Strength with Nutritional Drinks.

After many people asking me about different nutritional oral drinks I thought I would do a little post explaining about the different brands with their pro's and con's. Firstly, I'll update you on whats been going on my end. Since I last blogged things have changed, I had complications with my JEC and I was suffering with many infections from it and I was told it had to come out ASAP. However, they said I had to have an NJ placed (a tube down my nose for nutritional feed). But, I said a big no to that because I didn't want to have one. Last Wednesday I had an ultrasound at UCL where they saw all around the JEC inside was all inflamed. After many conversations, discussions and phone calls from my consultants it now looks like I don't really have a choice but to have an NJ placed when the JEC is removed. This would be temporally while I recover from the removal of the JEC and to for my weight to be stable. I must admit, I really really really do not want to have an NJ but sometimes I guess you just have to go with the flow! The other option which came to the table was about having TPN (feed through my veins) however I definitely don't want to have this, as when I had this last year in hospital and it nearly was bye bye to me because I got a blood infection! I've been trying really hard to have things orally and I do feel I have definitely improved from a couple of weeks ago when I was only just started to eat things for the first time in nearly a year. I'm only aloud soft foods, including no skins or seeds and liquids. This leads us nicely onto nutritional oral drinks. These are supplemental drinks used for medical purposes. They contain everything to help nutrition for the body. They are packed with calories and a 200mls bottle contains 300 calories. Over the last two years I have tried many brands, which I must admit some tasting not the best...well, disgusting actually. I started on complan, which you can buy over the counter and is good make and doesnt  taste isn't too bad. It comes in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and banana flavour. It makes around 500mls and has 250 calories in it. I think this is a lot of liquid especially when your very poorly, which means sometimes you cannot consume a large amount. When I met my first consultant he wanted me to be on Fortisip. This is a 200ml ready to drink bottle, which comes in chocolate, strawberry, banana, vanilla and caramel and gives you 300 calories. At first the taste wasn't too good, however it was the first time for me trying these sort of drinks, so I soon got used to them and could tolerate them. When I was at UCL the brand they used in the hospital was Ensure Plus. This again was a 200ml ready to drink bottle which comes in chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and banana flavour and has 300 calories in it. I found this very similar to Fortisip, however the taste is maybe slightly better. Also Ensure do a drink called Ensure Compant which is a 100ml ready to drink bottle with 300 calories in it, but the only flavour it comes in is vanilla. I struggled with this one a lot because the taste was not the best...well, awful. But the size is so small, it is very convenient for people who can tolerate it. One time when I was at East Surrey Hospital I was given a nutritional drink called Calshake, which a lot of cancer patients use. It makes 500mls of liquid with 500 calories in it. I know...wow! However I found this a very rich and thick and I couldn't tolerate it especially with so much of it, it would take me the whole day to drink it! I'm now on a brand which was advised to me from a friend I met in hospital which is called Nutriplen. This is a 125ml ready to drink bottle with chocolate hazelnut, strawberry, vanilla and banana flavours and has 300 calories in it. The only two flavours I like is chocolate hazelnut and vanilla, the other two are not great however the other two are definitely the nicest I've ever tried from everything else. Also being small I can manage to nearly consume the whole bottle which is a win! There are many other brands out there which all do the same job, but a lot of hospitals/consultants have their favourites to advise on. These drinks have been there for me when I have been scrapping through hard times being really poorly and I could only manage sipping on these. When your going through difficult times, you must keep going and these drinks are so good on keeping your strength up at difficult situations. If you know of a brand which you think is great and would help others, then let me know so I can share!