Note: I am not a dietitian nor did I go to school for any type of nutrition. I am working with my experiences with these two problems.
Note: To go straight to the IBS+reflux eating tips, scroll down.
Back in high school (1999-2003 for the stalkers) advertisements for prescription acid reflux medication began to spring up. I began realizing what Maalox and Pepto were for and why people use laxatives and that poop’s a problem for a lot of people. I didn’t quite get it until I was diagnosed early in college with a spastic colon, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS,) and acid reflux disease, or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD.) It’s a one-two punch of discomfort and pain.
IBS at its most basic describes the painful process of your intestines attempting to understand how to process the food going through them. Sometimes certain food trigger a slowdown, and shit gets clogged up. Literally. As the pressure from not being able to expel grows, your discomfort grows, until you finally push it out, which hurts as well, as you’re shitting steak knives out of a pinhole. The more mild experiences feel like a bad case of gas and are fairly tolerable.
Different sufferers experience different triggers. For myself, dairy products, red meat, and fried food are my main offenders. If I have too much of either, it will feel as though I’m trying to digest a set of small knives. The intensity is on par with ovary pain. When I’m on my period, the list of food types extends to all greasy food, peanut butter, and all meat. All I can eat safely is toast and eggs, which may explain my affinity for them. That and it makes for great morning-after-a-party food.
GERD is when the acid in your stomach churns in such a way it splashes through your esophageal sphincter (aka your throat’s ass) and into your esophagus. Left unchecked, it can damage the walls of your throat and fuck up your teeth. This erosion is a markedly seen with people suffering from eating disorders that involve purging via vomiting. It’s meth mouth for image disorders. Aside from the extremes, you also experience your food again later. Like burping, refluxing let’s you taste what you ate at a later time. A burp is short and sweet while the reflux can last for hours and has a heat to it. It’s acid, after all. This heat is sometimes referred to as a burn. The higher the heat travels, the less it can be called heartburn and the more serious the problem you have. The heat tends to be the most intense by the sternum, but the weird, almost bread-like taste of your previous meal continues to travel up your throat. Milder cases are a mere annoyance. The heat is less intense, and the taste is barely noticeable.
For me, reflux is triggered by caffeine, carbonation, alcohol, regular orange juice, lemon juice in large quantities, olive oil, fried food, barbecue sauce, tomato products, peanut butter, mustard, pickles, red meat, egg yolk, and chocolate. Chocolate-covered espresso beans might as well be poison. When it’s really bad, I can’t even have reduced fat peanut butter.
Both of these afflictions get compounded by other factors: stress, sleep, and exercise. Not exercising makes the IBS worse because my body slows down. Getting less sleep makes my reflux touchy. Stress makes both of them worse times a jillion. I’ve gone to the hospital twice for reflux that would not calm down during two finals seasons. It felt like I had chemical burn up and down my throat and the heat was going up my nose. My solar plexus was on fire. Once stressed, the two problems make the stress worse if I’m not prepared.
I pretty much hated all those feelings I was having, and at the suggestion of a doctor, I was put onto a generic acid reflux medicine and began the crackdown on my diet.
In the dorms, we had a plethora of food to choose from the cafeteria selection. I used to eat cottage cheese every day for my calcium — that was gone. I would eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if I didn’t like the hot food on the menu — no more. I switched to soy milk for my cereal. I upped my pasta intake and didn’t allow myself tomato sauce for a spell. No more energy drinks. The biggest hit was the red meat — no more burgers. In fact, I went All the Way May into vegetarianism. Once and a while I would allow myself some lunch meat so I wouldn’t get too nutters. My roommate and I would go down to dinner together and load up our trays. We’d sit across from each other, and there was an odd difference between our trays. One night, soon after the big change, Lizzy exclaimed, “You’re food is beige!” It was. I think the vegetables were extra gross that night so I didn’t take them. Just naked pasta, bread, and maybe a potato or a hard-boiled egg.
It was sad.
But then it was funny. Let’s face it, if I ate anything else I would have stabby knife pain in one part of me and heat death rays in another. The beigeness eventually became our joke. Things picked up. I learned to not be embarrassed by pooping (everybody does it!) in a dorm situation, and I learned how to speed up the process to get out of the bathroom faster. My chest wasn’t constantly on fire. I began having days where my mouth didn’t taste like warm, soggy cereal, and there was less to groan about after meals. I would still treat myself to the ice cream, especially Sunday nights. Later I learned that fat free ice cream worked better for me, so I tried to stick to that. I had a vegetarian friend in dietetics who helped me expand my options.
