Recovering from stomach cancer surgery

You will still be recovering for some time after you go home from stomach cancer surgery and will need to take things easy for a few weeks.

Try building up the amount you do slowly. Gentle exercise, such as regular walks, builds up your energy. You can increase the amount you do as you feel better. Everyone is different, and some people take longer than others to recover.

Avoid lifting heavy loads like shopping, or doing vacuuming or gardening, for at least 8 weeks. This gives your wound time to heal.

Some insurance policies give specific time limits for not driving after surgery. Contact your insurance company to tell them you have had an operation. Most people are ready to drive about 4 to 6 weeks after their operation. Do not drive unless you feel in full control of the car.

We have more information about going home from hospital, which explains how to get support after you get home.

If you have had part of your stomach removed (partial gastrectomy), the remaining stomach will not be able to hold as much food as before. You may feel full after eating small amounts. Some foods might make you feel sick, or give you indigestion or diarrhoea. It is important to try to eat, even if you do not feel like it. Over time you will start to manage bigger portion sizes and different foods.

If you continue to have problems, it can help to write down what is happening so you can limit or avoid certain foods. Talk to your cancer doctor or dietitian if you continue to have problems with food.

If you had all of the stomach removed (total gastrectomy), the food you eat will go straight from the oesophagus into the small bowel. This does not affect being able to digest food, but the small bowel cannot hold as much food as the stomach could. Your body will slowly adjust, so you can eat more at one time.

Indigestion or reflux (a backward flow of digestive juices into the oesophagus) can happen after stomach surgery. This can cause pain and inflammation of the lining of the oesophagus. Your GP or cancer doctor can prescribe antacid medicines to help with this.

The following tips can help:

• Avoid fizzy drinks, alcohol and spicy foods, as these may make your symptoms worse.
• Lying down may also make symptoms worse. After eating and drinking, try to stay sitting up for at least an hour. When you do lie down to sleep, try using pillows to raise your head slightly.

Indigestion can also be caused by wind trapped in the digestive system. You can reduce wind by:

• drinking peppermint water
• taking charcoal tablets.

You can buy these from a pharmacy.

The stomach normally stores food and releases it into the bowel in a controlled way. After an operation to remove the stomach, food can travel more quickly through the digestive system. This can cause symptoms called dumping syndrome.

When the whole stomach is removed, the lower end of the oesophagus is joined to the upper end of the small bowel. The join is called an anastomosis. Sometimes the join becomes narrow, which can make it difficult to swallow food. This is called a stricture.

If you are having problems swallowing, tell your specialist nurse or cancer doctor straight away. Your cancer doctor can do an endoscopy to look into the gullet to check for a stricture. They may be able to stretch it to make swallowing easier. Sometimes they insert a small tube into the stricture to keep it open. This is called a stent.

If you are having problems swallowing, you may find you start losing weight quite quickly. It can help to try eating soft or puréed foods and have nourishing drinks. Rarely, you may need to have food through a tube (enteral feeding) for a short time. Your cancer doctor, specialist nurse or dietitian can give you more information about this.

We have more information about nutritional support and feeding tubes.