food stuff
Dec. 29th, 2006 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanA couple of people asked me the other day whatever happened with the yeast diet/poop scope etc, so I figured I'd post something.
Results of throat & butt camera: Don't know yet. I have an appointment in two weeks to get the results of the biopsy, but when I was leaving he told me everything looked normal. My gallbladder, blood, and everything else that was poked, prodded and put on a slide also all looks normal. In other words, there is nothing actually wrong with me. Except for the part where my insides hurt all the time.
They only time they didn't hurt was when I went on that goofy diet. Abdominal pain went from 60 to zero overnight. Acid reflux involved two minor incidents that subsided in a couple of minutes and never came back. My asthma got better. The itchy patches of skin that had been cracking and bleeding started to clear up. I even noticed that I was suddenly less sensitive to things that normally gave me a farily strong allergic reaction.
The diet lasted exactly 36 days and then I completely lost my shit and mugged a pizza delivery man and ate him, his car, his little orange bag and all his damn pizzas. Along with a tanker truck of Guinness and a side of hot wings. I may have taken out a boy band while I was at it, it's all a bit of a blur.
That was just over three weeks ago. Today I am back to square one with the abdominal pain. And I can't breathe for shit. And I realized that all those mysterious joint pains I'm suddenly getting were really common before I went on the diet, but I didn't have any for the whole month.
So I'd say the diet was a success in that it definitely nailed down that the problem is something I'm eating. And a big honkin' pain in the ass in that it means I'm going to have to cut out something that I'm eating. Right now I strongly suspect wheat. You know, as in bread. One of the things I love and eat pretty much every day. Well... Fuck.
So after the holidays I'll be going back on the restricted diet so I can do some experimenting and isolate whatever is causing the problem. I'm hoping it's something fairly specific. I'm hoping I don't all of a sudden start having to learn how to cook with all these funky alternative grains. Because I tell you, that month I did on the diet has taught me one thing very clearly, and that is that I really can't bake for shit.
But right before I do that I think I'm going to make a point of ordering a really big pizza.
Results of throat & butt camera: Don't know yet. I have an appointment in two weeks to get the results of the biopsy, but when I was leaving he told me everything looked normal. My gallbladder, blood, and everything else that was poked, prodded and put on a slide also all looks normal. In other words, there is nothing actually wrong with me. Except for the part where my insides hurt all the time.
They only time they didn't hurt was when I went on that goofy diet. Abdominal pain went from 60 to zero overnight. Acid reflux involved two minor incidents that subsided in a couple of minutes and never came back. My asthma got better. The itchy patches of skin that had been cracking and bleeding started to clear up. I even noticed that I was suddenly less sensitive to things that normally gave me a farily strong allergic reaction.
The diet lasted exactly 36 days and then I completely lost my shit and mugged a pizza delivery man and ate him, his car, his little orange bag and all his damn pizzas. Along with a tanker truck of Guinness and a side of hot wings. I may have taken out a boy band while I was at it, it's all a bit of a blur.
That was just over three weeks ago. Today I am back to square one with the abdominal pain. And I can't breathe for shit. And I realized that all those mysterious joint pains I'm suddenly getting were really common before I went on the diet, but I didn't have any for the whole month.
So I'd say the diet was a success in that it definitely nailed down that the problem is something I'm eating. And a big honkin' pain in the ass in that it means I'm going to have to cut out something that I'm eating. Right now I strongly suspect wheat. You know, as in bread. One of the things I love and eat pretty much every day. Well... Fuck.
So after the holidays I'll be going back on the restricted diet so I can do some experimenting and isolate whatever is causing the problem. I'm hoping it's something fairly specific. I'm hoping I don't all of a sudden start having to learn how to cook with all these funky alternative grains. Because I tell you, that month I did on the diet has taught me one thing very clearly, and that is that I really can't bake for shit.
But right before I do that I think I'm going to make a point of ordering a really big pizza.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 01:02 am (UTC)Wheat is a pretty good place to start; Gabriel had been suffering through a lot of the things you'd been desribing (abdominal pain, joint pain, skin problems, strong allergies, etc) for years; when he went gluten-free, a lot of it went away. Gluten-free bread is motherfucking sky-high expensive, but it is out there, and it does taste pretty good, but i'm sure you've already discovered all that.
