Hello, all. My Dad is about 2 weeks out from ending his chemo and radiation. He still has excessive mucous in his mouth that he is constantly hacking up and spitting out. How long will this last??

Also, he is getting really tired of his Boost and Ensure drinks. He does not have a PEG and never had one. Today, I made him a drink with my juicer (kale, celery, carrots, apples) just to get some nutrients in him. He drank it, but didn't like the taste. He still has to have foods that are super smooth. I cooked him a cheesy, soft scrambled egg and he said the texture was bad. He says food is still grainy and tastes like gravel in his mouth. I'm wondering when the heck that will improve??
I feel like what he can try is super limited. Must be super smooth. Can't handle anything too cold, so there goes ice cream. He said he didn't think he should have peanut butter because it would be too sticky in his throat.
I have seen the suggested foods list, but wondered if ya'll had any other ideas.
Also--he has these deep cracks in his tongue. I assume these will heal up.

Hi Shannette22', congratulations on your Dad's getting through the treatment. The mucous will continue for a while. My husband is three and a half months out and still carries a spit cup around. The changes in taste and texture of food is unfortunately something that comes with the treatment. Make sure he has lots of fluids when he is eating -- at the hospital, they say it is food-fluid-food-fluid etc to help wash the food down.

I'm still not fond of grainy foods and I'm two years out - favorite treat? Pudding! Maybe some pur�ed veggie soup? So glad he's done. I stopped drooling in a few weeks but everyone is different... Hugs to you both!

Congrats to you father for finishing his treatments!!! Im sure he feels relief that its all a thing of the past. He is one of the tough guys who struggled thru and made it without the tube. Thats not an easy thing!

Recovery can take much longer than most patients think. A total recovery can take a full 2 years. His sense of taste will be off for at least 2 months after finishing rads. It will be like everything else he went thru, good one day and bad the next. But then again, he had a break so he could bet better quicker than most. The sense of taste will very slowly improve as time goes on. Its all about the texture of foods right now, smooth is best. My after rads diet consisted of chocolate peanut butter milkshakes, canned peaches, won-ton soup and tapioca pudding. Thats about all I ate for the first couple weeks when i was relearning to eat.

The thick mucous will stick around for another couple weeks then it will turn into dry mouth seemingly overnight. A water bottle will be his new best friend.

Its very important that your father still take in 2500 calories and 48 oz of water daily for at least the first year. After what he went thru his body needs lots of extra calories to rebuild itself. Adding high protein whey powder to his beverages will help with his heeling.

Best wishes with your fathers continued improvements.

I found the carnation vanilla 300 calories a serving was great and my favorite thing was icecaps from Tim hortons at 540 calories a large was the most soothing drink not sure you have them down there though....had the sore tongue too not much fun won't last long though I'm six weeks out still some issues dry mouth at night hot food not good,and still a bit of mucous it gets better though best wishes on a speedy recovery...ken
Ps most of my taste came back three week post rads was a good thing

I'm not a fan of the meal replacements on the market myself, so I would recommend getting a VitaMix and preparing nutrition that way based on your fathers specific dietary need.

Caloric intake and macro nutrient breakdown (fats, carbs, proteins)widely varies by height, weight, age, activity level etc, so developing a recipe that your father can intake based on these considerations are very important. In my humble opinion, if I can ever be considered humble, nutrition is half the battle really.

Personally I'm sipping on my "dinner" shake (as I no longer eat solids) that I whipped up in my Vitamix. It contains Whey protein, organic baby spinach, oatmeal, natural peanut butter, coconut water, water, kelp, spirulina, & tumeric. It fits in a glass, is smooth as a milk shake and tastes just fine with me. It also has 683 calories, 24.5grams of fat, 75.5 low GI complex carbs, and 45grams of protein.

Now admittedly it's a bit too high in protein, but I'm in recovery from changing up my workout to get into single digit body fat percentage and I "really" wanted the peanut butter that put me over the top on the shake. Right now I'm rocking about 10% body fat at 178lbs and 5'9" tall, 31" waist, 42" chest, 15.5" neck & arms...not bad for someone who's on a liquid diet or a stage IV survivor.

Now compare that shake to your Ensure:

Nutrition Facts
Serv. Size 1 bottle
(8 fl oz)
Calories 250
Calories from Fat 50

6g Fat,
40g Carbohydrate (22grams of sugar, and 1g Dietary Fiber)
9g Protein

Now when I look at the amount of simple sugars in that "meal" and consider that the average cancer patient has significantly elevated Cortisol levels (Cortisol "counteracts" insulin levels) which significantly reduces the amount of insulin in the system, I think it's basically like feeding corn syrup to a diabetic, and the lack of protein won't give the system the building blocks it needs to recover and rebuild.

Just my thoughts for what they are worth.

Eric

[quote]Just my thoughts for what they are worth.[/quote]Eric,
You are my nutrition guru/hero. I feel so bad old Frack is no longer here as he started a liquid diet thread and I am just getting to where this topic is now high priority on getting thru chemo-rads and post tx healing.

Can you provide a bit more detail on the recipe? Is the oatmeal cooked, if not is it rolled, steel cut, quick? How much of each ingredient? I see no ice and water is the only liquid, do you chill it at all or drink room temperature? How does this recipe do if made into smoothie with ice?

Thanks
don