Diet after bowel cancer

Hi Gussy81,

Sorry to hear that your mother has had bowel cancer but very glad to hear that she is recovering.

My mother also had bowel cancer and had bad diarrhoea too at times. As far as I can remember, when it flared up she would eat:

rice - white and cooked with water (not rice pudding cooked with milk)
carrots - boiled or steamed until soft
apple - stewed

and then slowly add in other well cooked and easy to digest foods as she improved.

It might be best to consult the oncology team to get medical advice if it goes on for too long. It could considerably slow down her recovery if she cannot eat properly.

Good luck to both of you

Kathleen

Hi Kathleen,

Many thanks for your reply. I will pass on your advice this evening.

Warm Regards
Fergus

Hi again Fergus,

Another thing occurred to me. The cause of your mother's problems is possibly not an allergy but simply the time it takes for her system to recover from the treatment. There may be types of food that her system just cannot handle for the moment.

It might be an idea for her to note what she eats every day to track what causes problems and to re-introduce fibre very, very slowly.

Also if she likes milk in her tea, it is best to avoid adding milk until she has recovered from the diarrhoea as milk is difficult to digest. I forgot to say earlier that natural yoghurt is also something she can eat by the way (but it is the only dairy product that helps - all of the others will aggravate it, though they do not normally cause it).

A rather tedious and boring diet for sure but the main thing is for your mother to return to good health as soon as possible.

Some good guidelines are here: https://www.cancer.ie/sites/default/fil ... cancer.pdf

All the best

Kathleen

You will find that that your digestion requires time to settle down after bowel cancer treatment. Few foods can upset that way you’re inside lives up to bowel works. After medicine, high fiber foods, such as fruit and vegetables, might give your loose stools. You may need to go to the toilet more frequently than ordinary. Provided that you have had a colostomy you might find that it takes a couple of months for your bowel to work regularly once more. Assuming that have a combination of treatments, you may have need permanent changes to you bowel. You may need to escape certain foods.