Poor Poor Appetite

Does anyone know if and how appetite returns to klatskin patients? My sister's appetite is so poor and we're wondering if there's anything to help.

Also, does anyone have experience of the benefits of stents vs catheters in terms of bile drainage.

Thanks for the help.

On 2/13/2008 Bayla wrote:

Does anyone know if and how appetite returns to klatskin patients? My sister's appetite is so poor and we're wondering if there's anything to help.

Also, does anyone have experience of the benefits of stents vs catheters in terms of bile drainage.

Thanks for the help.

Hi Bayla, this is Iris again. The benefits of stents over catheters is a tough one. If possible, you put in stents because the patient is bothered less with these tubes than with an outgoing catheter. However, it is not allways possible to get the stents in through ERCP. Than they have to put in a catheter to get the bile fluid out. That also means the use of medicines, to be able to take in food. Because without bile, the body cannot take up the necessary nutrition out of the food and the patient loses weight fastly.

Concerning appetite. Try small bites of food through the day. I mean not three meals, but every hour a little bite. An egg, fruit, soup, one or even a half sandwich with peanutbutter/jelly, homemade applesauce, icecream.

Iris.

On 2/14/2008 Flower1 wrote:

 

On 2/13/2008 Bayla wrote:

Does anyone know if and how appetite returns to klatskin patients? My sister's appetite is so poor and we're wondering if there's anything to help.

Also, does anyone have experience of the benefits of stents vs catheters in terms of bile drainage.

Thanks for the help.

Hi Bayla, this is Iris again. The benefits of stents over catheters is a tough one. If possible, you put in stents because the patient is bothered less with these tubes than with an outgoing catheter. However, it is not allways possible to get the stents in through ERCP. Than they have to put in a catheter to get the bile fluid out. That also means the use of medicines, to be able to take in food. Because without bile, the body cannot take up the necessary nutrition out of the food and the patient loses weight fastly.

Concerning appetite. Try small bites of food through the day. I mean not three meals, but every hour a little bite. An egg, fruit, soup, one or even a half sandwich with peanutbutter/jelly, homemade applesauce, icecream.

Iris.

Hello Bayla

Sounds like your sister is still having problems...it's going to be a very hard and long road back.

I read Iris's comment to you and she is right on.  Allow me to expand on the catheter issue. The inserting of stents are not the greatest...the most troubling issue about internal stent is clogging, bile backup and infections and it will happen. This usually means a trip to IR and sometimes to ER to have the stents replaced ASAP...not always a pleasant experience.

My wife has two catheter's inserted into the remaining ducts in her liver. These catheter's service two puropses: One, the allow bile being generated by the liver to flow into her new common bile duct (small intestine now the common bile duct). The ends of the catheter drain tube has many holes cut into it, so to allow bile to flow into the common bile duct. To keep both catheter's from clogging, we flush both tubes once each day.  The procedure is simple...remove the end cap from the catheter, with an empty sterile syringe, I gently pull appromimately 2cc's sometimes more of bile, (you may see some small thick material, that's good). Connect a collection bag and leave it on for approximately 30 minutes. My mife does this to both catheter's. After 30 minutes, she removes the collection bags and injects 2cc's of sterile saline (to each catheter) form a pre-filled sterile syringe...this clean injected saline helps the bile flow to continue into the common duct and keep the holes from clogging.

These two catheter's are replaced approximately 40 to 60 days depending on the bile flow.  We monitor the cc flow each day, as you know a foreign objects inserted into the human body can not stay in the body without some side effects.

Bottom-line, we believe the combo catheter stent system is working very well. You may be wondering why two catheter's. Well, my wife's liver is doing so well and producing more bile than the one catheter could handle so she needed additional piping to handle the increased bile flow.

Hope this was a little hepful...but remember what Iris said with regard to eating..large portions are out of the question...my wife today even though she is doing very well can not eat even a medium size meal with feeling blotted, is goes with the situation.

Take Care

Leonard from Alamo, California 

 syringe  

Thanks for your answers. Right now my sister has one catheter with an outside bag and another stent inside her liver which is not working at all. I wonder if her lack of appetite has to do with the cancer or the bile not flowing where its meant to be. If her appetite returned, I believe she would psychologically feel better. Well, we're hoping and praying for good things.

Bayla,

Unfortunately, bile is your appetite. My husband's liver doctor actually told us that he has had people drink their own bile to create an appetite. My husband wouldn't do that - I can't blame him. The thought made us both sick....but if it works - I guess it's worth a shot. Try juicing. You can juice fruits and veggies. If you get a book on juicing it will typically have recipes in it. The book I have has recipes for different juice mixtures to help with nausa, headaches and other problems you might be experiencing. Dandilion root is very good for liver functions and ginger is great for nausa. I never believed in "juicing" until I went through chemo for 8 months. The vomitting and nausa about killed me! I had been giving every Rx known to man for it and nothing helped. I purchased a juicer and a recipe book - I found a juice with ginger for nausa. I tried it, believing it wouldn't work and to my surprise - it did. I drank about half of a 6 oz glass and realized that I didn't feel like I was going to be sick for the first time in months!

Stay strong and good luck. And I'm sorry to say that our story doesn't have a happy ending. My husband past away on 1/14/08 and I miss him so very much!

TnFishersWife

Hello, my mother had a loss of appetite and weight loss also.  I asked her Dr to call in her a medication called megestrol. It has increased her appetite and she has gained almost 12 pounds in 3-4 weeks.  Hopefully it will help.

Thanks April