Dumping?

So if you are a dumper, how soon out did you know?  I am a little over 6 weeks out, and haven't purposely tried anything that would make me dump (obviously).  But I am just curious when you knew you were a "dumper".

Is milk enough to do it for some people?  Since that has about 12g of sugar in 1 cup of skim milk.

Milk kills me. I can tolerate a little half and half in my coffee but that is it

My surgery was 14 weeks ago, and I've experienced some dumping symptoms from different things from the very start.  My surgeon told me it doesn't have to be just sugars or complex carbs that cause dumping... you can get the symptoms just by eating too fast or to much of anything.  

I even dumped on a sugar free jello just 4 days out of the hospital.  I didn't know exactly what what happening, because it wasn't the typical chest pain and shaky type of symptoms I'd been told to watch for... but I guess I ate it a little too fast, or too close to having liquids, and suddenly my face turned BRIGHT red, I felt like I was burning up, and I started sweating all over.  It passed relatively quickly (in about 8 minutes)... but I still get those symptoms sometimes with foods like eggs, cheese... even just drinking a Diet Snapple too fast.  

So... for the vets:  Does that classify as dumping?  Or maybe that's just a symptom of intolerance?  Anyway, if that's dumping... it started right away for me.  (Not sure if that helps or not?)

No that is not dumping.  This is how my dietician at Mayo Clinic explained it to me.   Dumping is a direct response to undigested sugar pouring into your intestines because you do not have a pyloric valve.  The sugar creates a rush of fluids that flow from the intestines to the sugar to try to digest it.  This sudden flow of fluid causes symptoms like racing heart (it feels like a heart attack...yes...that bad), dizziness, intestinal cramping, nausea, diarrhea.   It is so bad that you think a trip to the ER is in order.  It starts 20 to 30 minutes after you eat the sugar and usually lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. When it was said, "If you have to ask if you dumped. then you probably didn't dump" that's what she meant.  You would KNOW if you dumped because you would be seriously thinking you might be dying!

Not every stomach issue is dumping.  Drinking too fast or eating too fast will cause discomfort and sometimes you get the "foamies", but it is NOT DUMPING.  Eating or drinking too fast causes food to backup into the esophagus causing an uncomfortable feeling in the chest and the saliva glands start to pump in order to dislodge the block, causing "foamies" and usually vomiting.  The discomfort will make you sweaty and flushed, just like when you vomited any other time in your life.

You can not dump on sugar-free food, but you can have an intolerance for the sugar alcohols in them.  Any sugar alcohol that ends in "itol" on the label can cause gastrointestinal distress.  Food intolerances are common after surgery.

Lactose intolerance can cause gastrointestinal distress also (nausea, gas, and diarrhea)

You can not dump from proteins like meat, eggs, or cheese.  You might have an intolerance from the fat...again... NOT DUMPING.

Wow!  Thanks, Rocky - that was extremely informative and answered a lot of questions that my surgeon has left me quite confused about.  Great information there.  

(Didn't mean to highjack your thread MelissaSue... but glad you asked, because I learned something!)  

What Rocky said, 100%

Not to make light of it but if you have to ask if you are dumping , you are not. Please don't test it. Not a good feeling 

I think maybe what i was asking didnt make sense. I am NOT saying i dont know if i am dumping.  i also never said i was going to test it! Hell no!!!!! 

Im just curious is all, wondering if just milk or fruit make some people dump.  purely educational for me

The only time I think I might have experienced dumping was eating watermelon a few months post op.  I am not even sure if it was true dumping...other than that I don't know either??  

Hello Melissasue~

I had all of the symptoms of dumping syndrome 15 minutes after I ate a very high-fat potted meat product.  I was about 3 weeks out of surgery when it happened and I contacted my surgeon, who told me that yes, I had dumping syndrome.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say about dumping syndrome.  I always thought that dumping syndrome was solely from sugar but it can also be caused by high fat, apparently! 

Gastric dumping syndrome, or rapid gastric emptying is a condition where ingested foods bypass the stomach too rapidly and enter the small intestine largely undigested. It happens when the small intestine expands too quickly due to the presence of hyperosmolar (having increased osmolarity) contents from the stomach. This causes symptoms due to the fluid shift into the gut lumen with plasma volume contraction and acute intestinal distention.^[1] "Early" dumping begins concurrently within 15 to 30 minutes from ingestion of a meal.^[1] Symptoms of early dumping include nausea, vomiting, bloating, cramping, diarrhea, dizziness, and fatigue. "Late" dumping happens one to three hours after eating. Symptoms of late dumping include weakness, sweating, and dizziness. Many people have both types. The syndrome is most often associated with gastric bypass (Roux-en-Y) surgery.

Rapid loading of the small intestine with hypertonic stomach contents can lead to rapid entry of water into the intestinal lumen. Osmotic diarrhea, distension of the small bowel (leading to crampy abdominal pain), and hypovolemia can result.

In addition, people with this syndrome often suffer from low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, because the rapid "dumping" of food triggers the pancreas to release excessive amounts of insulin into the bloodstream. This type of hypoglycemia is referred to as "alimentary hypoglycemia."