Neck Dissection Diet

• Avoid consumption of solid foods immediately following your neck dissection diet. Solid foods will be too difficult to chew and swallow with the pain from neck surgery. So in order to facilitate proper nutrition and provide your neck time to heal without undue strain, you will have to begin your dietary efforts by adhering to a liquid diet immediately following the procedure. The most common form of this diet is clear liquid consisting only of those foods through which you can see (aside from coffee and tea). While on a liquid diet, you should eat broth, clear sodas, sports drinks, fruit juices (without pulp), popsicles, jello and water. You will likely need to remain on this diet for two to three days, after which you can move to a soft-food diet. While on a soft-food diet, you may continue to eat the aforementioned liquid foods with the addition of any food that is easily mashed with a fork, but you should avoid eating solid foods such as raw fruits and vegetables, tough cuts of meat, hard taco shells, corn chips and any other type of food that is crunchy or difficult to swallow. Instead, limit yourself to eating only mushy foods such as scrambled and boiled eggs, tender meats, strained soups, soft cheeses, dairy products white flour items, oils and well-cooked fruits.
  
  

Considerations

• Note that you will be weaned back to a solid food diet as soon as is reasonably possible, so follow the liquid and soft diet approaches understanding that it will only be for a short time (several weeks at most). While avoiding solid foods, you will want to nevertheless keep your overall intake of calories up to promote healing and avoid unwanted weight loss. Therefore, do not make the mistake of thinking that you should avoid eating a normal quantity of food after lymph node surgery. On the contrary, you should snack as much as you are able, aiming to eat a relatively normal amount of calories (around 2,000 per day) even while on this restricted diet.