Thursday, February 20, 2014

GI must stand for Gigantic Idiot

My GI specialist is an idiot....

January 28th
Him: "I saw you before...why are you back?"
Me: "My stomach pain has returned"
Him: "You don't look like you're in pain"

I bit my tongue to avoid saying some rude words. He did a quick exam and said I was malnourished so I asked him how I could gain weight without ingesting starches, which cause the pain to become severe. He told me to drink Boost.

Me: "Boost contains dairy. I'm allergic to dairy"
Him: "They make a lactose-free kind"
Me: "The lactose-free kind contains whey protein. It makes me very sick"
Him: "No, no....drink Boost" (waving his hand dismissively)

I bit my tongue again.

He tells I have an intolerance to certain sugars (he is certain of this, just like he was certain before that I had Celiac) and to start the FODMAP diet, take a multivitamin, antacid and probiotic daily, and come back in 3 weeks. 

Me: "But I don't have heartburn or acid reflux, only abdominal pain"
Him: "Pain is from the acid, take the Pepcid"
Me: "Pepcid makes it worse, that is why I stopped taking it"
Him: "You have pain because you stopped taking it. Take the Pepcid"

By this time my tongue was pretty sore from all the biting. I realized there was no getting through to him, so I just nodded like a bobble head at whatever he had to say, got out of there and went back home to scour the web for answers. Meanwhile, I did try the FODMAP diet out of desperation with minimal improvement initially, but, as with all the medication and diet changes before, the pain returned and foods that I could tolerate one day, caused me pain the next. My weight dropped to 97 lbs. I became too weak to bathe myself or keep up with washing the small amount of dishes I was using. If diet wasn't the key, what was? I decided to change my approach. Instead of searching for ways to work around the erosion, I began to seek out the root cause of it, so I could attack it at the source.



Saturday, January 25, 2014

Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to the Doc I go....

After going starch-free in August of 2013, the severe abdominal pain I'd experienced for an entire year before that went down to next to nothing. Now, approximately 18 weeks in, the pain is back, with it's annoying little buddy nausea. ARGH! For the last week it has been sharp and constant, worsening with movement, pressure and sometimes after eating (though I've found no correlation to specific foods). It wakes me often at night, which leaves me weakened and exhausted, and has my bowels moving 5-6 times per day.  Mint or chamomile tea with a touch of cane sugar seems to alleviate the pain and accompanying nausea for a while, though my appetite has waned a bit and my weight continues to drop...I am at 99 lbs as of this morning. Time to return to my GI doctor as promised to myself and my friends if my weight dropped below 100.