#I don't have GI issues I'm actually quite healthy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hillbillyoracle · 7 days

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Tips I wish I could tell my younger self about food

We were really tired tonight so we cooked separately.

Above is what my partner put together: broccoli bites, chicken nuggets, pineapple, and a cutie.

Below is what I put together: gluten free Mac and cheese with some canned chicken, frozen carrots, peas, green beans, and corn.

We both have a history of disordered eating having grown up during the toxic diet culture of the late 90s and through the 00s. Unlearning it has been really tough.

Here's how we think about a "healthy" meal without counting calories or running into our other triggers:

All vegetables count - yes even if they're tasty and palatable. Diet culture made me think only the blandest unappetizing versions of veggies count. Not true. Any veggie is a nice bonus. We include them to help us keep full longer/the added fiber (important for my particular GI issues).

Three colors of fruits and veggies in a meal - we shoot for this but don't always quite make it. Honestly this is mostly because of visual appeal. It just makes a meal look more substantial and I noticed I felt fuller longer when I did this. Variety is nice.

Include at least one protein - it helps you stay fuller longer. It does not have to be bland either. My partner chose chicken nuggets - it can be protein you actually like.

Include at least one source of fat - it helps you stay fuller longer. Mine is my dairy free cheese. My partner wasn't feeling any tonight - I have a hunch she'll grab yogurt later.

Use a base you love - for me this was Mac and Cheese. It's not something I struggle to get myself to eat. I love it. Carbs aren't evil. For my partner this was effectively her pineapple. She was really craving it lol.

Keep frozen and canned options available where possible - produce and meat go bad so quickly in the fridge. Canned and frozen are perfectly okay. It's much easier to toss some in this way.

Masking tape and a sharpie are your friend - label every leftover you put in your fridge. Helps you avoid food poisoning. Almost all food stored correctly in a fridge is good for 48 hours. Some for longer but it's important to check.

Better fed than dead - I can't remember who told me this when I was recovering from orthorexia/binge eating but I'm so thankful. It's so true. Better to eat something imperfect than nothing.

So yeah. Shifting from "x food is a bad food and I shouldn't be eating it" to "what can I add to dishes I already like to make them more satisfying" was super key.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

#food #recovery food #life tips

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meditating-dog-lover · 1 month

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Eczema - 04/02

So good news, my skin is a lot better now. My hands and wrist are no longer red nor dry. The red and dry patches are gone, and I'm not experiencing any itchiness nor flareups, even after eating tomatoes. I still have some wounds from my last flareup, but they are slowly healing (some better than others).

I am using a tiny bit of steroid ointment 1x a day since Saturday, and Tues-Fri I've been using it 2x a week. I put a tiny bit mixed in with Vaseline and Aquaphor. It does the trick and the inflammation and dryness is gone, it's like I never had eczema. My hands are smooth, not dry nor peeling, not irritated, and the skintone matches the rest of my arm because the redness is gone. As a result I'm going to quit taking the steroids. I don't even have to moisturize my hands and I'm back to using soaps with cocamidopropyl betaine (I doubt this is what's causing my skin issues, there has to be something deeper than that).

On the same note I've been taking this new gut health supplement - Codeage Leaky Gut formula. Whether or not leaky gut is an actual thing, it still helps to nourish the intestinal lining and gut health overall as it aids in absorption and overall GI health and wellbeing. I've only been taking it for a week and I've never received a formal gut health evaluation by a health care provider, so I don't know if this supplement "matches" what my gut needs, but I know for sure I can benefit from a gut health supplement and I liked the ingredients in this supplement.

The organs to focus on when it comes to eczema is the skin, liver, and gut. Like I said I doubt I have any liver issues. For my skin I'm going to meet with my dermatologist tomorrow and ask for a tacrolimus refill and to schedule an appointment for a skin culture test. I just want to make sure I don't have staph, because people with eczema tend to have that. Again steroids are antiinflammatory, not antibacterial. So if the inflammation is due to a staph infection, then steroids aren't the solution here.

For gut, it's going to be more complex because the GI system is complex and has the issue of both dysfunction and microbiome imbalances. Dysfunction pretty much encompasses poor digestion and absorption, microbiome imbalances involve dysbiosis. Regarding function, I know that I tend to chew food quickly and drink a lot of water with each meal. This can prevent sufficient HCl and digestive enzyme secretion. Chewing (even smelling!) food can help stimulate secretion of digestive acids and enzymes, so it's important to chew slowly. This may be a myth, but water may dilute stomach acids when consumed with a meal, which can prevent optimal digestion. I've read that it's best to drink water 30 min before eating and 1 hour after eating. I understand the importance of drinking water and I drink 2+ liters a day, though I can look into properly timing my water-drinking periods. Stomach acid plays a role in digesting food and killing foreign pathogens you may swallow. So it plays a significant protective role. Additionally, there are microbes in the intestines which digest food. On the absorbing end, it would be best to find ways to nourish the intestinal lining, reduce intestinal inflammation, and promote a healthy bacterial ecosystem. While I can improve the digesting aspect on my own, I'll need to do a gut health test with a health care provider to assess my gut microbes and intestinal lining integrity. My current supplement claims to help with this, and so far I don't notice any weird side effects thankfully. But again I will potentially do such a test with a provider.

For now I will chew more slowly, alter my water-drinking timing, and continue my gut health supplement. I will meet with my dermatologist and ask for a skin culture test and a functional medicine doctor for a gut health evaluation test (microbe and intestinal integrity). Then I'll find some real answers. I just know that there is a strong link between gut and skin health and I know I can benefit from a general gut health supplement. I'm just very happy that my skin is much better now.

