Fasting during chemo

Hi Mrs B 23 welcome to the forum. Ive not heard of this one before or how it may affect the chemo drugs, but I wouldnt have thought it would be a good idea to have chemo on an empty stomach.  I really think you could have a chat with the chemo team tomorrow and get their thoughts re fasting during treatment. They may advise against this until the chemo is past. Hope you manage to get some answers.  

Hi MrsB23,

I’m having EC chemo treatment and at my first session I fasted before I went as I didn’t want to be sick. The first thing I was asked was If I’d had breakfast and when I admitted to not eating I was strongly advised to have something before they started. The anti sickness helped a lot.

Sorry if this doesn’t answer your question but I do agree with GRANNY 59.

Good luck with everything! X

I can only echo what the others have said. They’ll advise you to eat tomorrow and eating little and often helped my nausea, if I got too hungry I felt dreadfully sick, I learned to eat a little here and there. Steroids make you feel starving too. I looked for studies on fasting during and those that were available that had any patient testing were too small to be objective. It’s mostly about the cell changes in mice. Everyone does this differently and chemo affects everyone differently but you really don’t want to go into this with your energy depleted and starving. Some people really struggle to eat after chemo and when you’re in a cycle, the few days before chemo can be when your tastebuds are ok again, a treat honestly. I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do, but if I were you, I’d eat. Something really nice.  Good luck tomorrow, the first one of anything is always the hardest x