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No Appetite
My good friend is having treatment for bowel & liver cancer, he has chemotherapy weekly.After the chemo he says
he feels he can jump through hoops for a day or two: then loses all appetite and eats nothing.The weight he is losing he can ill afford.When he thinks about or looks at food he feels nauseous, what can we give him to stop this drastic weight loss?
Kind Regards
Paul
This discussion is related to Lack of appetite, nausea (no vomitng).
he feels he can jump through hoops for a day or two: then loses all appetite and eats nothing.The weight he is losing he can ill afford.When he thinks about or looks at food he feels nauseous, what can we give him to stop this drastic weight loss?
Kind Regards
Paul
This discussion is related to Lack of appetite, nausea (no vomitng).
Best Answer
It sure is good news to hear that the cancer your friend has is a very treatable kind, even though it's rare. Cancer of any kind is very scary and can be life altering, but fortunately, it doesn't always have to be life threatening.
Like you said, it is very reassuring that his tumor has only minimally grown since his diagnosis, however, the lack of appetite and nausea also concerns me a bit. Hopefully as his treatment progresses, some of these issues will also start to resolve.
Love, care and attention definitely go a long way in helping an ill person recover. it's been documented that hospitalized patients who have many loved ones around them recover a lot faster and experience less pain than patients who do not receive visits from friends and loved ones. I'm sure your friend is very thankful for your friendship and all that you do for him.
God bless you both and healing hugs being sent your way. Feel free to drop me a line anytime.
Robyn
Like you said, it is very reassuring that his tumor has only minimally grown since his diagnosis, however, the lack of appetite and nausea also concerns me a bit. Hopefully as his treatment progresses, some of these issues will also start to resolve.
Love, care and attention definitely go a long way in helping an ill person recover. it's been documented that hospitalized patients who have many loved ones around them recover a lot faster and experience less pain than patients who do not receive visits from friends and loved ones. I'm sure your friend is very thankful for your friendship and all that you do for him.
God bless you both and healing hugs being sent your way. Feel free to drop me a line anytime.
Robyn
Hi Gemini,
Thanks for some great useful Info, I live in the UK (Leeds-West Yorkshire). The type of Cancer my friend has is Neuroendocrine Tumour, it's apparently a rare form of Cancer which his surgeon tells him that their are only 150 cases in the UK and is very treatable (food for thought).
His treatment is called Long Time Carcinoid Syndrome, after diagnosis in October 09 the tumour has grown only 1mm & his surgeon seems to be very happy with his progress, still the lack of appetite & food is a course for concern.
Ive taken your good advise on board & told him to stock up on starchy foods;ginger ale and sports drinks etc.
With lots of love care & attention we will overcome this monster and I hope you will do the same.
God Bless You
Kind Regards
Paul
p.s More Info & chats welcome
Thanks for some great useful Info, I live in the UK (Leeds-West Yorkshire). The type of Cancer my friend has is Neuroendocrine Tumour, it's apparently a rare form of Cancer which his surgeon tells him that their are only 150 cases in the UK and is very treatable (food for thought).
His treatment is called Long Time Carcinoid Syndrome, after diagnosis in October 09 the tumour has grown only 1mm & his surgeon seems to be very happy with his progress, still the lack of appetite & food is a course for concern.
Ive taken your good advise on board & told him to stock up on starchy foods;ginger ale and sports drinks etc.
With lots of love care & attention we will overcome this monster and I hope you will do the same.
God Bless You
Kind Regards
Paul
p.s More Info & chats welcome
You're right about the biscuit - a) eating that little, while better than nothing, is still probably inadequate to protect his stomach from the effects of the chemo meds and the steroid. His choice of a starchy food, however, is usually what I choose when I'm taking steroids (or other tummy irritating foods) - at least for me, they seem to "coat" the stomach to protect it better than another type of food might. b) He really should eat BEFORE he takes the medication instead of after. Eating after will help a little bit, but eating before would definitely help more.
Metoclopramide sounded awfully familiar to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what type of medication that was, so I looked it up. That name is the generic name for the brand name medication Reglan. It is sometimes used for nausea, but also is typically used to help the stomach and intestines work. It's quite often prescribed for a condition called gastroparesis (basically paralysis of the stomach) where the stomach and intestines don't work quite the way they should. Gastroparesis can also cause nausea and that could be why Reglan works sometimes for nausea - because it increases the contractions of the stomach to help food pass through. Do you know if your friend has ever been diagnosed with having gastroparesis? It's possible that might be a side effect of his chemo meds (I'm not very familiar with those) or a result of the cancer itself.