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zebra-warrior · 4 years

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(Part 1) As I mentioned in my last post, it's Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Awareness month so to celebrate I wanted to share. My story. It's long and isn't fully up to date but trust me, this is the short version. Some of you have read my story in the past but if you haven't I would like to share in hopes of spreading awareness.

My name is Jamie Hamilton and here's my story:

I was born prematurely at 4lbs 12oz. In the beginning, I was thought to be healthy until shortly after birth. It was found I had a heart murmur and issues with my GI system. I was unable to pass stool so a minor surgery to expand the rectum was performed and my parents went home with a healthy baby... Well, at least that's what they thought. My GI problems continued and by the age of 5, I began complaining of joint pain and migraine headaches and was prescribed high dose laxatives of various types and adult Advil.

While attending Elementary school, I did okay, but it was noticed I was quite clumsy, always had some kind of infection, the pain continued and at age 8 I passed out for the first time. Later that year I got my first urinary tract infection, which is really rare in children, but doctors brushed it off and said it must just be a sign I'm starting puberty. That didn't happen until 6 years later and even that wasn't normal. The dizzy spells and clumsiness continued but soon after, abnormal bruising began to surface, in which several doctors called social workers into the room thinking I was abused by my parents, though I was not. These issues along with seemingly, having less energy than most children my age presented.

By middle school, I was 12 and it was noticed how small I was in comparison to my peers. It was also noted in my charts that I hadn't grown even an inch between the ages of 2 and 12. Doctors brushed that off as failure to thrive. I was being beaten up terribly for my height as well as being taunted for newly diagnosed learning disabilities. The last string was when one girl shoved me onto the ground, face down on the floor of a locker. She had two friends, one who sat on my lower back and held my legs down and another who sat on my upper back pinning my arms down while this girl kicked the locker shut into my head over and over again until I went unconscious then kept going while the teachers watched it happen, turning a blind eye to what had happened. This was my first Traumatic Brain Injury. (I promise this part of my story will be relevant later.) My parents, not able to afford for me to go to another school weren't sure where to turn when my grandma stepped up and pulled me out of this school putting me into another one.

I seemed to do a little better in this more laid back setting and actually started to grow. Turns out it was because we had to pack our own lunches instead of eating what the school gave us but I didn't know that at the time. Other than growing taller, the same health issues continued but didn't stop me. I went to this school until the 10th grade in which the teachers were no longer able to teach me because of my grade level. I was then switched to a different public school.

Things went okay there at first, but by age 16 my health hit me again and hit me hard. I started having weird issues with my heart and the GI issues continued. I saw a doctor who ran a test for what was a rare disease at the time but now very common, Celiac Disease. The test also came back showing I had 17 other food allergies. It came back positive so I was able to change how I ate and I finally experienced the same slight improvement of symptoms I had noticed at my old school where we had to bring our own lunches. Although I had a minor victory, I also had a setback with my heart. I experienced a strange feeling, as if it was pounding and skipping beats. Whenever this happened I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I was in and out of hospitals. This whole time being diagnosed with Hypochondria or being told it's all in my head. One hospital even banned me because I was what they called a “frequent flyer”. Everyone kept running the same basic tests yet showed no real interest due to the fact that "I was young, so I must be healthy and teenagers like attention so I was making it up for attention." at age 17, I was in the hospital and this is when my heart stopped for the first time. The alarms went off and no one came. My mom ran through the hall screaming for help when a nurse told her I'm an attention seeker and probably just pulled the leads to the monitoring system off. My mom drug her back to the room and everything was connected. I had truly coded. I was brought back and they did an EKG. Unfortunately, after I was conscious, the EKG results were normal, so I was sent home and referred to a cardiologist.

Later that year a new symptom began. I had my first Grand Mal seizure during Chemistry class. My school sent me to the hospital where I was accused of being a drug addict because drugs cause seizures in teens. Again, social workers were brought in and hours were spent accusing me of being a drug addict. Finally, after almost just as long of me pleading for them to just run a drug test and stop accusing me of something I didn't do, they did... It was clean and no drugs were found in my system. At this point, various tests were run and I was hooked to an EEG for four days. I felt okay, but the alarms just kept going off. I was registering 500 or more Petit mal Seizures an hour. Yes, an hour. It's a type of seizure where you don't drop down and go into convulsions, but essentially loose attention for as little as, a fraction of a second. I didn't even know these seizures were taking place. I was then put on antiepileptic medication which I had an allergic reaction to. It caused my skin to burn and sloth off of my body so this medication was discontinued and I was sent home with a referral to a Neurologist.

As the school year progressed, I went to the hospital again for chest pain. The hospital ran the same tests as they always had in the past. A CBC and urinalysis were done and nothing was found. Right before I was to be released, my blood pressure suddenly dropped to 60/20 (a blood pressure that in the medical world is considered medically dead) code blue was called and the crash cart was wheeled in. When the hospital staff flooded into the room strangely, I was awake and alert, at least for about 2 minutes in which I soon after had another grand-Mal seizure which seemed to reset my heart and increase my blood pressure from rock bottom to low normal. No one figured out what was going on and again I was sent home the same day being told, "Well, her heart is beating and everything seems normal now." The rest of high school went similarly. I spent a lot of time in the hospital with no good answers. Before I graduated, I was told I have Fibromyalgia and Degenerative Disk Disease and with Scoliosis I've had it all my life, this explains my pain, but it shouldn't be that bad so I was again pushed to the back burner. I also seemed to be having a lot of strange allergic reactions to many medications and items such as clay and two medications used to combat an allergic reaction. My high school guidance counselor pulled my mother and I into her office about halfway through the school year and told me she didn't think I'd graduate my senior year due to being in the hospital so much. Surprisingly, that same year I graduated with honors.

#myEDSchallenge #myHSDchallenge

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