My husband, Dan, is completing chemoradiation treatment tomorrow. This is my first time to post. We need your help.

Dan has done quite well with treatment overall. He has a great attitude and is quite proactive in his care. He even created a new component to the new radiation patient education class at M.D.Anderson, giving the perspective of another patient currently in treatment.

He has had a feeding tube from the beginning of treatment and swears by it. For weeks he has been consuming 5 cans/day (2.5 cans twice a day over 2 hours each feeding supplemented by high protein smoothies)Suddenly on Monday evening,he became violently ill after 1/4 can (no previous nausea during radiation). You all can imagine the pain of vomiting when your mouth, throat, and esophagus is one big ulcer.

Repeated attempts at feedings this week have had the same result. Although he is drinking some water, he no longer attempts nutrition by mouth due to pain and no/bad taste.

He has lost 6 pounds in less than a week. We are trying new formulas, and he is receiving daily hydration treatments; however this problem is apparently unusual.

We were planning on returning home from Houston to Alabama after treatment, but we obviously must solve this problem. We are troubleshooting and we need your help. Ideas? Experience?

Thanks, Rebecca

I should add that his GI doc has checked the tube. It is in the right place, functioning as it should.

Rebecca:

I also have a PEG tube. First, have you checked with your chemo/rad doctors? Does he have a dietician?

I had been using my PEG tube right when I started throwing up. It's really bad to throw up w/ a sore mouth, some sores opened up and I was throwing up blood. It hurt like heck.

My chemo doctor told me get on the anti nasuea medicine ASAP. Because of the mouth problems, I was given anti-nasuea suppositories which worked.

It also sounds to me like his intake was quite high. I usually only do 1 can at a time w/ a flush before and after. When my stomach is queasy, its then down to 1/2 a can.

I hope this has helped you, main thing is call the doctors/dietician.

Good luck,

Is he taking any anti nausea medicine?
In my case the weekly chemo caused the nausea. It did not do so immediately but it was always at 5 days after the infusion and then just for one day. This was worse for cisplatin than carboplatin. I did not take any anti nausea meds except on day 4. This kept the urge to vomit under control especially during the IMRT treatment on day 5.

Markus

Hi Rebecca

Had the same thing happen to me. My NP advised me to get back on my anti-nausea meds.

The stuff just started out of nowhere about my 4th week of radiation. Once back on the meds, I was fine.

Kevin

Hi Rebecca, Jack had a similar situation about 3 days after his last chemo. He had to stay on his zofran twice a day for 3 more weeks. He also had a problem early on and they told us it was a type of gastric reflux common with PEG tubes. They prescribed prevacid antacid, which we crushed up and gave thru the tube. It' a miserable feeling.
Regards JoAnne

Many here have had success with slow drip feeding with their PEG tubes. Feeding too fast can cause bloat and/or nausea as well. Like Joanne, I was on anti-acids the whole time, Pepcid AC then Prilosec. Chemo does a number on the stomach lining. I also had many problems with nausea, mainly from constipation and resulting lack of homeostatis. Reglan may help this and talk to your nutritionist as well. Is he still on pain meds?