Hi:

My father has been in the hospital since late Thursday night. He cannot keep his food down (ensure). He has had all kinds of tests and everything comes back normal. He is getting Eurbix(sp) once a week and was recently put on the pain patch. Has anyone else experianced this? I feel so bad for him just sitting in his hospital bed. This treatment has been so awful. I feel terrible for all of victims of this horrible disease.

Boston

Did your father have nausea before the new pain patch? Pain meds often cause nausea. That sucks.

not really. He has hated getting the food via peg tube from the start and always looked a bit uncomfortable when geting it, But, he now throws it right up. He has had all kinds of tests and the drs. cannot find any physical reason for his nausea. Does the pain patch do a job on your stomach? I know he is not in any pain but he looks out of it since getting the patch a few days ago.

Hi Boston
when major pain meds are introduced some dotors automatically give an anti emetic alongside as they can cause problems.Rob was also given a stomach protector(omeprazole) to reduce the irritant effects on the stomach lining.Vomiting feeds back is also a common problem,and mostly seems to be resolved by juggling with feeding formula,timing and speed it is given with.Even something as daft as the wrong flavour can cause nausea .rob could only tolerate vanilla as the smell of the others made him wretch before i got them any where near his feeding tube.Getting nutrition right is a real minefield,and i hope it gets sorted.the first few days of fentanyl patch can cause a zonked out look,but as the body gets used to the drug this may pass,unless your dad is one of the unfortunate people who just cant toerated it.

love liz

I'm on the fentanyl patch and it did cause nausea, they gave me 10mg of prochlorperazine and it helped a little. I found that if I only used one can of ensure and injected it slowly that most times I could keep some down.

to put things in perspective, fentanyl is stronger then most street heroin you can find, in fact a few years ago people were dying because they were getting fentanyl sold to them when they thought they were getting heroin and OD'd on the stuff. It's not a drug given lightly and certainly not one to play with. I hate being on it myself and look forward to the day I'm off. You do get used to it though, I haven't had nausea in 6 months so there is hope there.

Keep your chin up and good luck

Eric

Pain meds can cause nausea and dehydration and constipation can also cause nausea.

amen for constipation and pain meds LOL Now that I understand

oh jim, don't get me started on constipation oy. When I was at the UWMC after my surgery they kept pumping me full of stool softners etc...after the 2nd day out of ICU I couldn't get off the toilet and the nurse was like "wow...I guess I shouldn't keep giving you these stool softners huh?" I wanted to throw the porta-potty at her.

Not sure if I should start a new topic here or not, but the "constant nausea" subject line got my attention as my S.O. continues w/nausea even though he's 'only' undergoing rad tx, not chemo. He was actually sent home this afternoon after he thought he was going to vomit when the tx was just about to start--he was screwed down to the table and had had the positioning xrays done and everything. Was to go back tonight once he felt better but never did feel better. This means another tx tacked on the end, I suppose. Some days the nausea is much worse than others; today obviously a bad one and this despite Zofran, Ativan, Reglan (and maybe a Compazine too). Rather discouraging. It's 10:30pm here now and he's dozing in bed but still nauseated. Won't do the fluoride trays b/c afraid that might put him over the edge. Any others w/this much difficulty w/nausea during radiation?

Boston....if your father is throwing up after doing the feedings then you need to fix the feedings. Water them down and slow it down. I went thru heck with that for weeks, so Im very familiar with this.

Ask for a feeding pump and try doing the feeding s overnight while he sleeps. It should be set very low like about 30 or 40 to start. Add 3 cans of 'food' and about 1.5 cans of water to the bag. Make sure he is propped up on 2 or 3 pillows for bed. After a couple nights he will get the hang of the nightly feedings and will sleep very well with the sound of the pump. Then during the day he will only need 2 more cans.

By slowing down the feedings and watering it down it will be much easier for him to tolerdate. Of course he still should be drinking water as much as possible if able.

Also ask for a visiting nurse to come. I dont know how, but I had one check on me for a few weeks while I learned to use the feeding machine. They were assigned to me after a breif hospital stay for malnutrition and dehydration. It was due to not being able to keep down my feedings.

You should also ask the doc for prescription formula. Its much more potent than ensure and available thru prescription. Mine was paid for by my insurance company.

Best of luck with the continuing treatments.