We still haven't found a really good substitute for pizza dough, though. :P It's all either matzo or silly putty.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 04:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 01:20 am (UTC)also, the thought of you running out of the house and tackling the pizza dude is hilarious, and not only because i can totally relate because i was on the same diet.
i swear, i would have eaten wheat off the stalk and drunk milk straight from the cow by the end of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 04:09 am (UTC)I've had a month off, I can do this. (She says, trying to convince herself.)
I swear, if I have to face an entire lifetime of steamed brocolli and grilled chicken every single day I am going to stick a fork through my temple.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 12:11 pm (UTC)the thing that saved me on that diet was brown rice. i couldn't eat any regular what carbs or yeast but i could still have brown rice pasta and steamed brown rice. otherwise, i probably would have gone crazy. i love vegetables but sometimes THEY JUST AREN'T ENOUGH.
i remember the day i went off the diet - i had an exceedingly Bad Day and e was going to order pizza but instead i got a veal parmesean sandwich. it was, hands down, the most delicious thing i have ever eaten in my life.
also, i looked into gluten-free cooking awhile ago; apparently it all gets a million times more palatable with xanthan gum, which is an emulsifier. it's spendy ($20 a bag), but from the celiac peeps i know, i hear it's invaluable.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-31 07:10 am (UTC)I cheated for 2 years until I just started getting so sick that I gave it up completely. Now, I only get sick when there's been some contamination somewhere. (usually when I eat out). Trust me, it's a lot better not to be sick.
It was a couple of more years before I learned to bake gluten free. Part of it was getting unused to the baked goods I once knew, because there is a bit of a mouth-feel difference. Get the Betty Hageman Gluten-free Gourmet cookbooks; they will be your food bibles for a while. Those taught me some about baking gluten-free, though I tweak her recipes a lot to meet my tastes. (Yes, this means cooking for yourself a lot more, if you don't cook already.)
I now adapt many baking recipes for my needs, and the gluten eaters never know. :)
I tend to avoid the gluten-free bakery products that are now pretty readily available, because they don't taste as good as what I can do, and they're bloody expensive. Making it myself is tons cheaper, even with the expense of xanthan gum.
There is a celiac LJ community, which offers a great deal of support for those needing to be gluten and wheat free.
You CAN eat well and be well, too! It takes more effort, but it's better than being sick.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 12:16 am (UTC)Right now I'm still in the diagnostic stage and that's what I'm bemoaning. I have to go on a pretty bland diet so that the allergens show up when I test them. And after a month of that I'm ready to eat innocent by-standers.
Thank you for hte recommeds though - if it does turn out to be gluten I'll definitely be taking advantage of them.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 01:42 am (UTC)however
"I completely lost my shit and mugged a pizza delivery man and ate him, his car, his little orange bag and all his damn pizzas. Along with a tanker truck of Guinness and a side of hot wings. I may have taken out a boy band while I was at it, it's all a bit of a blur."
HAHAHA....that is the greatest visual i have ever had.
hope you figure out what is doing it to you
i know wheat and gluten tend to have a similar effect on people (as you develop allergies)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 03:34 am (UTC)i'd probobly agree with the rest of it too, but i know nothing of wheats, glutens or anything else i shove in my own cakehole
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 07:00 am (UTC):-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 04:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-14 02:56 am (UTC)(I swear I forgot until right this second.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 09:10 pm (UTC)In the meantime, a co-worker who has celiac and therefore can't eat gluten recommended www.goglutenfree.com as a resource for food. It looks to be a website for a particular manufacturer of gluten free foods.
I'll go back to trying for alternate sources of info around here.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-18 03:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 02:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 04:05 am (UTC)However, I've done more reading since then, and it looks like it has a very different mechanism, so it can have very different symptoms for different people. So it might be gluten after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 05:05 am (UTC)M and I have a pasta maker, and once we figure out how to use it, it wouldn't be that hard to try making pasta dough with alternative grains.
