RPLND - 5 gram fat diet (Sloan)

[premct]

Hi everyone:

I'm new here...love all the information that this forum has provided. I got diagnosed with T/C and had a right orchiectomy on 1/10/06 of this year. I went for a second opinion at Sloan, was classified as Stage I-B (vascular invasion), and my tumor was 75% embryonal. Next was the waiting game and my blood markers finally dropped to normal on 2/16. I am scheduled for an RPLND this Friday at Sloan with Dr. Sheinfeld and today I began my 5 gram fat diet.

My question revolves around this. For those of you who have been through this diet, what kind of things did you eat that you liked? I looking for anything with some sort of remote flavor!haha I'm guessing there isn't much! Are we allowed to put soy sauce in white rice, or is that not allowed?

[topshelf]

well .. first off i wish you the best of luck friday , i actually am scheduled to see sheinfeld for a routine follow up on thursday , you are in the best of hands .. some things i remember eating: ham steak had 1 gram of fat .. believe it or not .. licorice .. mike and ikes . gummy bears have 0 fat .. i do remember alot of white rice with vegetables ... my wife has a ton of recipes still saved that i can email to you if you like .. it goes by quicker than you think . just acouple of tidbits of advice .. if you can afford it ask for a private room at sloan .. its is worth every penny .... also . walk walk walk . very important to keep you spirits up and i believe helps the healing progress to walk as much as you can after the surgery ..welcome to the noard . you will find the people on this board are very friendly and informative and everyone seems to ride a bike .. a good goal to set for your recovery would be one of the livestrong rides .. i used that as motivation last year and it was very helpful ...

[Mizu]

Hi Premct,

looks like we're on the same schedule - I'll be receiving Dr. Sheinfeld's RPLND on Friday as well. We stocked up on baby carrots and other veggies, swedish flat bread (Wasa - 0g fat). A lot of vegetarian fake meat thingies have 0g fat - since my wife is vegetarian we were quite happy to discover that.

Best

Michael

[premct]

well .. first off i wish you the best of luck friday , i actually am scheduled to see sheinfeld for a routine follow up on thursday , you are in the best of hands .. some things i remember eating: ham steak had 1 gram of fat .. believe it or not .. licorice .. mike and ikes . gummy bears have 0 fat .. i do remember alot of white rice with vegetables ... my wife has a ton of recipes still saved that i can email to you if you like .. it goes by quicker than you think . just acouple of tidbits of advice .. if you can afford it ask for a private room at sloan .. its is worth every penny .... also . walk walk walk . very important to keep you spirits up and i believe helps the healing progress to walk as much as you can after the surgery ..welcome to the noard . you will find the people on this board are very friendly and informative and everyone seems to ride a bike .. a good goal to set for your recovery would be one of the livestrong rides .. i used that as motivation last year and it was very helpful ...

Thanks for the advice and the good luck message. I appreciate it! If your wife has any recipes hanging out, I'd love to see them! Thanks in advance...my e-mail is [email protected].

[premct]

Hi Premct,

looks like we're on the same schedule - I'll be receiving Dr. Sheinfeld's RPLND on Friday as well. We stocked up on baby carrots and other veggies, swedish flat bread (Wasa - 0g fat). A lot of vegetarian fake meat thingies have 0g fat - since my wife is vegetarian we were quite happy to discover that.

Best

Michael

Michael, what a coincidence! Thanks for the food tips...I'm heading to the supermarket after work. My plain pasta with broccoli and chick peas for lunch wasn't that bad... I guess I'll see you sometime on Friday or during the week at Sloan...good luck to you on Friday!

[dadmo]

Hunts tomato sauce in a can is fat free along with several brands of pasta, you can get some good fat free salad dressings. Pringels has a fat free version and most hard candy is fat free. If you have a local Whole Foods Market you can find plenty of fat free items.

[matthias]

Not to divert this thread:

By having basically read thru all the archived posts, it appears more and more like: "You go to Sloan, you get RPLND'ed." Are they RPLND-happy? Seems that surveillance is never an option there.

