Diet taboos for aplastic disorders

Unclean raw and cold foods that are not thoroughly cooked and of unknown origin are strictly prohibited.； Try to avoid hard, prickly foods that can easily scratch the mucous membrane of the digestive tract. ； Foods with strong blood-activating effect, high sugar and high fat should be eaten with caution according to the blood condition. ； As for the taboos on various "hair products" spread online, there are currently divergent views between Chinese and Western medicine, and there is no need to blindly apply them across the board.

Don’t underestimate this mouthful of unwashed fruit or half a cup of freshly squeezed juice that has been left out all afternoon. For ordinary people, it will only last two days of diarrhea. For patients with aplastic anemia whose neutrophil levels are far lower than normal, it is likely to directly induce severe intestinal infection and even develop into sepsis. I have been in contact with a 28-year-old patient with chronic aplastic anemia before. In the summer, he was greedy and bought iced strawberries from a roadside stall. He ate two of them without washing them. His fever reached 39 degrees that night, and his blood count dropped by nearly a third. He stayed in the hospital for a week before he stabilized. The money he spent was enough to buy dozens of kilograms of imported strawberries. It was really not worth the gain. Try not to buy ready-made fruit boxes or salads on the roadside, even if they are at room temperature. I don’t know how many bacteria have grown after being left there for a long time. If you want to eat them, just buy them fresh yourself, wash them and cook them now.

More dangerous than a bad stomach is the risk of mucosal bleeding. Patients with aplastic anemia generally have low platelet levels and poor coagulation ability. Even a tiny break in the oral mucosa or esophagus may not stop bleeding. Last year, there was a young patient who was greedy for soy sauce ribs and accidentally hit his gums, which caused bleeding all afternoon. In the end, he was given an emergency transfusion of two bags of platelets to stabilize his condition. Therefore, when the platelet count is lower than 50×10^9/L, try not to touch things like thorny fish, hard-shell nuts, brittle bones, and hard candies. If you really want to eat nuts, grind them into powder and mix them with milk. When eating fish, choose fish without small spines such as longli fish and pangasius. When eating apples, it is best to cut them into small pieces and boil them until soft. Don’t eat crispy apples directly.

Having said this, someone must ask, do you believe the various taboos about "fabricating" posted on the Internet? There is really no unified conclusion on this, and the views of different schools vary greatly: Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the acute stage of aplastic anemia is mostly caused by blood heat. Warm food such as beef, mutton, seafood, and leeks may aggravate the risk of hotness and bleeding. Many doctors of traditional Chinese medicine will recommend appropriate food taboos during the acute stage. ； However, there is no concept of "fat" in the clinical guidelines of Western medicine. As long as you are not allergic to these foods before and are thoroughly cooked, you can eat them normally - after all, this kind of food has a high content of high-quality protein, which can help repair the body and is more nourishing than drinking white porridge and eating vegetables every day. I once met a family member of a patient who had such extreme taboos that they wouldn't even let the patient touch eggs, saying they were "hair products." In the end, the patient's albumin was so low that he needed intravenous infusion of human albumin for supplementation, which was really unnecessary. If you are allergic, or if you really feel uncomfortable or have red spots after eating certain foods, then avoid them. If there is no reaction, there is no need to go hungry for unfounded taboos.

There are also some pitfalls that are easy to step on that I should mention: Many family members feel that they need to supplement, and secretly add supplements such as panax notoginseng, saffron, and American ginseng to patients. However, most of these things have the effect of promoting blood circulation. Taking them when platelets are low can easily aggravate the risk of bleeding. If you really want to supplement, it is better to eat some boiled lean beef and steamed eggs. The effect of protein supplement is stronger than anything else. Don’t make bone soup for patients to drink every day. 90% of the soup is fat, and the content of calcium and protein is pitiful. Drinking too much may lead to high blood lipids, which is not good for recovery.

In fact, dietary taboos are never a shackle for you. You can flexibly adjust them according to your own blood count: if your platelets have recently stabilized above 100 and your neutrophils are normal, eating ice cream or chewing a crisp apple occasionally is not a big problem.； If the blood loss has been severe recently, just endure it for a few more months and wait until it gets better before eating. To put it bluntly, diet is to lay the foundation for recovery. Don’t let yourself be held back by eating too much, and don’t lose your appetite every day because of taboos. In fact, the gains outweigh the losses.