Need advice about dumping

I just had the worst bout of dumping. I am nearly 6months post op and have been pretty good about what I eat. Today I had some fast food and I literally had to run to the restroom to puke. My whole body shook. This has never happened before in the months since surgery. Is this normal? I would really appreciate some advice on this because I am struggling a bit with everything. My husband thinks I workout too hard and I am having trouble with food. Does anybody have any advice that can help me outside of running to see my doctor. I have my 6 month post-op appt on the 17th but I kinda need to know something now. Even though all the food came up, I still feel like crap. Someone please help me.

Dumping is caused by sugar.

Dumping is not the same as nausea, although you may feel like you want to throw up.

It may be accompanied by diarrhea, severe cramping, cold sweats, extreme fatigue, and lightheadedness. Your shaking is the only part of this episode that makes me think of dumping. 

My basic test is: Were you on the bathroom floor? In the fetal position? Then you dumped. 

I have dumped twice, and both times had to sleep for several hours after the episode. 

I'm wondering if your fast food contained a lot of fats? If that's what made you sick, it's not dumping.

You hint at other difficulties with food - care to share more? 

I am not able to eat eggs as I used to. They seem to make me very sick but I am able to eat foods that contain eggs. Most meat except for turkey are still very much off limits. Most of the time I just snack here and there and try to drink plenty. The only fish I can tolerate is tilapia. I have already had to go to the er since surgery because of dehydration. I am trying to figure this all out but it is rather difficult. My husband worries that I don't eat enough any more. He understands the limited amount it's just that I don't have an appetite. I only snack to keep my blood sugar from bottoming out which it seems to do quite often because I am just not hungry. I try to eat well balanced snacks but being so restricted in what I can have versus what I can tolerate leaves me with very slim pickings.

You seem to be having some complex issues with food in general. 

Bear in mind that at 6 months out, you're past the "healing" stage but still fairly new to all of this. Often, our bodies tell us what they can tolerate and what they need (or don't need). For some of us, it's the first time we have actually listened to our bodies!

Yours rejected fast food today - probably taught you a good lesson there, as very little fast food "works" for us. 

The two priorities post op are (1) hydration and (2) protein. If your body tolerates tilapia, go with it. Use other foods as meals and snacks (remembering that a "meal" for you right now will look like a "snack" to anyone else!) - Greek yogurt, cheese sticks, turkey...you can do well with that assortment of foods. Stabilize with what you can tolerate and build from there. 

It's hard to say why eggs no longer work for you, but I'd suggest that you keep a detailed food diary. Not just a food log - but a diary to keep track of what you eat and how the foods affect you. That will certainly help if you need to seek guidance from a dietitian. Reacting to foods is not uncommon, so don't worry but be very aware. For example, I had a horrible reaction to a light & fit yogurt once, and to some apple slices another time. 

If hunger is not yet a trigger for you to eat, I'd suggest that you eat "by the clock" to keep your blood sugar stable. 

Others may chime in here, but overall I'd recommend that you be very cautious and use wisdom in planning your meals for now. Build a larger repertoire of foods as your body seems to accept them. And be patient with yourself. 

The food you ate did not agree with you...it may have been too much fat or you ate too fast.. or too much.. 

I don't think what you experienced was  dumping...

Nope, as mentioned above, not dumping... Just your body reacting to the fatty, high sodium food in a normal way for an early post op.  Dumping rarely results in vomiting because by the time the initial bit of the offending food reaches the intestine, it (and much of the rest of teh food, since we eat so little at one time) is gone from the pouch (which drastically decreases the chances of you throwing up).

Unfortunately, when we make a bad food choice (whether it is truly a bad food choice (as is most fast food... What did you eat?) or just something that didn't agree with you, there really is t anything uou can do except wait it out.  Sometimes just the act of throwing up food can make you feel bad for quite a while.

Lora

All of it is very confusing to me. If I go by what you have stated then I have only had 1 dumping episode and it scared the crap out of me. I thought I was dying. It was 3 days after surgery and I drank a very small amount of Gatorade to take some medicine and everything went haywire. I was confused and sweating profusely. My heart was racing and I got extremely fatigued. Once it started to subside, I slept well into the next day. This episode was nothing like that at all. This was after eating a little of the food and there was no period of feeling bad and then throwing up....this was so fast that I barely made it to the restroom. This has never happened before and I felt terrible and better at the same time behind it. I rested because I still felt so queasy but it was nothing like the episode after surgery.

Yes, a full blown dumping episode feels like you are going to (or makes you want to) die. A very different experience than just getting sick in something you ate that your body didn't like.  That is why some of us tell people that not every kind of digestive distress is dumping and that if they DO dump, they will know it and won't have to ask if it was dumping (like an ******: if you have to ask if that was what it was, it wasn't).

Drinking something with sugar (even if you only drink a little bit) is the quickest way to dump since that sugar goes straight into that lower portion of intestine and hits it full force.

Lora

Your husband needs to realize that you are eating small amounts so that your body is forced to survive on its stored fat.  We are careful to eat mostly protein so the body burns fat and not muscle.

What happened today was most likely caused by eating too fast.  Think of your pouch as being smaller than an egg.  If you overfill it, then you will vomit.  Avoid fatty foods.  Eat slowly and chew each bite well.  Stop eating before you get too full. 

Sometimes too, you will just have what I call an "Angry Pouch Day" when nothing seems to make it happy. Your body is telling you to slow down a bit. I have never been able to eat fast food since my surgery with two exceptions: salad with grilled chicken and wendy's chili. Everything else makes me feel sick and up it comes. I can't even eat rice...it's too pokey and up it comes. It's actually kind of a good thing that happened, your internal police is working, though not the way you thought it was.

I have found throwing up since the surgery takes a lot more energy out of me than before. I often need to lay down for 30 minutes or so after (not that I vomit often). It may even be a virus of some sort and that's when it hit. Personal, I know, but any chance you may be expecting? Just something to consider and rule out.

I hope you feel better. Stick to your happy foods, you are doing great!