total about 12-1500 calories a day . My energy increased , I was no longer bed ridden. Bottom line is I had to force myself to regain control and it wasn't easy. These days when my appetite drops I go back to ensures and mash potatos to supplement my calorie intake. Glad to say weight is now stable. Yesterday I just started my first weekly round of taxol/ herceptin so let's see how that affects my appetite .

IrvineFriend · 02-19-2014, 11:19 AM

I had no appetite either. I experimented with different foods and finally found that I could tolerate chicken fried rice. My boyfriend made that every round of chemo for me. I do know there were days when I ate nothing. Up to three days. I lost 30 lbs. but needed to lose 15 so that was okay! Just try different things and just take one bite if that's all you can eat. It would take me a day or two to eat a hamburger. Good luck and hope you find something you like.

tricia keegan · 02-19-2014, 01:15 PM

I was the same during chemo and its normal, my Onc told me just to eat little and often of anything I felt able for, I couldn't bear hot food and mostly lived on cornflakes and sandwiches. I lost a lot of weight but by six months after I finished I began gaining it back so my advice would be not to force yourself into eating anything you don't feel like.

Becky · 02-19-2014, 03:00 PM

I had no appetite at all but still had two kids at home so I would eat the dinner well - smaller portions but I wanted them to think I was "alright". Breakfast was a bit of yogurt or a bit of oatmeal. I couldn't even eat a whole 6oz yogurt container. I lost almost 40 lbs during chemo (kept 10 off and wish I had kept it all off).

I had a really hard time but tried to eat as right as I could. I knew a woman during chemo that all she could stomach was popcorn so that's what she ate. Not much in popcorn and I don't recommend it. But give yourself a shot with higher protein foods - a scambled egg. Later have a piece of toast. Eat little bits all day - a little yogurt, alittle applesauce, alittle pudding. You should be able to get enough if you work on it alittle bit

Saygoon · 02-19-2014, 06:38 PM

I lived on Peanut butter and Carnation Instant Breakfast for 6 months, everything tasted like metal. I liked the Instant Breakfast alot better than Ensure and its also a lot cheaper. Steroids made me hungry but everything I put in my mouth was really gross. Take heart - this too shall pass.

BonnieR · 02-19-2014, 06:52 PM

I will say that for me it was not really that my taste was affected but I just had no appetite. Food didn't appeal to me. So we are all different in that regard too
I have heard it recommended to use straws to drink if beverages taste bad to you...
Important to keep weight up. Once my onc cautioned me that much more weight loss might compromise my treatment regime
I agree with those who said they wish to have kept off some of the weight lost. I gained it back, and more. Because I indulged myself. And don't regret it. But I'll never forgive a friend who said she envied me because she always thought getting cancer would be a good way to lose weight! And then you get treated and the cancer goes away and you're thin! Viola! Can you imagine! The stupidity of people knows no bounds
Keep the faith

Catherine · 02-24-2014, 11:04 PM

Mashed potatoes and cooked carrots worked for me. Good luck. Keep trying to eat whenever you can.

Aussie Girl · 02-25-2014, 03:41 AM

Hi,

I didn't want to eat either, although I often found if I started and kept myself distracted (talking or reading or crosswords), then I'd find I had finished my meal without noticing. I ate small amounts throughout the day.

If you have nausea, try an anti-nausea drug before a meal. If vague stomach discomfort, ask the doctor for an anti reflux med like Pantoprazole or Lansoprazole. The chemo really makes the stomach irritable and this helps a lot - I took double the normal dose for the duration of chemo on doctors orders.

I found most things tasted weird, especially cereal (cardboard). There was no cure for that.

Sweet things, especially cold things like ice cream and frozen fruit were good. Proteins like meat and soft veges (potato, pumpkin) were also OK most of the time. I could only drink filtered water (try adding a drop or two of lemon), peppermint tea and sometimes cordial (Kool aid in the USA terminology). Ginger ale tasted ok but it upset my gut and carbonated drinks in general were a big no-no.

I read this book http://rebeccakatz.com/books/the-can...hting-kitchen/
which was very interesting although I found the recipes terrifying. I didn't have the energy. However, the author talked about adjusting food flavour using maple syrup or other sweetener, lemon, salt and fat (butter) - just a drop or two of one or the other depending on how the food tastes to the particular person. I did this with soup - it tasted right to me and weird to the rest of the family!

Cheers

Aussie Girl

crb · 02-27-2014, 10:18 AM

I think I realized my appetite was coming back when I opened an email from Honeybaked Ham and actually considered going right out and buying a whole ham...LOL Been much better eating the last few days, so I'm guessing the wonderful 8-10 lbs I lost will be gained right back

Nurse4u2day · 02-27-2014, 10:35 AM

Glad the appetite is back for now. While on AC mine came and went often. Just make sure eat when you can and fight to eat when you can't as keeping your weight on is important . Also I am glad to report my appetite has come back while on Taxol/herceptin. It's not as good as prior to chemo but it is back and I have gained 2lbs. Now back to excersice and healthier eating to just maintain .