Diet during and after radiotherapy
Fresh, light and small meals
Based on the experience of our predecessors, we gradually summarize a set of dietary regimen for tumor radiotherapy through continuous practice. Generally speaking, patients should eat more fish, meat, milk, honey, fresh vegetables and fruits, etc., because the diet is highly nutritious, easy to digest, nourishing and nourishing, and there are differences in dietary choices due to different symptoms in different parts of radiotherapy.
1. Nausea, vomiting, decreased sense of taste.
Mostly seen in abdominal tumor radiotherapy. Diet should be nutritious and fire-clearing food such as pear, mung bean and silver fungus. If the sense of taste decreases, food should be made more fragrant to stimulate the appetite with aroma, adding salt and seasoning can be slightly focused to make the taste in the mouth feel tasty. Those with abnormal sense of smell and nausea and vomiting can add ginger juice to food or drink some Chen Pi tea.
2, blood image decline.
As radiation therapy can cause bone marrow suppression, manifested as white blood cells platelet decline, etc.. Pay attention to will be strong nutrition, you can choose foods containing more iron, such as animal liver, celery, tomatoes and apricots, peaches, plums, raisins, red dates, pineapple, prunes, oranges, tangerines, grapefruit and figs.
Frequent prescriptions for dietary therapy:
(1) 10 jujubes, 60g of Coix seeds and 30g of adzuki beans cooked and eaten in porridge.
(2) 10 jujube, longan 5g, wolfberry 15g, add 60g glutinous rice porridge to eat.
3, taste, sore throat, esophagitis.
These are the most common radiotherapy reactions of head and neck or chest tumor patients, caused by radiation damage to salivary glands and mucous membranes. The temperature of meals should not be too hot, meat should be finely chopped, vegetables or fruits that cannot be swallowed can be squeezed into juice for drinking, and can be tasty with ice cubes, a small amount of cold drinks, and more yogurt. For those who have dry mouth, sore throat and heavy esophagitis, you can drink decoction of Chinese herbal medicine cassia and raw licorice as tea before meals, and then eat, the pain will be significantly reduced. In conclusion, patients with head and neck radiotherapy should have food with more soup, fine texture and light taste. If there is difficulty in swallowing, you can eat some cold food or drink more water to relieve.
4.Lack of appetite.
Encourage the patient to eat more, with nutritious, list of easily digestible foods. The patient’s sense of sight and smell should be mobilized to have increased the diet, deploy the usual favorite foods, and eat less and more often.
5.Constipation.
Some radiotherapy patients will have constipation, should be appropriate to increase activity, eat more fresh vegetables, fruits and other foods rich in fiber, such as bananas, kelp, honey, walnuts, peanuts, etc.. If necessary, take the Chinese medicine hemp and intestinal pills.
6. Abdominal distension and diarrhea.
Abdominal radiation therapy stimulates intestinal mucosa caused by intestinal peristalsis accelerated. At this time, it is appropriate to use easily digestible, slightly light, less greasy food, such as semi-fluid diet or less slag diet, avoid eating food containing more fiber and sticky, cold food.
7, urinary frequency and urgency urinary pain and hematuria.
This is a symptom of radioactive cystitis, which often occurs after radiation treatment of bladder cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer and other pelvic tumors. At this time, patients should be allowed to drink more water and urinate more often.
After radiotherapy, fluid depletion is difficult to recover for a while, some sweet and cool moistening, nourishing and nourishing products should also be applied, such as lotus root juice, water chestnut, pear, mung bean, watermelon, asparagus, green tea, fig, honey, almond, umeboshi, banana, loquat, carrot, etc.
Dietary contraindications.
Radiotherapy often leads to “internal heat”, hot food such as dog meat, mutton, as well as chili, pepper, pepper, mustard, star anise, cinnamon and other reactions do not eat or eat less, should not eat salt-pickled, smoked, burnt, moldy food. Absolute ban on smoking and alcohol. Avoidance of food should not be absolute, Chinese medicine believes that “the stomach is the essence”, such as patients like to eat a certain type of food, although belong to the scope of avoidance, but also can be eaten, the key is to eat less, light food.