Boosting the immune system.

Hi Flyguy I just stuck to a good diet and took vitamin C, Vit D plus K2. I think I read somewhere on here that some supplements can interfere with the chemo radiotherapy treatment but not sure which ones but have a suspicion it’s was probiotics of some sort. I was never advised on dietary requirements but they did ask what supplements I took. I definitely stopped alcohol and not touched it for over two years but I’m not what you would consider a drinker so no big deal. One glass of wine and I could be quite intoxicated! I did lose my appetite during treatment and it was hard to think past soups and smoothies. Hopefully someone on here will come up with some good advice

Hi Flyguy ,

Following my diagnosis I overhauled my diet (knee-jerk reaction of many I think!), I ate clean, nothing processed, everything as close to its natural state as possible & cut all sugars.  My aim was to achieve optimum gut health, you’ll probably already be aware that this is where our immune system stems from, I didn’t go quite full on keto but was close. I also began drinking raw goats milk kefir, I sourced this online from a company called The Chuckling Goat, I also took a good quality multivitamin with minerals (Biocare, this brand has zero fillers unlike over the counter vitamins) , vitamin D with K2 in drop form & a bovine collagen supplement in powder form which is tasteless & can be added to drinks or food to consume. Ironically at a time when I should have been feeling awful with these combined I was feeling better than I had in a very long time! Unfortunately when I ran all of this by my oncologist prior to my treatment I had to stop the kefir (my favourite thing!) as it contains a lot of live bacteria & once our immune system is knocked sideways by the chemo this can become a gateway to infection. I had litter to no side effects from the chemo, I had no nausea, maybe a little decrease in appetite but I ate well throughout. 

Nicola

Hi Flyguy,

After years of working to 'boost' my immunity, during the pandemic my studies led me to quit doing so much of that. I read that keeping our immune systems in a state of high alert may actually have the opposite effect, and that keeping them boosted is counter-productive.

Naturally that's just my take on it- many disagree.

I take a bunch of supplements for various different things, but quit most of them during treatment. It's unclear which of them can actually interfere with the chemo drugs- trying to heal the damage the meds do when they have to be allowed to do their job of destruction. I gradually added them back in over the first year of recovery.

I think the best thing we can do is to eat as clean as possible going into treatment, and structure our lives to the degree possible to be stress-free during recovery. 

Mileages vary on this, of course!

Suz