I ended up not having McDonalds for a few years afterward and avoided fast food altogether. I can’t remember the time frame, maybe a full year of strict vegetarianism? Slowly I began to reintroduce meats and fast food. I tested not having the reflux medicine and discovered that I could go off it without repercussions, so I phased it out. I began to redesign my diet living in an apartment. I got to eat a lot of overeasy eggs again, which were not as fun in the dorms as scrambled fluff.
I’m explaining all of this lameness to say: MANAGE YOUR DIET. I was given loose guidelines on proper food intake by my family, and while I was given super healthy food by them at times, I still had a lot to learn. The answer to indigestion used to be taking three Tums, but it stopped working. Having all my problems has made me hyper aware of all that should be considered in a normal diet. If you’re having problems with your body, a lot can be manipulated by what you’re eating and the amount of exercise you have. Go running, walking, skating, swimming, cycling, something! Even if you feel silly doing it, what matters is you are spurring your body into motion and helping to regulate your digestive system.
Some tips for management of digestive issues:
- If _________ gives you a tummy ache, you probably shouldn’t eat it.
- If you discover you are lactose-intolerant, avoid dairy products for two weeks. If you are really missing some types, slowly reintroduce them and take a Lact-aid pill. It contains the lactase enzyme your body no longer has. If you find yourself not missing them, don’t bring them back.
- If you get constipated a lot, avoid red meat for a week. Also be sure to get some cardiovascular exercise three times a week for twenty minutes. A brisk walk can do wonders. See if that improves your poopin’.
- Apples help you poop!
- So does broccoli!
- If you’re a vegetarian, vary your protein sources. Soy milk and tofu is delicious, but try other types of protein like beans, whey protein mix drinks, eggs (if you diet allows,). If you are unsure about adding eggs, get a little less guilty by purchasing free range raised eggs or buying them from a local farm. There’s a neat little info spreadsheet on the Vegetarian Society’s website for more ideas.
- HUMMUS IS DELICIOUS and does not affect my IBS. It can, on occasion, disturb the reflux.
- Being more healthy in choosing your options will aid your body in being more prepared for old age. You’re setting up the scaffolding that will be left to hold your body together.
- Reflux sufferers who love orange juice: Tropicana has a reduced acid line of orange juice. If not for it, I would still be burning my esophagus. It has added calcium, which helps my non-milk-imbibing self.
- Limit your alcohol intake, especially beer and drinks mixed with soda pop.
- Optimally, no more soda pop.
- Salad dressing can be your undoing. Learn what’s in the dressing before you put it on or you may destroy an otherwise problem-free meal.
- Management means these problems are never going away. Once that idea settles into your brain, you’ll learn where you can cheat the diet once and awhile, but don’t cheat too often or you”ll have to start from square one. Diet management is a lifestyle change with benefits.
Again, I’m no expert. I’ve lived with these two pains in the ass for going on eight years, and I’m still learning management tricks every day. I’ve settled into semi-vegetarianism well and have had my spurts of weakness. I still resort to the basics in times of need. If you think you’re having digestive issues, talk to your doctor about it. S/he can direct you to a dietitian and has the proper channels to get your system checked out. Medication may help heal your parts! Going to the doctor can jumpstart your road to recovery. It’s up to you to make it happen!
This post is dedicated to Lizzy and Emily, who patiently supported me eating boring food in the dorms when I made the first drastic food switch and are never embarrassed by me quizzing restaurants’ wait staff on the ingredients of menu items.
POP AND CAVITIES
CAVITIES IN A CAN Familiy Gentle Dental Care
Lactaid totally has the netscape icon as its favicon
Information sheet — protein Vegetarian Society
Tropicana
I’ve been sick all week, and my nose is red and raw from all the tissues I’ve been using while blowing my nose and other snot maintenance. I know that my dad uses Vaseline when he’s getting a lot of nosebleeds, but I do not care for sticking that crap into my orifices. I had the Bacitracin in my bandaid drawer so I give it a go, lightly coating the affected areas under my nose before bed and after a final good sneeze and blow.