This is quite in contrast to what I perceive as IU's new-found (new as of several years ago) approach of favoring surveillance whenever possible (NSGCT Stage I).

Thoughts?

[dadmo]

As a layman and father of someone who had an RPLND at Sloan I will say the are agressive in their treatment. Are they RPLND happy, all you can do is let the thousands who are still alive judge that.

[premct]

Hunts tomato sauce in a can is fat free along with several brands of pasta, you can get some good fat free salad dressings. Pringels has a fat free version and most hard candy is fat free. If you have a local Whole Foods Market you can find plenty of fat free items.

I'm eating the Fat-Free Pringles right now...good stuff. Thanks for the advice!

[JimmyDean]

Another sloan patient

I had my RPLND July 1st. I just remember hating the diet so much, im a food lover, i eat so much food that people are amazed b/c of my size. it was tough for me. i think i ate lots of salads with really low-fat dressings, there are pasta's you can get(whole-wheat??) check out a health store nearby. i just remember it being tough, the first thing of meat i ate after weeks of surgery was a bowl of chicken soup that filled me up for 24 hours,lol. the next day i ate a bbq's burger on wonder bread.veeerrry slowly. it was the best thing i ever ate to this date. email me if you have questions, i'll be in the city wed, and i actually have an appointment with SHEINFELD on Thursday if you'd like to meet up...anyone who's having the RPLND. :-)

-James

[MommaBeth]

I am really curious. As I am reading this thread, it appears that Sloan suggests some kind of a special diet before RPLND surgery. Patrick had his RPLND at MD Anderson in Houston, and he was not put on any kind of diet. Certainly this is way after the fact - his surgery was 10/21/05 - but I am curious.

[dadmo]

MommaBeth:
The no fat diet keeps the lymph nodes from having to work too much whcih allows them to heal eaiser after the operation. It does'nt happen too often but when they don't heal and begin to leak it can be very troublesome.

[MommaBeth]

Gotcha! I had no idea about this. Patrick didn't have trouble with that, praise God, but I guess it could have been an issue.

[dadmo]

premct & Mizu:
How did you guys make out with your RPLND's?

[Mizu]

Thanks for the question - I'm doing fine, and I think Prem is doing just as well, but I'll let him comment on that personally later. He was in surgery Friday morning, I got into surgery around 1:30 PM, and out around 7:00. Don't remember much of the recovery room, but my wife tells me that my questions were "how did the surgery go?" and the next was "how is the market doing?" ;-)

Got into the room around 11:30 PM, woke up the next morning and was (of course) invited to walk. Getting up from the bed must have been the single most painful thing I've ever done. But since then it has been smooth sailing with incremental improvements every day (and lots of walking). Dressings came off on day 2, as did the nasal-gastric tube (ouch), catheter on day four (small ouch), and the 45+ staples came out today.

The PCA Morphine was reduced systematically, until it was turned off (only the booster would work) on Tuesday. I was allowed to suck on ice chips on Tuesday, yesterday I was allowed to sip clear liquids and have the famous "Jello Tray" for dinner, and today I'm already back on the 5 gram fat diet (frosted flakes never tasted this good!), had the IV removed, and walk around in my sweats and T-Shirt. Chances are I might actually go home today!

The other good news is that my pathology report came back negative - 40+ nodes removed, no signs of spread - that's a relief (at least it brings the probability of recurrence down).

The tips from this board were spot on. You've got to keep walking, and pace yourself when given the opportunity to (say) suck on the ice chips - go really slow, as you don't want to get nauseous.

I was blessed with having no roommate for the first 3 days, which was nice. An essential accessory I would recommend are noise-canceling headphones - the a/c is a bit noisy at night, and my Bose's did a wonderful job in giving me some quiet.

Everybody at Sloan is doing a wonderful job to accommodate us here, and in the same situation I would not hesitate a second to go back to Dr. Sheinfeld and his team again. It doesn't get more professional than this.

All the best

Michael