Cancer treatment often involves long and tough journey.
After completing cancer treatment, while patients and their families feel relieved at one end but at the same time somewhere the fear of cancer re occurrence starts haunting their hearts and mind.
My few suggestions to every cancer patient and their families to work towards preventing cancer from coming back are
- Complete your treatment as prescribed by your oncology team. Please do not leave your treatment incomplete at any point of time.
- Be regular on follow up and follow all investigations prescribed as recommended by your oncologists.
- Eat healthy diet with major portion of your diet coming from plant sources including vegetables, fruits, dry fruits etc. Avoid or limit meat, fried and processed food.
- Stay away from tobacco. If you were earlier a regular tobacco user and find it difficult to leave tobacco, please speak to your physician and seek medical help in stopping tobacco use.
- Avoid or limit alcohol intake.
- Be regular in your physical activity regimen like yoga, walk etc. Immediately after cancer treatment completion many patients feel lack of energy or have neuropathies due to which the find it difficult to do walking, jogging etc. Don’t worry, gradually build up your exercise regimen and routine.
- Maintain healthy body weight. Many patients gain weight during cancer treatment as a result of either medication, over feeding or decreased physical activity. Try and loose this excess weight. There are several scientific studies which have proven that chances of cancer re occurrence are lesser in patients who maintain their body weight.