Wine with chemo? 🍷

I’ve probably been drinking a little more since starting tx. It’s a nice end to my day.

I'm not much of a drinker, but I do enjoy the occasional pint of cider - by "occasional," I would say that, in general, if I have two drinks in a month, that's a lot for me (I'm a very boring person, and a total lightweight!) - so I made a point to ask my oncologist if I was allowed any alcohol at all when I started my AC treatments. Not because I wanted to get sloshed, but because I might enjoy a beverage on occasion, as a treat.

I asked if I could have A drink sometimes, just one, and he said, "Alcohol won't interact with any of the drugs, so go ahead, have two!"

So I did have the occasional pint of cider between treatments, when I was feeling well (not immediately after treatment, because I felt generally awful then, more like 10 days after), and it was totally fine, I didn't have any troubles.

I asked again when I switched to Taxol - I forgot to ask the new oncologist I was seeing, so I asked a chemo nurse, and she said that they don't encourage it, because the drugs are toxic and making your liver and kidneys work harder than usual to filter them out, but a drink or two ("on the weekend with friends" or whatever) would probably be fine.

So I did the same, and had the occasional cold pint of cider on a hot sunny evening (never immediately after treatment, always at least a few days afterwards), and it was still totally fine, no problems at all.

Not sure how it would go if I'd drank more at any one time, or if I'd had drinks multiple times each round, but the few drinks I did have over the course of 8 rounds of chemo had no ill effects on me.

I think, a lot of the time, recommendations differ from doctor to doctor, I don't think there are any hard and fast rules here (not in my experience, anyway - I've literally had every doctor/nurse/technician tell me something completely new/different at every single appointment, I don't know who or what to believe anymore).

Mostly, I didn’t have a taste for alcohol. I did have a fair amount of nausea so I think my change in taste was connected. My mo was ok with drinking except when my liver numbers weren’t great. Only happened twice but the nurse did mention to watch my intake. At the time, I wasn’t drinking at all, so that was easy. Good luck!