Tomorrow is the last Chemo and this week 5 more radiation treatments to go . Starting yesterday he is unable to eat anything without excruciating pain. He is able to drink some water out of a straw. Through 6 weeks of treatments he has been eating and drinking.

Any tips on how to get him through this last week? He is on pain meds that we have had to increase the dosage daily. Now he gets chills and pain every time he drinks.

Welcome to OCF! Sorry to hear your husband is struggling. At the end of treatment and the 2 or 3 weeks afterwards it is the worst part of the whole treatment program. Your husband MUST continue to drink and get nutrition in somehow. It sounds like he does not have a feeding tube. That would be the easy way, just put it thru the tube.

Get ensure, boost or order some Carnation very high calorie thru the Amazon link in the green box. Push him to get 2500 calories per day. Try getting some magic mouthwash he can swish and spit before he attempts to eat or drink. It will numb his mouth for about 15 minutes which should be long enough to get some nutrition. Magic mouthwash is made of several different concoctions, mine was lydocaine, maylox and benedryl. Its prescription so if he doesnt have this, ask the doc. If necessary he can use pain meds to help ease the discomfort and enable him to eat. Most of us used the fentanyl patch to help take the pain away. Dont worry about using pain meds, it does not help a patient to not take them.

We have been there and know this is the worst of it. Soon it will be over and he can begin to recover. Best wishes!

Thank you Christine! He does have the magic mouthwash with lydocaine and maylox, it does not have the benedryl so maybe that would help? The Dr. also gave him Gelclair. He is on Oxy but I have never heard of the patch. I have tried all of the drinks but as of yesterday he was able to eat only oatmeal with a lot of butter which got him up to 1500 calories and water. Today barely anything, a few bites and sips. He said everything burns like fire and after he takes a few bites gets chills because of the pain. Final home stretch and I just wish I knew more to comfort him.

Sounds like you need someone to have another look at his pain meds. My Alex was on 3 kinds during that last week and then for another 2 weeks. He had long acting oxycodone (Oxycontin), short acting oxycondone(Endone) and Fentanyl pathces. Still hurt like blazes but not so much that he had pain and chills.

Please talk to your doctors, this is too much pain for him.

Be forewarned that the radiation side effects will continue for several weeks after "beam off" (and can actually get worse). The mucositus will be a problem and others have already mentioned pain management and nutrition. It is vital to stay hydrated and also take aggressive steps to mitigate constipation, which is caused by the pain meds.

Personally I had Fentanyl, 72 hour time release patch with Morphine for breakthrough pain (Morphine is the fastest acting oral pain relief). Pain management was critical in the timeframe of post Tx - but so was constipation management. You will want to have ongoing consults with the nutritionist about that. For many of us it was the WORST part of recovery. I spent many hours curled up in a fetal position by the toilet.

My trick was to take a few Morphine tablets, swish and spit with Pink Magic then I had about 30 or so minutes to eat and drink. A feeding tube probably would have made life a lot easier...

If your husband is not able to get enough calories daily, he will feel awful. Many people have gotten near the end of treatments only to end up getting an emergency feeding tube. There is also a nasal tube that could be used for a short time to help him get past the next few hard weeks. No surgery to insert it or to remove it. Tomorrow speak with your husbands doctors about upping his pain meds and about a feeding tube (probably a nasal one would be enough). That should help make it a little easier to get adequate nutrition in.

Hi,
I don't want to alarm you, but the next week to 2 weeks after the last radiation tx are pretty bad. Wednesday will be the end of our 2nd week. My husband is just beginning to eat soft foods again. He has lived on Ensure for the last 4 weeks. He has a PEG tube, but hates to use it.
If your husband can, he really needs to just increase his pain meds and know that he has to hunker down for a few weeks. But...it will get better. We were literally just there!
I know this is hard to hear. We hated when we got these kind of posts on our questions, but they were right. Sometimes just KNOWING it will be bad helps to not be afraid of it being bad. Does that make sense? Pain meds are your friend. If whatever he is taking isn't working, get something stronger.
The 2 of you are NOT in this alone. Please know we all know how you are feeling. You can pm any of us for more support.
Blessings,
Kathy

Hi there... Everyone here has given great advice. Your hubby has one great so far. - remind him of that! If he is going to continue food by mouth - make it liquid, invest in som nsure, boost, or the like, toss a spoon of protein powder in each bottle if you can, have him take a pain med, and wait until its working (or at least has taken the edge off) then swish with magic mouthwash - and chug his food (liquid nutrition) - then hopefully he can sleep off the meds.
It worked for me during the worst of it...
Good luck - tell him to hang in there!

I got a nasal tube post radiation and it was a lifesaver. Two min install sitting up in a chair as they feed it through his nose into his stomach and a x ray to make sure the placement is correct and he's good to go. After 2 weeks I pulled it out at home myself, with my docs blessing.

Definitely get the Carnation Instant Breakfast VHC (as in VERY HIGH CALORIES). The small 8 oz can contains a whopping 560 balanced calories and I preferred them room temp. Get them from the pharmacy dept at a store like Walgreens, no prescrip necessary. They can get them to you in a day or 2. Have him "drink" 5 or 6 cans and 5 or 6 8 oz cups of water EACH and EVERY DAY.

As others have warned his worse is most likely yet to come as the 2 to 3 weeks POST TX are usually our worse time so don't hesitate, get this tube done now!!!

We thought this was all Easy up until last week. Even though the eating diminished he was able to eat at least 1500 calories of oatmeal with butter and whole milk every day. It was like a switch went off over the weekend. Now a mere sip of water is like razor blades and he goes into a chill and shaking spasm. The doctor did update his does of oxy to 15 mg every 2 hours, the patch began today about an hour or so ago, the magic mouthwash and Gelclear which did nothing. Also, to add to it, he was supposed to have chemo today and his cell count was below 1000 (whatever that means) so they have him on antibiotics. GREAT advice on the constipation which he is starting to experience. He has had nothing to eat or drink yet today that did not cause excruciating pain. Giving it some time to work. We meet with the Radiation Oncologist tomorrow after his treatment. Should I ask for Morphine? Can they do the nasal feeding tube during radiation? How do they work around the mask? 4 more treatments to go. He said as long as he doesn't swallow he's fine so does have some rainbow moments at least.