NEVER 2 LATE 4 YOUR 1ST DUMPING EPISODE!!!

EmbodySuccess
on 9/28/09 9:12 am - Roswell, GA

TRUE CONFESSION:
I'm 6 1/2 yrs post-op RNY & holding steady for about 5 years as a size 8 AND I'd never experienced the dreaded "dumping" syndrome.

Reading descriptions of the experience on my surgeon's message board put the fear of dumping into me big time!

So I never played the cat-and-mouse game of seeing what I might be able to "get away with," in food & beverage choices.

Two nights ago, however, I was taken down by a full-blown dumping episode; AND, it wasn't from eating "forbidden" foods!

It snuck up on me like an army of NINJA.

What I realized as the episode began was that the fruit salad I'd made with fresh-but-over-ripe kiwi & bananas, had made portion control hard for me to gauge; that I'd probably eaten the equivalent of 1 kiwi+ 1 banana; and the level of fructose, possibly fermented!, was more than my intestinal tract could manage.

My heart was racing, my head was fizzy, I felt dizzy, I found myself panting, gas cramps followed, I staggered upstairs to where my husband was dead asleep, yelling his name in what sounded to my ears as slurred speech. If I'd been in public, I think most folks would've thought I was falling-down-drunk.

I tried lying down. Bad Idea.
I tried standing bent over our bed. Another Bad Idea.
Something told me my only hope was to walk it off, hanging onto Jim's arm. For 30 min. I walked around our upstairs until I was able to support myself with my sturdy walking stick.
Jim went downstairs & came up with a 32 oz. bottle of filtered water with sugar-free Propel lemon powder diluted 50%. I started drinking the water through a straw & walking.

I asked Jim to go

online to OBESITY HELP to see what they said to do for dumping & was told nothing was gonna get better til things got through my small intestines.

So I figured the walking & water would force the issuel

It did & I fell into bed at midnight, propped up on my back - about 100 min. after it began. It wasn't over, but it was at a level where my fatigue could overpower everything else & I fell asleep.

So what have I learned?

I have to be as careful around fresh fruit salads as any salad bar or buffet banquet.

Fructose is sugar. My intestinal tract did not deduct calories for fructose vs. high fructose corn syrup.

It has been an exhausting, frightening and educational experience. Sunday, I felt like a limp dishrag.

Jim & I took a walk through the Chattahoochee Nature Center to enjoy our first gloriously sunny day in weeks; but I was walking slowly and still feeling mentally fuzzy.