Chemotherapy Instructions

Patients and their relatives and friends often have doubts about the diet and living environment during chemotherapy. Western medicine has no specific restrictions on diet during chemotherapy. Since patients often have a loss of appetite, it is recommended to eat their favorite foods as much as possible, while ensuring sufficient calories, nutrition and protein intake. You can choose more starch, high-quality protein, meat and protein granules. Some relatives and friends strictly restrict their diet and label food as "good/bad" out of concern, but on the contrary, patients have decreased appetite and insufficient nutrition. In terms of living environment, being trapped in the house for a long time is not conducive to a comfortable mood; two or three days after the injection, patients can go out for a walk, bask in the sun, or chat and relax with friends in the company of their families to improve their mood and relieve side effects.

Fertility planning and timing

Many cancer patients are still of childbearing age. If you have a fertility plan, you can consider storing embryos or sperm before chemotherapy for future artificial insemination. This arrangement should be carried out as soon as possible to avoid delays in the treatment schedule. When doctors formulate treatment plans, they will take the initiative to propose relevant options and recommend that patients make their own arrangements. Pregnancy during chemotherapy does not increase the risk of cancer recurrence, but chemotherapy drugs can stay in the body for about half a year, which is not beneficial to the fetus; therefore, it is more recommended to consider pregnancy about two to five years after the end of the course of treatment. Clinically, positive cases of patients successfully conceiving and giving birth after treatment are also common.

Age and treatment tolerance

There is often the impression that "older patients are more difficult to withstand chemotherapy" in society, but age may not have a decisive influence on the effect of chemotherapy and the tolerance of the treatment process. Individual differences are obvious. People with chronic diseases may have weaker physical functions, but many elderly people are still quite robust. With the advancement of drugs, severe side effects that were common in the past have become relatively rare; many patients did not experience significant vomiting and other discomfort four to five days after injection, and they were even able to exercise lightly.

Diabetes and blood glucose monitoring

Cancer patients with combined diabetes are not uncommon. Studies in recent years have shown that some chemotherapy or targeted drugs may increase blood sugar, so cancer patients are at a relatively high risk of developing diabetes. Blood sugar should be monitored regularly during treatment to maintain safety. Blood sugar is also an important monitoring indicator in treatment: if hypoglycemia is caused by loss of appetite, it may cause obvious discomfort and even increase the risk of sepsis. Therefore, blood sugar fluctuations should not be ignored. Clinically, most diabetics can control their blood sugar within the ideal range during chemotherapy; doctors will also pay special attention to their blood sugar data during blood tests.