Chemotherapy is the standard treatment for curing cancer. The procedure includes administering anti-cancer drugs that attack the cancer cells and kill them. This prevents the cancer cells from growing further. As a part of chemotherapy, the person may also undergo radiation therapy and surgery.
But along with destroying the cancer cells, chemotherapy also kills your appetite. You may suffer from nausea, vomiting, sore throat and diarrhoea. As maintaining your diet is crucial for the success of your chemotherapy, you need to stay fit.
Diet before undergoing chemotherapy
On the day of your chemotherapy, it is recommended that you eat light. Eat in small quantities but avoid skipping any meals. You must not consume any greasy, spicy or fatty foods. You can eat the following foods –
Cottage cheese and fresh fruits
Milk with cereals
Plain yoghurt
Egg poach and toast
Chicken rice soup
Salty snacks such as crackers
Apart from these foods, you can consume grape and apple juices that are not acidic. Fruits such as bananas and liquid yoghurt are good. Carry a water bottle with you. During the process, you may be given juices and supplements. You may not feel like eating but eating in small amounts will give your energy.
You might drink liquids in small amounts every ½ hour.
What to eat after chemotherapy
You can follow this diet after chemotherapy –
Eat bland and low-fat foods
Instead of 2 or 3 large meals, eat 5 or 6 smaller meals every day
Drink plenty of water throughout the day. This will help you prevent dehydration and remove the unwanted by-products of created in the body due to chemotherapy
Other healthy fluids include fruit nectars, apple or grape juice, black tea, clear soups, gelatine, herbal teas and Gatorade
Take the anti-nausea medication as prescribed by the doctors
Steps to maintain your diet
As chemotherapy makes your stomach turn, you have to take steps to increase your appetite.
Don’t skip the calories
Chemotherapy treatment will require you to eat more calories to regain your strength. So your diet must include cheese, milk, meat and eggs. You can also take liquids that are high in calories, such as milkshakes.
Eat well-cooked and heated foods
Aim to eat thoroughly cooked foods that are also well heated. This is because cooking properly and heating the food well kills all the bacteria in it. This can prevent bowel infections too.
Chemotherapy reduces your body’s defence against infections and germs. Therefore, it is better to avoid fast food that may not be properly cooked and are difficult to digest.
Maintain cleanliness
To prevent any kind of infections, always wash your hands before eating your meals. Make sure the utensils used for cooking are clean also. It is recommended to keep the food covered or refrigerated and not lying in the open.
Always try to eat fresh fruits and vegetables during chemotherapy. It is best to talk to your doctor about the diet you should follow to stay fit and healthy.
If a person gets diagnosed with cancer and he/she will get started off with their chemotherapy or radiation treatment, quite typically the hair loss would begin within 10 to 14 days after having gone through the first treatment.
The ideal thing that people can do well before his or her chemotherapy treatment gets underway, is to know exactly what needs to be done for hair loss prior to their first treatment. The activities can involve:
Before we talk more about wigs, let us see what radiation and chemotherapy does to a person:
Chemotherapy and any other kind of radiation can lead to hair loss. People tend to lose hair that only lies in the area, which gets treated. Still, radiation or chemotherapy to one’s head can let people lose either some or all of their hair on the head, which could be even eyebrows and lashes.
As and when a person starts to lose their hair, the ideal suggestion is to either cut the hair very short or shave it off completely. The mental framework becomes much better and it allows them to take complete control of the situation and makes the process of hair loss much easier to handle.
Wigs for Chemotherapy Patients
Choosing a wig is not just like choosing any other fashion accessory. It is a much more important process, particularly when it is about choosing for cancer patients.
The kind of wig a patient wears tends to speak volumes and would want to make it is sending out the right message. The process through which right kind of wig gets chosen is a tricky one. It is best to get hold of a wig, which carries the resemblance with that of his or her natural colour of hair. That would make sure the transformation is not too difficult and will also help patients in being comfortable.
