I have a sinus infection/chest congestion and am on antibiotics starting today, lost my sense of taste and my voice. No appetite. Do you make yourself eat your 5 meals/snacks a day when you're sick? Or do you not worry about "wrecking your metabolish" by a few days in bed & not eating?

I don't, personally. I figure a few days of light eating, if I don't feel like eating, will probably not cause too much damage, in the overall scheme of things.

The less I eat, the more nutritious I try to eat, though. I'll make a smoothie or something, to get in fruit and milk, or maybe cook one of those single-serving veggies. Or some peanut butter on an apple. Or black bean soup. Not just, say, ice cream (which I have also done before, when sick, admittedly).

I was feeling this way a couple of weeks ago. Just not well at all, and no appetite. I didn't make myself eat a full day's worth of food, though. I did find a new favorite comfort food: brown rice and tofu. Bland yet tasty, and kind of comforting.

I do also try to eat more if I truly feel hungry, if I can tell it's not just thirst. The deal is, I eat healthy food, just more of it, if I'm really hungry. I figure, it'll balance out eventually.

Then some days I just pig out still.

Except for recovering from surgery, I've never lost my appetite Oh how I wish that I would! When I'm sick, my tendency is to eat more- maybe I'll feel better if I eat X. Nope, that didn't work, so I'll eat something else. I have to be really extra careful when I don't feel good.

Hope you feel better!

Mel

Can never remember...feed a cold, starve a fever?

Feel better.

Try to get rest, plenty of fluids and some nutrition, but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it!

Nope, To my thinking if my body wants me not to eat, there is a reason for it..So I do not force myself to eat. But i do ensure that I drink a lot. I usually can tolerate green tea under any circumstance, so that is what I take.

It depends what I'm sick with.... if it's an intestinal thing, I don't eat. With a cold I have to be careful. If I can't taste it, my mind thinks I haven't eaten it. Some meds upset my stomach and make eating a very unattrative prospect - but that doesn't happen often.

I'm recovering from surgery right now (bone infection in my femur) and I'm on heavy antibiotics and I have NO appetite. If I wasn't recovering at my parents' house with my mom making sure I eat at least some cereal and fruit, I wouldn't be eating anything. I feel sick just looking at food -- I always lose my appetite when I'm sick and I never force myself to eat. I never noticed any adverse effects on my weight loss.

oh my harpo!! Get better yourself! How does one get a bone infection? Did you have a break first?

No, it was the result of a very freakish, mysterious, and uncommon occurance. I started having minor knee pain about 3 months ago -- it was easily controlled with OTC painkillers. Then it progressively got worse -- I was limping and in excruciating pain. It spread to my hip and I made an appointment for my doctor and got x-rays, CT scan, and an MRI of my hip and knee. They found something called a Brodie's abscess (a condition that normally affects male children) in my femur. I had one last appointment with a bone cancer doctor (they said it was necessary to rule out cancer), but the pain had gotten so severe, I couldn't walk at all or even get up from a sitting position, so I had to go to the emergency room. My infection was formally diagnosed and the culprit was identified as MRSA (the community associated kind) and I had surgery to remove the infection from my bone. I have no idea where I picked it up (the doctors were kind of baffled too) but said it's becoming more and more common for healthy young people to get this kind of MRSA (which is a antibiotic resistant staph infection). I'm now unable to walk and on very heavy antibiotics. I wish I knew where and why I picked it up, so I can prevent it from happening again, but I don't know. I know I'm going to be a compulsive hand washer from now on though. When I go back to my apartment, I'm going to spray every inch of it with Lysol.

Wow, how awful. We've had the mrsa here too, in schools, but it usually enters at the site of some scrape or injury, so it's easy to isolate the cause and point of entry. Wow, well I hope you are back up to speed & feeling better soon!

A swim instructor at my gym and several students at a local HS have had MRSA. I think this is going to become far more common. Superbugs ((shakes head))