trouble eating in the morning

[Spiffy1993]

My husband is one week into treatment, takes his 2nd shot tomorrow.  He is really having a hard time with his morning meds.  He's on peg-riba-incevik.  Problem is he cannot eat anything early.  He's tried several things, and within an hour or so it all comes back up, maybe including his meds.  He's never been a breakfast eater.  He's tried dry toast, crackers, cereal, plain biscuit.  He's always been a finicky eater anyway, and that compounds the problem.  He's done OK w/ just 2 1/2 cups of milk to get the fat he needs, just not sure that's sufficient.  Any thoughts?  By the way, he's starting to feel really crappy.

[helphubby82]

Spiffy glad to hear things are getting a little better my husband also has good and bad days your right what a rollercoaster my husband was just prescribed ambien to help him sleep he was having insomia that has worked out well for him hang in there!!

[LookingForward12]

I also had a difficult time in the morning....not a morning person, and having to get up and eat....Blech! So I devised a routine of getting up, having two tablespoons of olive oil (orange infused) with a glass of OJ, followed by either a Nutrament drink (meal replacement -10g fat) or a Boost Extra (14g). I would get all this down as quickly as possible and then head back to bed. For the three week period that nausea was a big issue, I would take a nausea pill the minute I woke up.
Hope he gets to feeling better!

[fredpacc]

Hi Spiffy,
I know how difficult the tx is - I am now 5 months post tx and I can assure you it is well worth it. I have some of the high fat foods listed here for your husband - I wish you and him the very best. It is great that you are there to support him - my wife just bailed on me - God bless you - Fred


Fat Foods

Taylor Ham - 6 gms/slice
Egg – 5gms
American cheese – 5 grms/slice
Bran Muffin – 5 grms
Frozen Waffles – 3.5 grms each
Pancakes – 7.6, (4)
Biscuit – 5.1 grms
Granola – 33 grms / cup
Cream Cheese – 10 grms/ounce
Milk Chocolate – 10 grms/ounce
Cheeseburger 4 oz – 30 grms
Potato salad – 10 grms/ ½ cup (eggs, Mayo type)
Hot Dog – 18 grms
Yogurt – 7.4 grms, 1 cup
Sausage Links – 6 grms/ link
Eskimo Ice cream –  15 grms
Nature Valley Roasted nut Crunch – 1 bar – 13grms
Peanut Butter – 8 grms/tablespoon
Avacado – 30 grms (medium size)

[skiyaltr]

Glad the weekend worked out better.  Whipping cream worked well for me.  1 tablespoon was 6 grams so could add to other milk and drink down or just do by itself.  Good luck.

[Spiffy1993]

Thanks to all of you.  On Friday he drank milk for his fat, and tried eating a couple of Nabs crackers every 30 minutes or so which worked pretty well.  He didn't feel great, but he didn't throw up either.  Yesterday & today he ate some instant oatmeal w/ his milk, and so far so good.  So far he can't handle butter or oil first thing in the a.m., but that could change.  Had a rough night Saturday all night and was up all night, but ate well yesterday and took it easy for a change.  He goes back to Dr. this Friday, so I will have him ask about the Zofran.  
It's weird-- the side effects are really a roller-coaster, going from feeling great for a couple hours to feeling lousy for a couple hours, with different things working to help at different times.  
Overall, he says he doesn't feel as bad as he expected, and so far attitude remains good.  I expect to be on this forum a lot, and have been here reading since his diagnosis last fall.  What a great help this place is!!
Thanks again.

[ceanothus]

Get him some Zofran ASAP! Seriously, this is an emergency if he's possibly throwing up his Incivek before it is absorbed. Missing doses or reducing doses of Incivek can lead to viral mutations and the development of an Incivek-resistant strain. If that happens his viral load will start increasing and he will be pulled off tx (and won't be able to retry until new drugs are available).

Call his clinic immediately, tell them he is vomiting soon after taking the morning Incivek. Get that Zofran and take it right away upon awakening. It will work within 20-30 minutes and the food will go down easier in addition to staying down better. I found that I'd go from feeling very nauseated before the Zofran all the way to actually being pretty okay with eating about 20 minutes after taking it, and I never threw up again once I had that drug.  The Rx I got said "every 8 hours as needed", but I was like your husband with mostly being sick in the morning, and I only very rarely needed it later in the day. Good luck!

[Advocate1955]

My husband ate peanut butter, Greek yogurt, or an avocado in the morning.  Cream cheese on a bagel seemed to work OK too.
Advocate1955

[Idyllic]

If your husband is only sick in the morning and he is not nauseous or vomiting at other times of the day then you might want to consider changing his medication schedule. It is huge hassle if other aspects of your routine are working for you however. I eventually had to since I threw up my meds more than once in the beginning. Then I had a lousy day for the rest of the day.

I have never eaten in the morning so I should have known trying to do so with 20 grams of fat and my meds was not the most realistic of ideas.
It is tricky because the later you take the morning does the later you eat throughout the rest of the day. The downside is that I also could not sleep with 20 grams of fat in my tummy. I developed acid reflux right off the bat. I ended up finding fats I could tolerate and eventually I could take my meds later in the day and at odd hours of the night. It was inconvenient but it worked which was a great help .

It is likely your husband's appetite will decrease as he progresses on the Incivek. Lucky for you since you won't have to plan high fat meals but it will involve experimenting.  I noticed is that for a lot of us a fat that worked one week would not work the following week. It is if we developed an aversion to it or something.

Sorry your hubby is feeling crappy. He is fortunate to have you!!

[helphubby82]

I heard of people using 2 tablespoons of olive oil. My husband sometimes will make peanut butter on toast 2 tablespoons of peanut butter has the fat and a glass of milk my hub is finding out the more fat he consumes the better his sides are good luck I know its hard!

[Sentinel13]

Hi Spiffy: I started off every morning with a Zofran. Sometimes I would drink a big glass of Strawberry Quick with whole milk before taking my Incivek. Sometimes I would eat cherry pie for the fat. Basically, I ate/drank 20 grams of whatever I could stomach in the morning -- more fat if my butt was burning. Best, GB

[pooh55811]

I was never an early morning eater either so I understand that aspect of it.

Normally for the 6 am dose I ate Greek Gods honey yogurt. It has to be Greek Gods as it has a very high fat content, and it has to be whole, not low fat. I also ate a piece of toast or some rye crisp with the yogurt to give me a little more solid food in the stomach. I mixed heavy whipping cream with foods to add more fat to them. But the Greek Gods yogurt really gives a person a lot of fat and it goes down easily.

I would also suggest that you or he talk with his doc (today) about getting a presciption for Zofran or another type of anti-emetic. I take 8 mg of Zofran every 8 hours and it works wonders.

The other thing to keep in mind is that not eating for too long of a period of time also tends to increase the nausea, but that is probably not his problem because he vomits after he eats. In contrast, the nausea caused by not eating disappears when  person eats, even a little bit of food.

I really recomend talking with his doc about Zofran (or another anti-emetic)before he gets any sicker and before he compromises his treatment success by vomiting up his meds.

Best of luck.

[working dog]

i started eating butter...2 tablespoons = 22 grams of fat...in the morning i ate blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup and lots of butter....then at lunch i put butter on bread...i ate ice cream in the start of tx but that didn't last long...btw keep in mind tx can make you come out and say things you might not normally say ...nice to see you helping your husband...good luck..billy