Ideal Size of the Wig
Most of the wigs that are available for patients having undergone chemotherapies carry the appropriate size to fit almost anyone. Still, in order to get the right size, one has to take the measurement by placing the end of his or her measuring device at the centre of their forehead, right at the hairline.
Then get hold of the measuring tape from one’s scalp right down to the back of one’s neck, which run behind their ears and back to their forehead.
Chemotherapy can be frightening, and the very thought of going through it can be an ordeal for most people. Many resources and tips can be used to minimize the discomfort and lessen the burden.
Let us have a look at a few of these:
Chemotherapy treatment can be emotionally daunting. Having a few precautions like the ones stated above can make all the difference in how successful we are in coping with it.
Chemotherapy can be frightening, and the very thought of going through it can be an ordeal for most people. Many resources and tips can be used to minimize the discomfort and lessen the burden. Let us have a look at a few of these.
Chemotherapy treatment can be emotionally daunting. Having a few precautions like the ones stated above can make all the difference in how successful we are in coping with it.
AVN is the acronym for avascular necrosis, which mostly affects the hip bone. This complication develops when there is a loss of blood flow to the bones. Being a living tissue, bones require a continuous supply of blood, and if there is an interruption to this supply for a long time, bones suffer from avascular necrosis. The longer duration of this condition may cause bone death. Apart from the hips, AVN may also affect other sites like knees, shoulder, ankles, etc.
Symptoms -
Usually, there are no symptoms in the early stages. However, as the disease progresses, it begins to hurt as you sit down or put pressure on the hip bones. As the disease progresses unabated, the pain may refuse to go away. Progressively, the hip bone collapses along with its surrounding joint tissue. Pain becomes severe and begins to interfere with your daily activities. However, it may take several months and even a year for the bone and the surrounding tissue to collapse.
Causes -
Causes of avascular necrosis may include:
Dislocation of thigh bone affecting the blood supply to the bone. About 20% of people suffering from hip dislocation or fracture may suffer from AVN Hip.
Chronic use of corticosteroids. About 35% of patients undergoing chronic corticosteroid use may develop AVN Hip. It is considered that these drugs may interfere with the ability of the body to break down fat.
Alcohol abuse too may lead to avascular necrosis much in the same way as corticosteroids.
Blood clots, arterial damage, and inflammation may also contribute to blocking the flow of blood to bones and precipitate AVN Hip.
Other conditions that may contribute to this disease are sickle cell disease of the blood, pancreatitis, diabetes, HIV, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, long term abuse of some drugs, etc.
Treatment -
The objective of treating avascular necrosis is to improve the functioning of joints, reducing pain, and stopping bone damage. In the case of early diagnosis, treatment can be done by taking pain-relieving medicines and by limiting regular use of your hips. Taking crutches to limit weight bearing by the hips may help to relieve pain and limiting damage to the bone. You may also need to perform various range-of-motion exercises in order to ensure continued mobility of the joints.
Treatment Outcome -
Needless to say, that the damage already done cannot be reversed. This is why the earlier the problem is diagnosed, the better it is for the patients. The best outcome of treatment depends on:
Age of the patient
Stage of progression of the disease
Location of bone damage and its spread
Removing the cause of avascular necrosis, if possible, which means stopping alcohol and drug abuse, taking precautionary steps after femoral dislocations and fractures, stopping the use of corticosteroids, etc.
Take Away -
The symptoms are not visible in the early stage of the condition. This is why a consultation is advisable if a person experiences any of the above symptoms.
Chemotherapy is an integral part of cancer treatment. Anti-cancer drugs are used to target the cancerous cells and destroy them to prevent the spread of the disease. The very name of chemotherapy may invoke fear. However, this fear can be attributed to the misconceptions or incorrect portrayal of the treatment and its effects by the mass media. So, if you are about to undergo a chemotherapy session, then you should arm yourself with the facts about this treatment.
You will not have to stay hospitalized for long
It is a common misconception that chemotherapy requires you to remain hospitalized for days. However, the fact is, you will not even have to stay there overnight. A session can last from half an hour to four hours, after which you will be discharged.
