My friend's husband can only drink things right now, which I have read is very common. He does Ensure and puddingd and Jellos and soups (I assume the clear ones or cream soups that are strained). I am trying to find something else that he canhave.She has asked me to look for recipes or something as he is getting 'bored with ensure and pudding and soups'.

Is this just something he's going to have to go through... boredom with liquid foods until he can handle other foods? I can't think of much else for him. I did send her some recipes for fruit smoothies that are 'chunkless' and suggested Yopliat Whipped Yogurts.

I am trying to find some liquid food recipes online and here at this site, but am not having any luck yet.

Thanks you.

Hi Kimberly. Keep looking as I'm sure you'll find something or perhaps have new ideas inspired by old ones. I've always been able to eat solid food, so I can't speak about a liquid diet. But I can speak about boredom. Even though I could eat solids through my treatment, when I had lost my sense of taste there was no food that I could enjoy and it was a severe bummer! The only advice I could give you friend's husband is patience and be glad you're taking your food orally rather than through a tube. Hang in there! It should get better with time.

-Brett

Hi Kimberly,

If you go back into the older posts there are several on different types of liquid foods. I wouldn't worry to much as long as she is inputting enough nutrition to maintain and also heal. I would also suggest she try some softer foods because she is going to have to learn how to eat and swallow all over. I am eating steaks. popcorn, choc, I drink alot of whole milk
(4 cups/Day)

Please tell her it gets easier.

My best wishes for voth of you.

Danny Boy

Hi Kimberly,

You don't need different recipies, you can put almost any meal into the blender and make it smooth. Just add enough liquid (water, milk, gravy, icecream, etc) to make it spin. Believe me I put anything in the blender. Cooked eggs, steak (chopped first), vegetables. I ate what ever the family was having for dinner, just blenderized first.

did you eat it hot? Like steak? (sorry, sounds kinda icky.... but my friend did that when she had her mouth wired shut...)

I'll mention it to her. Thanks

What ever temperature worked. It may sound icky but keeping healthy and keeping weight on requires a change of attitude! He may be facing radiation treatments besides what he has been through so far. Radiation will cause eating to become even more difficult.

It certainly is no worse than baby food which I tried too. I came up with several smoothies that were probably 1000 calories a glass (and substantially more food value than the cans of chocolate liquid they tell you to eat)

Take care

I make smoothies often, I use fruits and tofu, usually and can add wheat germs, though I doubt that'd work for him.

I wonder when they will know about radiation. Do they always do radiation, even if they got all of the cancer and the nodes are negative? They get their results tomorrow.

Kimberly,

They won't necessarily do radiation if all the nodes are negative, but they might, depending on the nature of the tumor. My nodes all came up negative but the head and neck tumor group at my hospital pushed strongly for radiation because of the indications that the cancer cells could be moving fairly aggressively. I can't second guess them at this stage since I've gone 15 years without a recurrence.

Mark is right -- if your friend's husband needs radiation, eating will be even more of a challenge. I never thought it would be hard for me to force myself to eat, but radiation taught me otherwise. As the others have said, when you get to that point, your blender is your #1 appliance. It's important during that process to stay in touch with the hospital nutritionist who will help monitor his weight and suggest ways to get additional calories. (And if he does have to have radiation, it alters the taste buds, so he might actually decide that tofu and wheat germ don't taste any worse than anything else! Easy for me to say -- I eat both of them.)

Cathy

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to drop a short note to say that I have been eating baby food. Some of it isn't so bad with a little salt or sugar added.
I'm having a hard time though because I have lost 18 lbs in less than two weeks. I feel great about the weight loss because it has always been a stuggle for me to lose weight. Things don't taste right and I have to be so careful not to choke or bite my tongue when I eat that I just don't want to start eating again. Much of me wants to go the easy route and stay on the liquid diet. But, today even though I had a Boost shake for breakfast within about an hour I was feeling really weak and tired. I about fell backwards twice. So I've decided that it is time for me to go back to bed and rest. Kelli Keller

My husband completed 30 treatments of IMRT and although able to swallow- lost his taste fairly early on. Even water tasted bad- metallic. Found he could tolerate water with sugar - 1/2 cup in a quart of water. He uses it to push the food down and gets some extra calories as well.
Good luck with the diet- it is hard.