For example, I've had rice-based pasta and it was very good. The only real difference I noticed was that it was slighly mushier than wheat pasta, so I would suggest not cooking it for nearly as long. Best thing was that I bought it at Bulk Barn and it was dirt cheap. So there are still lots of food options open to you, much more than just grilled chicken and broccoli. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:06 am (UTC)I think I just need to go on an all sushi diet. That would be ok, wouldn't it? (Well except for having no money left over for things like heat.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 12:17 am (UTC)Damn, I say. Don't throw me into that briar patch.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-02 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:15 am (UTC)Learning to cook a lot Eastern cuisines helps too. It's amazing how many things are far better on a bowl of steamed rice. Spam&eggs, for example becomes almost tasty on rice with a couple of drops of worchestershire sauce.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:28 am (UTC)(My protestations that I'm going to have to learn to cook dammit, probably sound really retarded when I talk about making pad thai. But seriously, I make about six dishes, and they all involve some pre-packaged ingredient or another. Adding new units is hard.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 12:23 pm (UTC)the good news? a lot of it is shockingly easy to make (peanut sauce, for example, takes me about two minutes) and freezes really well, and is SO much cheaper and better for you than buying it premade. once it's frozen you just hack off a chunk and throw it into a stir fry, and with peanut sauce - $4-5 a bottle - costs almost nothing if you make it yourself, and you control exactly what goes into it. the most i had to do was track down things like tamarind paste (for pad thai sauce) and lime leaves (curry paste).
(peanut sauce: a lump of peanut butter - all natural works well but regular works okay too - a drop of olive oil, some soy sauce, ground ginger and garlic powder. maybe a little sugar if you like it sweet but i never put any in. mix it up, add olive oil until you get a consistency you like, adjust the seasoning so it tastes good, a pinch of salt and ta da. a pinch of cayenne makes it spicy peanut sauce. i've used fresh garlic and ginger when i was on a no-processed-food kick and it was good, i just had to put in more.)
spice of life, that weird but magical spice shack that clings to the side of augusta ave in kensington market, is awesome for esoteric food like lemongrass powder and other great stuff you can't get at the price chopper. i got a bag of dried lime leaves for a buck recently, and those little fuckers are teh yum. the mexican dry goods store on kensington also sells the best enchilada sauce that i put in a lot of things - spicy as hell and very few ingredients. the only reason i don't make that myself is because i can never find tomatillos in this town.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-14 02:59 am (UTC)I'm definitely trying all the things you list here.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 04:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 03:20 am (UTC)Have you thought of seeing an allergist to confirm things? Twenty minutes of tiny-scratchy needles is a lot faster than the trial and error of eliminating items on your own. I'd *never* have guessed I'm allergic to barley and oats, for instance...
Can give you the name of my allergist, if you like- he rocks it old school, and does a lot of work with asthma, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 04:01 am (UTC)I've only ever had one experience with the scratch-test, and it left me... unimpressed. However, that may have been because it was done as a one-off by somebody who treated it as a gold standard rather than as a potentially falable diagnostic tool. ("This says you're are allergic to grass. So you may want to stay indoors on days when they are cutting the grass." "I've never had a problem with grass." "OK, but if it starts to be problem, antihistimines can help with the reaction." "No, seriously. I can roll around in grass. Chew on it. Stuff it up my nose. Nothing. No reaction." "OK, but on days when it's a problem just try to avoid it and the antihistimines will really help." *headdesk*)
I'm willing to give it another chance though, if in the hands of somebody who knows what he's doing. Please do fire his contact info at me. (He's not in Guelph, is he?)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 09:21 pm (UTC)Also, you can't just book an appointment with an allergist. You need a referral from your GP.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-14 03:00 am (UTC)Gettng a referral for a specific specialist isn't a problem with my doctor.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 05:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 05:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:00 am (UTC)I took RA there when she came up to visit one time. We did gluten-free pizza at a different place another time. She still contends that her own pizza crust is better than either place, which I can believe (although the MO one is good).