There are different types of Chemotherapy
You may not be hooked up to an IV for your chemotherapy. You may be given chemotherapy pills that you have to take regularly or special chemotherapy creams that you have to rub into the affected place. You may also be given shots that will directly inject the drugs into your body.
Hair loss is not inevitable
It is true that chemotherapy causes hair fall, but not all combinations of drugs trigger it. Similarly, you may not experience all the dreaded side effects of chemotherapy such as perpetual nausea, diarrhoea, aches and pain, loss of appetite, loss of the sensation of taste, sores. You may experience some, as the intensity differs from one person to the next. The drugs given to you will determine the side effects.
The side effects may exhibit long after the treatment
Not all side effects show up during treatment. Chemotherapy can trigger extensive lung, kidney or heart damage, nerve destruction or infertility – the symptoms of which may not become evident for years.
‘Chemo Brain’ really happens
You may have heard people who have been treated with chemotherapy talk about memory loss, incoherent thought process and fuzziness triggered by the drugs – and it does happen to many people. The drugs are extremely powerful and can send your bodily functions such as secretion of hormones, out of whack that could cause these side effects.
Chemotherapy is utilized for more than just killing cancer cells
The primary function of chemotherapy is to destroy the cancer tumour and if that does not work, a doctor can recommend sessions for –
Eliminating the stray cancer cells that could not be removed during surgery
Shrink the cancer growth before you go in for surgery or other treatment
The Chemotherapy Diet
A special diet exists that can help mellow the intensity of the side effects of chemotherapy. Make sure you eat plenty of –
Proteins (meat, chicken, fish, soy products, dairy)that will repair your damaged cells and tissue
Calories to replenish your depleting reserve of energy
All the vitamins and minerals (colourful vegetables and fruits) to boost all-round good health
Make soup or broth with vegetables and chicken/meat if swallowing solids is difficult
Chemotherapy is shrouded with misconceptions, which may do a lot of harm. Get all the information you need to deal with this form of cancer treatment.
Cancer, or the big C, is always in the news. Use any keyword related to cancer, and there is definitely information overload. Also, with more people surviving cancer, there are too many tales to tell. All this leads to misconceptions and myths, leaving people, who are looking for genuine information, completely confused.
The following are some common misconceptions:
This is just a short list, and there are far too many false notions. Check with your doctor to validate the information before using it to take any decision.
Fertility Preservation: Options for Cancer patients
Survival rates among young cancer patients have steadily increased over the past two decades in part because of the development of more effective cancer treatments. Today, both women and men can look forward to life after cancer, yet many may face fertility issues as a result of the disease itself or these lifesaving treatments(chemotherapy or radiotherapy).
Fertility options for Men
Established fertility preservation options for men include A) sperm freezing (cryopreservation), in which a semen sample is collected, frozen, and stored for future use or B) testicular sperm extraction, during which sperms are aspirated from the testes through a short surgical procedure and frozen or C) testicular tissue freezing where tissue is checked for sperms and frozen for later use.
Fertility options for Women
Options for women to have children after cancer has evolved significantly in recent years. Women should be counselled for established techniques such as-
A) embryo freezing in which hormonal stimulation causes production of multiple eggs, which are removed & fertilized by sperm, embryos are then frozen for future use or
B) oocyte freezing where oocytes are directly frozen for future use or
C) ovarian tissue freezing, which is not established procedure, It is recommended for prepubertal girls.
Fertility options for Couples
Embryo cryopreservation is an established technique that has been proven to be the most effective one. This process is basically for couples who wish to delay pregnancy e.g.if anyone of them undergoing chemotherapy/radiation treatment or for social reasons in some cases.
Embryo freezing has shown the best results so far amongst all above techniques. They can be frozen for years. Before going ahead with fertility preservation in cancer cases, multiple things need to be taken into consideration which involves teamwork by oncologists, hematologists, fertility specialists, oncosurgeon. It definitely gives a solution for those who wish to preserve their dream to parenthood !!!