I can understand why his doctor would have prescribed the Reglan, especially if your friend was complaining of "feeling full all the time" in addition to the nausea. I don't want to alarm you, but I also would like to mention that there have been a lot of information in the news and on tv recently about patients who have taken Reglan and have developed a condition called tardive diskonesia - it's kind of like an involuntary muscle spasm almost that can cause things like lip smacking, other involuntary movements mainly in the mouth face and lips, but can also affect the arms and legs. There are even some law suits being formed because of this side effect. Like I said, I don't want to alarm you, just wanted you to know about it so you can keep and eye out for anything that "doesn't seem right" such as a twitch that wasn't there before.
Where are you located? Are you in the US? A site I've also found very helpful when it comes to medications is www.drugs.com. You can look up any medication and get the information on it, including side effects. They also have a great section where you can enter all the medications you take and have it check for potential interactions. Obviously, this is typically done at the pharmacy (so long as you use the same one for all prescriptions), but it's always a good safety measure to double check on your own. I had an instance once where I had picked up a new medication and when I got home, before I took it, Idecided to double check about interactions and lo and behold, the pharmacy had missed a potentially very serious interaction that could have occurred between that med and another one I take. Fortunately, the error was caught before I even took the first dose, and a simple call to my doctor to have her call in something else, fixed it, but it coud have been a bad scene. Another area of that site that I like is a place where, if you've found a pill, but don't know what type of med it is - say it fell out of the bottle and you didn't realize it and then found it later - you can enter information from the pill such as any imprint it may have on it, the color and shape of the pill and it will pull up listings, including pictures, of medications matching those descriptions, helping you to be able to identify what it is.
I'm glad that talking to me has helped some, and I hope that you will keep coming to med help, not only for this situation, but any other questions or problems you may have. There are MANY, MANY wonderful forums on here and so many wonderful, caring people.
Again, I think you are a wonderful friend for being so worried and caring about how your friend is doing. Best of luck to you both and I look forward to hearing from you again.
Metoclopramide sounded awfully familiar to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what type of medication that was, so I looked it up. That name is the generic name for the brand name medication Reglan. It is sometimes used for nausea, but also is typically used to help the stomach and intestines work. It's quite often prescribed for a condition called gastroparesis (basically paralysis of the stomach) where the stomach and intestines don't work quite the way they should. Gastroparesis can also cause nausea and that could be why Reglan works sometimes for nausea - because it increases the contractions of the stomach to help food pass through. Do you know if your friend has ever been diagnosed with having gastroparesis? It's possible that might be a side effect of his chemo meds (I'm not very familiar with those) or a result of the cancer itself.
I can understand why his doctor would have prescribed the Reglan, especially if your friend was complaining of "feeling full all the time" in addition to the nausea. I don't want to alarm you, but I also would like to mention that there have been a lot of information in the news and on tv recently about patients who have taken Reglan and have developed a condition called tardive diskonesia - it's kind of like an involuntary muscle spasm almost that can cause things like lip smacking, other involuntary movements mainly in the mouth face and lips, but can also affect the arms and legs. There are even some law suits being formed because of this side effect. Like I said, I don't want to alarm you, just wanted you to know about it so you can keep and eye out for anything that "doesn't seem right" such as a twitch that wasn't there before.
Where are you located? Are you in the US? A site I've also found very helpful when it comes to medications is www.drugs.com. You can look up any medication and get the information on it, including side effects. They also have a great section where you can enter all the medications you take and have it check for potential interactions. Obviously, this is typically done at the pharmacy (so long as you use the same one for all prescriptions), but it's always a good safety measure to double check on your own. I had an instance once where I had picked up a new medication and when I got home, before I took it, Idecided to double check about interactions and lo and behold, the pharmacy had missed a potentially very serious interaction that could have occurred between that med and another one I take. Fortunately, the error was caught before I even took the first dose, and a simple call to my doctor to have her call in something else, fixed it, but it coud have been a bad scene. Another area of that site that I like is a place where, if you've found a pill, but don't know what type of med it is - say it fell out of the bottle and you didn't realize it and then found it later - you can enter information from the pill such as any imprint it may have on it, the color and shape of the pill and it will pull up listings, including pictures, of medications matching those descriptions, helping you to be able to identify what it is.
