The Gut Feeling
I had been working part-time at my desk job for 9 months. Things seemed to be on a slow rise.
In May of 2017 I had a very bad stomach flu which put me in bed for two days. I heard norovirus was going around so maybe it was that. My digestion never recovered. At the time I worked a relatively lenient job, and I would be constantly making trips to the bathroom with diarrhea. This went on for about two months with me having diarrhea every day, oblivious to the fact that diarrhea like that is something that you REALLY need to get checked out by a doctor.
All I remember learning about digestion before then was from a health class I had back in middle school. I remember the teacher standing in front of class and saying “Make sure you poop 1-2 times per day, you shouldn’t need to strain but it should come out as a log and not little pellets”. That’s the last time I remember anyone telling me that if you are not pooping normally it’s a big problem. Perhaps a diet or lifestyle problem, maybe you aren’t eating enough fiber, or if you have a good diet, perhaps it’s a medical problem.
So in July 2017, two months after the stomach flu, I was getting not just lots of diarrhea but also terrible mental issues, to the point where I couldn’t concentrate and ended up becoming more and more useless at work. At one point I remember sitting in a meeting and not being able to remember the previous sentence that was just spoken by the presenter, let alone keep a conceptual idea of the meeting’s topic. It was at that point that I realized I had a real issue on my hand. I headed home early that day questioning where my mental ability went.
Over the next two days I noticed a pattern. My mental confusion got much, much worse about 30 minutes after I ate a big meal. It was happening like clockwork, as clear as day. I would be feeling ok, then eat a decently sized meal, then be laying on the couch in a confused haze for an hour or two until I started to recover again.
I told my therapist and she recommended that I do a 2-day diet of only Khichdi, which is an Indian rice-and-bean porridge that is known for being very easy to digest. I entertained it thinking it wouldn’t work and didn’t really make sense, but I like Indian food so I thought why decline an excuse to eat fresh Indian food for a day? I ended up having measured success with it, to my great surprise.
So I felt awful after eating, but not after eating the Khichdi. My first thought was, am I allergic to something in my food? What could I be eating that could possibly be causing this effect? Now I wasn’t a junk food eater, far from it. Most of my meals consisted of a meat, a gluten-free grain (mostly rice or quinoa), and a salad or steamed veggies. Occasionally after dinner I would have potato chips or ice cream, stuff like that a few times a week. Not a perfect diet but easily better than 80% of America. With the help of an Ayurvedic health practitioner (who I started seeing after my main doctor told me he didn’t know wtf was going on with me), over the next few months I would remove everything that could possibly be causing an allergic reaction whatsoever. I made my diet completely free of dairy, eggs, grains, soy, nightshade veggies, peanuts, and legumes. It ended up consisting entirely of organic fruits and vegetables, coconut and olive oils, seeds and seed butters, avocados, organic free-range chicken, wild-caught salmon, organic grass-fed and grass-finished beef, homemade beef and chicken bone broth from scratch, the occasional allergen-free dark chocolate, and some sauerkraut for good measure. I was eating what was on paper the perfect diet. That meant my digestion would be great, my diarrhea would go away and I would be able to think clearly again, right?
Well, sorta.
I got to the point where I could pretty consistently drive to the store down the street and back without falling asleep or getting confused (except for Kmart, but as my therapist pointed out, everyone gets disoriented in Kmart). Then over the last few weeks I started to lose my concentration again, I could no longer play video games or drive without fatiguing, my stools started tending towards diarrhea again, and a subtle depression began to set in.
I had an appointment with a very knowledgeable allergist who found a chronic sinus infection that could be majorly contributing to my symptoms, and he recommended a gentle nasal steroid after I brought up my concern that antibiotics could wreak havoc on my already extremely weak digestion.
Last Sunday I woke up very cold and feeling disoriented, my breath was labored and I was having lots of heart palpitations. I took my blood sugar and it was fine. Then I took my temperature and it was 96.1. Currently I am wearing a take-home heart monitor again, at the request of the urgent care doctor. Last time I had one of these was in 2015, but that’s a story for another day. I asked my allergist if I should continue the nasal spray when I recover and he said to hold off for now, and that he is “looking into some things”.
Thanks to my incredibly supportive primary care doctor, I am now in connection with an M.D. who specializes in digestive issues and chronic fatigue. Together we have decided to try putting me on an Elemental Diet. The diet kit is in the mail and arriving soon. Since an Elemental Diet is a whole thing unto itself, I’m going to address that in an upcoming post, which you can view here:
The Elemental Diet - Icebat’s Gut Blog