Chemo- what can you eat?

[1Wanda1]

What can you tolerate eating while/after having chemo? I'd like to support a very dear friend about to start intensive chemo, and providing meals is one thing I can do.

Soup is good - I ate lots of leek and potato soup while having chemo. Also salty food tends to taste ok. I think making some nutritious soups and casseroles to put in their freezer would be a lovely thing to do.

You have to avoid the same sort of things pregnant women avoid so no unpasteurised cheese, uncooked eggs (homemade mayo), rare meat etc. Depending on the type of chemo you quickly lose your sense of taste. Very weird! I found myself in the pickle aisle of Sainsbury's looking for something with a taste! I had no nausea or mouth ulcer problems but that will impact on what your friend can eat. I made and froze lots of mini servings of soup and ended up eating none of them. What does your friend like to eat normally? I'd go for that in individual portions but if she has family she might find it just as helpful to have family sized lasagna, bakes etc that anyone (partner/teens) can stick in the oven. I wouldn't normally suggest it but use foil/disposable containers then no washing up. You are a very kind friend. X

Thank you for your replies. She has AML and I think will be having an aggressive chemo regime. She doesn't have kids so it's just her and her husband. She'll be in hospital for a few weeks with the chemo so I'll do some meals for her DH then but am thinking about what she might be able to/want to eat when she's back at home afterwards. I know mouth ulcers and metallic taste are a thing. Not sure how long that lasts after the chemo is finished.

She may not be allowed reheated food. My dd wasn't everything had to be cooked and eaten within 1 hour.

The mouth ulcers can definitely linger.

I mainly lived on jacket potatoes with cheese, cheese on toast, soups. Salty worked well. Strangely pineapple was one of the few things that still tasted normal, so Hawaiian Pizza worked. I can't stand it now, throws me straight back to chemo times. And it took over a year for me to be able to even look at a jacket potato again.

I had very bad indigestion in addition to the mouth ulcers, so could not tolerate anything spicy, acidic, too hot, too cold, fizzy.

I hope this helps. And make sure you tell your friend that there's zero pressure to eat what you provide - she should play it by ear, but at least she won't have to worry about her DH's meals ;)

I lived on smooth soups, jacket potatoes with cheese and plain boiled pasta with cheese. If you make soups then puree them until they are smooth, this is why they are smooth in hospital, you can 'keep going' and eat a bit more if it doesn't take any effort and your friend is likely to be exhausted. Meals your friend previously enjoyed may seem very unappealing so it's hard to know where to start. Perhaps hand over your first 'batch' of food and then ask her to let you know which items were a success? The advice upthread about zero pressure is excellent, my appetite was so poor on chemo - I remember my adult DD suggesting every single item in the fridge, freezer and cupboards to try and tempt me and nothing sounded remotely appealing, I was conscious of appearing ungrateful but I knew I wouldn't be able to eat any of it.

You're a lovely friend and this is exactly the sort of help you need when having treatment. Everyone says 'let me know if you need anything' and you can hardly say, 'a few ready-made meals would be great'.

My DH also had AML and when on Chemo had a horrible metallic taste in his mouth (I guess similar to what you might get when pregnant) he found eating sour sweets helped (like Tangfastics)

I am on chemo and get the horrible mouth taste too, it reminds me a lot of early pregnancy actually. I tend to crave different things every cycle, but a lot of carbs and sweet stuff like Tangfastics. Fresh fruit helps the mouth feel less gross. It tends to be better nausea wise to have lots of small meals or constant snacking and no meals.

2 of my friends have found that strong flavoured orange fizzy pop and very citrusy/sour drinks have been the only thing that cuts through the odd taste.

Other than that they've both found that they generally went off food, didn't feel as hungry and food didn't taste right or at all. So stuck to simple and easy to digest things like soups.

I just wanted bland food. I lost my sense of taste, but my sense of smell became like bloodhound’s and I couldn’t bear strong smells, especially garlic.

For about a month I only ate tinned pears. Before that I would eat cereal, baked potatoes with butter, cheese and salt.