I'm glad that talking to me has helped some, and I hope that you will keep coming to med help, not only for this situation, but any other questions or problems you may have. There are MANY, MANY wonderful forums on here and so many wonderful, caring people.
Again, I think you are a wonderful friend for being so worried and caring about how your friend is doing. Best of luck to you both and I look forward to hearing from you again.
Thanks again,
My friend is taking his the Dexamethasone orally, and for the nausea he has Metoclopramide I've just found out, I have found that all he has had to eat yesterday is a biscuit on top of the tablets,which i think will be doing more harm than good?.
Being able to talk to somebody like yourself & many others on this incredible site is a huge help for me and others like me.Thanks again;looking forward to reply.
My friend is taking his the Dexamethasone orally, and for the nausea he has Metoclopramide I've just found out, I have found that all he has had to eat yesterday is a biscuit on top of the tablets,which i think will be doing more harm than good?.
Being able to talk to somebody like yourself & many others on this incredible site is a huge help for me and others like me.Thanks again;looking forward to reply.
Dexamethasone is actually a steroid, similar to prednisone. Steroids can be VERY hard on the stomach (I've been on them quite often and always have stomach problems with them). They can quite often cause nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. The Lansoprazole that your friend was prescribed is a medication that helps reduce the amount of acid in the stomach, but actually does nothing for nausea.
Is your friend taking the dexamethasone orally or is that IV like the capecitabine (the chemo med)? If he is taking it orally, unfortunately, it's pretty important to take it with food, otherwise, the gastric side effects of it can be greatly increased. This could very well be the cause of his nighttime stomach pains (or at least partially).
I know you've mentioned that he does not have an appetite - do you think that is because of the nausea/stomach pains or do think it's more related to the chemo meds and the cancer itself? I know myself that when I'm nauseas I definitely don't feel like eating, so it's quite understandable that he doesn't have an appetite.
Now knowing that he's taking the dexamethasone, I would definitely urge your friend to contact his doctor and let them know about the lack of appetite, vomiting, nausea and stomach pains and have him request something specifically for nausea. For me, phenergan works quite nicely, but I know of a couple of cancer patients who have been prescribed Zofran and they say it does very well - it is expensive, though, so if your friend doesn't have prescription coverage, trying an older, less expensive medication such as the phenergan, might not be a bad idea (compazine is also an older, less expensive anti-nausea med that I've had in the past and it worked pretty well).
I hope your friend gets to feeling better real soon - He is very lucky to have such a caring friend looking out for him.
Is your friend taking the dexamethasone orally or is that IV like the capecitabine (the chemo med)? If he is taking it orally, unfortunately, it's pretty important to take it with food, otherwise, the gastric side effects of it can be greatly increased. This could very well be the cause of his nighttime stomach pains (or at least partially).
I know you've mentioned that he does not have an appetite - do you think that is because of the nausea/stomach pains or do think it's more related to the chemo meds and the cancer itself? I know myself that when I'm nauseas I definitely don't feel like eating, so it's quite understandable that he doesn't have an appetite.
Now knowing that he's taking the dexamethasone, I would definitely urge your friend to contact his doctor and let them know about the lack of appetite, vomiting, nausea and stomach pains and have him request something specifically for nausea. For me, phenergan works quite nicely, but I know of a couple of cancer patients who have been prescribed Zofran and they say it does very well - it is expensive, though, so if your friend doesn't have prescription coverage, trying an older, less expensive medication such as the phenergan, might not be a bad idea (compazine is also an older, less expensive anti-nausea med that I've had in the past and it worked pretty well).
I hope your friend gets to feeling better real soon - He is very lucky to have such a caring friend looking out for him.
Thanks for your reply, The Dr prescribed my friend; after the chemo,which was intravenously administered was no longer available are Capecitabine (which lasts for 6wks as opposed to the the drip which lasted for 3wks) Dexamethasone (nausea) & Lansoprazole to help with gastric problems. He wakes during the night with severe pains in his stomach which thankfully don't last very long.Like i have already said his appetite is non existent. When i left him earlier today he had been vomiting
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It's important for him to be able to eat so he can keep up his strength. Chemo is very hard on the body and drastic weight loss is also hard on the body, which makes it harder for his body to recover and fight the cancer.
When he does get nauseas, try having him sip on ginger ale - the ginger in it is good for the tummy and it also gets a little bit of sugar into his system. Gatorade or other sports type drinks are also good. When he feels up to it, nibbling on a saltine or graham cracker is a good way to start.