I should pass you her Soca recipe, though. I *love* it, and have made it a few times. Exceedingly simple.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:04 am (UTC)Have to see RA again some time. Especially since I haven't made it to a polycon since the one here. (And that one barely counts, I was so busy.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 04:00 pm (UTC)The socca recipe is as follows:
I usually top it with a bunch of very coarsely-chopped veggies (whatever I feel like) and grated cheese, all tossed together. I top it quite thickly. It's not like pizza, although that's the easiest way to describe it. It's got a lovely flavour kind of like pakoras.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 12:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 05:58 am (UTC)Curious- did you have the tests done while on the diet, or after? Some chance that could change what they see.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 06:00 am (UTC)One of the things they were looking for was scar tissue from all the acid reflux. It's implicated in certain kinds of cancer.
Let us compare maladies
Date: 2006-12-30 07:34 pm (UTC)Alas! with Barrett's 'sophagus
Well, not yet, anyway. But that's a song that does need making up. ;)
Do you take anything scary for the acid? I've been on omeprazole (the Losec stuff, or Prilosec for the Merkins out there, which was in the news this week for being found to increase the risk of hip breakage in seniors by interfering with calcium absorption--I heard a couple of months ago that it interferes with B12 absorption, too) for much of the last three years, though I'm mostly doing 150 mg of rantinidine (the Zantac stuff) twice a day now, and sometimes 75 mg instead of 150 mg in the morning. (From what I understand, you can get 150 mg OTC in the States, but 75 mg is the top OTC dosage in Canada.)
The official story is I have a hiatus hernia, and my doctor's opinion seems to be basically that there's nothing to be done about the reflux and the best thing for me to do would be to take omeprazole every day forever. My own conclusion, which it took me most of the last three years to arrive at, is that all or most of my various digestive problems are strongly correlated to my stress level, and not much else--I get stressed, all the muscles around my digestive tract clench, and everything stops working properly. (The hiatus hernia is, I presume, a mechanical result (to some extent proximal and to some extant distal) of this; while having the hernia does mean that I'm never going to get rid of the reflux completely (at least, as long as the hernia can't repair itself, which I've yet to be convinced is impossible), the reflux is extremely variable.)
Point being, insofar as I have a point and am not merely self-indulging ;), from where I sit, it's really damned hard to figure out which is the chicken and which is the egg and whether there's a rooster and who's feeding them all anyway?, and the doctors have only the faintest ideas.
Another case in point: the pains around the top of my stomach and lower esophagus which I originally and for a long time thought were caused by the acid, and which conventional medical wisdom says are caused by chronic acid reflux, I still get when I'm on the omeprazole--i.e., when I have basically no acid--and I'm highly stressed. So I'm pretty sure that those pains aren't chemical but mechanical; they're caused by the muscle clenching--they're not caused by the reflux, but by what causes the reflux.
Anyway. I am also moderately suspicious of the wheat thing, so I'll be interested to hear how your wheat experiment works out. I eat a lot of wheat, largely on the assumption that I need a lot of fibre (and wheat bran is the easiest/cheapest way to get it), but I do wonder whether it's hurting more than helping.
Sure would be nice to be able to make a few dozen copies of ourselves and conduct controlled experiments. :/
Re: Let us compare maladies
Date: 2007-01-01 12:26 am (UTC)i found out over the Xmas holidays that my mother has had acid reflux since she was pregnant with me - if that isn't indicative of a hereditary component I don't know what is. Since talking to her I've read a little about the calcium issue. I need to forward her some of the info because osteoporosis runs in my family and she already suffers from it.
I get what you are saying about stress. When I was in University I had on-again, off-again ulcers that always mysteriously cleared up when I was on break. I've always figured that the health effects from eating & drinking (& smoking) things that are bad for you are way trumped by the existance or absense of stress in one's life.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 09:44 am (UTC)As others have said, there are recipes for many items that are quite tasty and one would never know.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 12:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 02:26 pm (UTC)I'm crossing my fingers for you that it's not Guinness or pizza.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 12:28 am (UTC)End of story.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 03:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-30 05:14 pm (UTC)When I was a kid I used to get very crampy all the time beyond that time of the month. I thought there was seriously something wrong with my own eating habits later on. Luckily it was only later on the future that I realized that I had really bad Mittelschmerz (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mittelschmerz/DS00507)
Seriously, I hope you can find what it is that is causing you pain.