Todd started RAD on Monday. With four treatments in he is starting to experience nausea and

I wish I could give you good news...there isn't much to give unfortunately. He's going to get much sicker before he feels better.

There are a number of medications that will help him with the nausea; metaclop and zofran come to mind. Try to keep him eating and drinking; they won't let him go very long without nutrition or hydration, and he'll be on a gastric tube and IV.

His body is going to be fighting the treatment so hard he won't have much fight in reserve; Dehydration is a VERY real possibility. Moral support is incredibly important..be there for him because he needs you more now than ever before

Stay in touch, and when you need to vent ( and you will) we listen really well
Wayne

I'm not sure what nausea meds he has, but take them regularly, not just when yo feel you need them. I was lucky & had little nausea because I took it as a preventative rather than reactive. Todd is in for a tough fight, but can be done as witnessed by all the survivors here. He needs lots of fluids. Does he have a PEG tube? It will help for his nutrition.

He shouldn't be having any side effects from radiation this early - has he already started chemo also? If no chemo, I would talk to the MO about antianxiety meds. What you are describing sounds more like a reaction to Cisplatin or other chemo drug. Most of us don't have side effects from radiation until at least 3 weeks and most of the time the nausea is from the ct. Cooking odors made me nauseated as well - it's pretty common. It's usually worse the closer to the ct infusion. There were days that it didn't bother me so just check in with him. Mild nausea can be managed with Ativan as well.

In my post Tx phase I suspected that I had some nausea issues from the radiation but I was so screwed up by then who could tell?!?!

Is is not only heartbreaking to watch someone go through this but you will often feel helpless as well. Get some help for yourself - caregiving is very tough business.

Not sure why he started feeling badly so quickly. What you are describing, like Gary said, sounds like a cisplat response. Anyways it hits us all differently. I used Emend for 3 days following chemo counting the day of, daily Zofran and compazine as required. Some days smell got to me and some days they didn't.

My son also experienced he nausea symptoms earlier than what the doctor thought was the usual. He had to take two week long breaks towards the middle of Tx. He tried different nausea meds but it seems like the Zofran was the one that worked the best for him. I remember feeling so helpless and not knowing where to touch him or hold him because he was still so sore from the surgery. Smells also bothered him - he would lay on the couch with a quilt drawn up over his nose or wear one of those surgical masks. Later, when he lost his taste and the nausea wasn't as bad, smells became a good thing. He would smell everything because he said that with his taste gone, smelling something and breathing in deeply became a sort of "virtual taste". I also had to be careful to not even talk about food when he was feeling nauseous and wait until it had subsided to ask what I could get him to drink/eat. It does get better eventually. My son can now taste almost everything (except chocolate or anything sweet) and is eating and feeling so much better. Getting thru the TX "tunnel" can be really rough and the light at the end sometimes seems so far away, but we do get thru it and you can too. Keep checking in with the OCF site - I don't know what I would have done without it during some of the most difficult days.

I had many complications that contributed to nausea and this is how I approached it.

The Ethiol shot I got made me nausious. So I didn't feel like eating which is a mistake. An empty stomach makes it much easier for nausea to take hold. What worked for me is to always have something in my stomach, which meant eating and drinking something every 3 hours while awake. When I figured this out, I was already on a PEG tube so I was dumping a can of Ensure, followed by water, every 3 hours to make sure something was in my stomach. This also had the side benefit of forcing a feeding schedule to regulate energy.

I still had to take a pill every once in a while but for the most part, my plan worked.

Jim

Jim is absolutely right,
they told me to always eat first before chemo and/or radiation.

I just had radiation and had no nausea from that. I did have nausea from the smells of cooking though depending on the type of food. So find the type that maynot effect him and see his doctor for some medication for if this effects him this way.

I remember that while John was in radiation,[no chemo involved] he would get nauseaus from the smell of food. I can't remember when it passed, but it finally did. You gotta remember, your whole body is somewhat "out of sync" during this treatment. Amy in the Ozarks