Eating after stomach removed

Hi Cascameron and sorry you haven't had a reply to your post.  I don't know much about this but I think reducing the amount of fibre and fat in the food your dad is eating might help.  Fibre in particular I think is hard for our stomachs to digest and by nature of it being fibre I imagine it could be irritating to the stomach.

I read somewhere that things like yoghurt (maybe low fat) could be good and also to chew food a lot longer than normal because the enzymes in his mouth will start digesting the food meaning less work for his stomach.  And eating less and very often was also suggested. 

Do keep pushing for a solution from his medical team.  I think there are specially formulated drinks that have all the nutrition necessary but I don't know if these would be suitable for your dad's stomach but ask his doctors about them.  

Hope you find something that works for him

Hi,

I had my stomach and most of my oesophagus removed in August. Does your dad take anything to help when eating? I take nutrizeme with every meal to help absorb the food. Creon is another enzyme you can try. Please get in touch if I can help further x

Hi Sarah,

I sympathise with your problem. I too had my stomach entirely removed just over 0ne year ago. It has been an uphill struggle to eat enough ever since.

I still haven't got there and if anything i think it has got harder since winter set in, it certainly isn't getting any easier. Before cancer i was around 75kg. Now I am 55.8Kg. I am looking more like a skeleton every month. (6 feet tall)

After the operation, I was putting on weight until my team insisted on removing the jejunostomy. I got up to 65.2Kg. When they removed it in late August the weight loss started.

Your Dads nausea sounds a bit like the bloaty over full feeling i get after eating. I just made two cheese, tom and ham on toast, but after half a piece I felt full again, and food becomes unappetising. 

I don't know what the answer is, but you're not the only one with these problems.

HI Sarah,

There are a variety of things that could help your dad - it sounds important that he's put on pancreatic enzymes, which he would take just before eating and again while eating. The most common one is kreon but it doesn't agree with everyone, so an alternative is Nutrazyme. If the kreon doesn't work, please push for the nutrazyme. Really, everyone should be given it post gastrectomy as it makes it easier to digest fat.

Fat is definitely something he'd want, once on kreon/nutrazyme, it will be good for getting his weight back up. Combining protein and fat in the same meal can help some people tolerate it better.

Drinks like ensure etc which the nutritionists recommend are generally a bad idea because they contain far too much sugar, which can lead to dumping syndrome but you could look at Huel Black which is a nutritionally complete powder which you mix into a drink and the Black line has more protein, no sugar.

Other things that might help with the nausea: Questran Lite - cholestyramine - this is a bile binder if he's suffering from bile reflux. He could try omeprazole to line his digestive tract.

Has he had this problem with eating since his gastrectomy or have things changed recently? if this is a recent development, you may want to ask for a PET/CT scan?

Best of luck with it all,

SDH