I'm new to the "in treatment" boards. I posted to the newbies forum about a year ago, and then the recurrence forum back in October, but it's time to swing around to this area.

The topic I want to bring up is this honey diet I'm on. My RO recommends me swishing and swallowing 2 TBS of honey 15 minutes before treatment, 15 minutes after treatment, and right before bed. He says that in his research he has been able to prevent people from needing a feeding tube 9 times out of 10 by using the honey method.

This is all great, except I decided to continue the honey while nauseated from chemo last week and I now puke every time I even smell the stuff. We've been trying methods of diluting the honey, only swishing it, etc. to try to fix that issue and I'm making progress.

What I'd like to know, though, is if anyone else has had any experiences with using honey during treatment and how that's been.

Thanks!

I don't remember ever seeing someone post about that before but just my personal opinion I don't see how that little bit of added calories per day can do anything but give you a little bit of extra calories a day and certainly could not prevent the necessity of a feeding tube where one's goal is 2000 to 3000 calories every day. I also have never heard of any study like he mentioned but would certainly want to read it if he can provide a link.

David,
Are you trying for the knucklehead award again? The doctor wasn't suggesting that the honey was going to give them enough calories for the day to avoid the peg. He was saying that it helps prevent the sores in the mouth that make it almost impossible for people to eat and thus might help them not need the peg.

And YES, other people on the board have used manuka honey and did NOT get the horrible mouth sores that many get. GAILMACs husband who was treated at Johns Hopkins I believe by Dr. Gillison was one who comes to mind. He had about the easiest time of any one I can remember on this board. Whether it was the honey or not, I do not know. They also used some other things which I don't remember at the moment that helped with his dry mouth. Try a search on 'Manuka' and you can probably find the strings.

Sorry to hear the honey is nauseating you. Maybe try a differnt flavor? Some people have used it quite successfully.

Take care,
Eileen

A friend of mine found a honey article somewhere. I detest honey. But I did exactly as you said - 15 min before , 15 min after, and 6 hours after. I hated every minute of it, but I did it faithfully. Obviously, I don't know what things would look like had I not submitted myself to honey torture, but according to the doctors my mouth sores were not horrible. I still was in a lot of pain though and had consumed ungodly amount of painkillers. By the very end though, honey stung. But that was maybe the very last week.

But I'm with David - it doesn't makes things worse, and it may make things better, so why not.

Hopefully, it will make things a little less horrible for you too.

Eileen,

It's my "season" to not be able to concentrate on non tax matters. Guess I read her post to quickly! lol

You 2 are funny. LOL

Re: David ...I am telling you guys, the man has brain freeze. It has stayed cold here in Florida way longer than usual..warmed a bit today, but due to get below freezing again over the weekend. Cold and tax season = knuckleheadness!

So, until spring expect really weird posts from the CPA man.

Hugs and kisses, Deb

Sometimes you can tell a book by its cover. If you skipped over the subject line of this post, you would not know how the honey was used from the text. I wish I had found OCF the first time around as my mouth sores were horrendous even though I still avoided the PEG.
Becoming nauseous over food that you used during the chemo nausea is quite common. I was warned that it is a human version of a Pavlovian response by the chemo nurse who did a pre chemo FAQ session. Unfortunately she did not say how to overcome it
Charm

Wow! I guess I started a good topic here. I'm still working, so by the time I got home from treatment #8, ate dinner (mmmm... nothing like bland metallic food), and updated my blog for the day, I finally got a chance to read all the responses.

I can't find the specific research my RO is doing (it is possible it is still in the process of being published), but I ran a pubmed search on "honey oral cancer" and found this.

I found a way today to take it by putting it in the front of my mouth, then swishing/swallowing it with a swig of water. I didn't gag, so success. Hopefully I can try to take smaller and smaller swigs of water until I don't need it.

So far, no mouth sores, no sore throat and I'm feeling pretty good. The only major complaints so far are the nausea/fatigue and loss/change of taste.

Three other things I'm doing to prevent mouth sores:
1. 5mg Salagen (pilocarpine) 3x a day
2. Shots of Ethyol (amifostine) before ever treatment
3. Gelclair swish - supposedly 3 times a day but it's RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE, so so far I'm just doing one a day

My RO is throwing every possible known study to prevent mouth sores at me. I'm only 25 and when I started crying when I asked him what this was going to do for my quality of life he took out his prescription pad and wrote down all of that.

Hopefully the honey treatment idea can be beneficial to lots of other folks out there in treatment now too.

Honey has been used for it's healing properties in some cultures forever. It's has both antibiotic and antiseptic properties to it that promote healing. It's also the only food that doesn't spoil.

I don't think that it's a cure all, but hopefully it helps.