I am having my 3rd FEC on Mon 28th April - can’t wait because then I will be able to say I am half way through! The only thing that I am worrying about is what to eat that day. After 2 sessions I now know that whatever I have to eat on Chemo Day will make me feel sick just thinking about it afterwards. The first time, I ate a chicken salad (made by the hospital but not too gruesome) and then a bowl of home made chicken and veg soup when I got home in the evening. I have not been able to eat roast chicken or any kind of pureed food or any kind of boiled or steamed veg ever since - yuk. For my second FEC I took a home made packed lunch of cheese sandwich in gorgeous seeded brown bread, then when I got home a friend had made me a Jamie Oliver recipe plain cheese & tomato pizza and I ate that - can’t eat cheese or pizza or that sort of bread any more now - yuk.
What the blooming hell should I eat next Monday - do I have to eat something I already hate so it won’t matter? I am terrified to go off anything else! I haven’t eaten any Indian food since my first treatment because life will not be worth living if I stop liking Indian food!
I assume that my distaste for foods I normally enjoy will be put right once the drugs are out of my system? It is not just the food it is also the memory of the smell of the hospital that turns my stomach, kind of an “association” thing I guess.
Does this mean I have to take a pot noodle with me on Monday?
I’ve been wandering about this too. I think I might try eating things I know I shouldn’t generally and things that I’m not that fond of anyway.
It does sound like association from what I’ve read. Makes sense to me. I’ve noticed that whenever I’ve eaten something that was turning in the past I don’t want that food for ages, eg prawns that weren’t quite fresh enough. I’ve noticed that this seems to work on other people too. When my partner had a mild bout of food poisoning last year I asked him if he fancied anything to eat and discovered that the thing he was most put off by was something he’d eaten a few days before, makes me wander if we know subconsciously.
If it is association Id be interested to here if the association passes after some time or whether we have it for life.
Angie
PS: I haven’t started chemo yet so can’t say from personally experience.
POT NOODLE - tub of elastic bands in gravy!!! yuk yuk
I personally would stick to something bland (Toast) as I did read somewhere NOT to eat your favourite foods as you then ‘associate’ chemo with them.
I’m same as you Clarabel - life without another ruby murray is unthinkable!!!
Anita
Hi
I haven’t had chemo so can’t comment on that particular issue, but during pregnancy, went right off anything rich or spicy. Its a if the body knows what you can handle. Pleased to say no problems whatsoever now with spicy food. I do think its a bit of association going on. When I was a teenager, I got blind drunk (as you do) and extremely sick for days afterwards on rum and black. I have never been able to even smell rum without my stomach churning and the thought of my mother’s furious face!
it’s true, toast and cereals I can manage (and I don’t normally have or want them)
I can remember on the rare occasions I got a stomach bug as a kid, I often went off whatever I had had to eat recently before I threw up, although thankfully I never got sick after having had fishfingers and chips and treacle sponge and custard (which was my fave school dinner, my palate DID mature, LOL!)
Touch wood I’ve never had food poisoning that I know of, but I have a friend who got it from a tuna sandwich and she will never touch tuna and it’s not that she doesn’t trust it it still turns her green! For some reason she also went off milk in her tea at the same time!
I am sure eventually we will stop associating tastes and smells with the mild nausea we’ve had with the chemo.
Good point that we could eat things that we “know we shouldn’t” (someone mentioned chocolate somewhere) but I don’t actually WANT to go off my food, I believe that eating well is an important part of recovering and keeping healthy in the future so it p1sses me off that a lot of vegetables I can’t face at the mo, as I used to eat loads of them! Thankfully I am really into fruit instead. No fruit on Monday…
I’ve finished chemo last week, but it took quite a while to work out best regime (well for me, at least) by experiment and asking lots of questions.
- day before dont eat ANYTHING that will make you constipated, in fact dont eat much at all because it hangs around making you feel sick and goes through the gut slowly.
- maybe fruit and sweeties on the day, drink, drink, drink …a lot of us drink Lucozade on the day (I wouldnt normally touch the stuff, but its good for this )
- just start eating the most nutritious stuff you can gradually, eat what you fancy first though. Your bone marrow doesnt start making new cells for about a week, good stuff for neutrophils anything with argenine in (chicken broth or soup, apricots, well experiment)
- definitely enjoy some alcohol - a red wine every night kept me going!
Good luck, it wont be too long…love Zoe x
Clarabel,
I used to eat lots of sweet things during my chemo. Jelly beans were a particular favourite. I also had small snacky things because even a full sandwich would bloat me up. I would recommend lots of fluids be it water or lucozade or even small cartons of fruit juice. After my chemo my palate would not let me eat anything dougy so pizza or sandwiches were out. I relied on dried fruit and toast(it was almost ok) to just have something to eat. I remember eating lots of grated raw veg as well especially carrots. It stopped my hearburn from going too overboard
Hope all goes well for your next one.
Kate xx
Clarabel
I used to go high fibre the night before and for breakfast. I would eat a good breakfast and made sure I had a good lunch ( more fibre) and then not worry too much about dinner. I found that the taste buds were affected most on the first two doses of a drug (EC, and Taxotere for me) and then they settled down.
I really went for the strong flavours marmite and cranberry juice - yum, I still like both. But Christmas was a bit grim and the only thing I could really taste was potatoes and they had to be the organic ones sold by a local farmer.
Taste does come back though.
Pauline x
Great advice here - going into first chemo (TAX) tomorrow. I’ll stick to very light hi-fibre today - & raspberry-bran smoothie for breakfast tomorrow. I can live without frozen raspberries. I’m also trying to think of food I don’t like - so as not to spoil my faves - and I’m left with root veg like turnips and beetroot - guffaw. Perhaps, as someone has suggested elsewhere, we should chow down on choccy - though I bet the taste aversion doesn’t work that well!!
Cheers all, M-L
I finished my FEC chemo in February 07. When I used to go to the hospital, they had a coffee shop as you went in, and the smell was really strong. Even now, all this time later, I still can’t drink coffee, so the association is really strong.
I also had a ciabatta sandwich with cheese after my first chemo, and can’t eat cheese now or Ciabatta bread.
I should have had chocolate i realise now!!
Oh well, best wishes to all undergoing chemo.
Love Deborah xxx