Whatcha eating today? Thursday, 3/9/2017

Today is a great day! Last night I did some research and I think I might have figured out why my throat has been feeling acidic! I'll share that info in a comment, though, because it's long.

I'm skipping my run this morning because my glutes are sore, so I figure it'll be better for me to just focus on a good, long, stretching session instead. My first half marathon is on Saturday and I still have one session of physical therapy tomorrow morning. After class today I'll head into DC for race packet pickup and then I'm going to see some anime fathom event with my partner. Whee!

1: protein shake
2: eggroll in a bowl!
3: california tortilla - I'm not 100% sure what I'll be getting, something with meat and veg and no tortilla or rice. I'm hoping they'll email me back about an ingredient inquiry.

liquid and vites: on track. I need to get some new pill containers because I need to give up chewables.
exercise: yoga!

How about you?

My awesome story about acid:

About a month or so ago I started feeling a burning feeling in my throat. This is new to me. I took a "course" of Nexium and it got better. I stopped, and it got worse. So I decided to taper the Nexium to every other day, but it was still causing me problems.

And I got really paranoid because I know that reflux can be an issue post-VSG and that really the only fix action is RNY which I really, really, really don't want. (I don't want revision in general, I don't want the RNY specifically - I chose VSG for good reasons, and I want my plastic surgery schedule to stay on track.) I made a post on the RNY forum and got some AWESOME answers and information.

A few days ago, after the post in the RNY forum, I started thinking about what might have changed in my diet that could be triggering this and I hit upon my calcium chewables (these are the chalky things from bariatric advantage, not the starburst-like chewy things). The #1 "other ingredient" is fructose. I'd known that, but figured it was a small amount, so it wouldn't matter. I've got fructose malabsorption - I've had it for 20 years, figured it out about 12 years ago. So I cut out the chewables and felt better the next day.

Last night I decided to check out the Wiki page for fructose malabsorption, which I do every so often to see if there's any newly added information. And there was. OMG. Apparently a study has been done and found that xylose isomerase can promote fructose absorption and HOLY **** there might be a "cure" for this thing that has plagued me for 20 years?!

I also learned that xylitol can trigger fructose malabsorption and I have recently added xylitol-based mints (and caffeine mints) to my life and have been using those more often since February. And I also learned, and I can't remember if I'd known this before, that fructose can lead to reflux in a person with fructose malabsorption.

So I'll be cutting out the calcium chews, cutting out the xylitol mints, and finding a new source of caffeine. I've got about 20 days until my 3-year appointment with my surgeon, so that should be a good amount of time to see if these changes work. I'll still talk to him about the issue in case he wants to run any tests, but I'm super hopeful that I've solved my acid problem. And I ordered xylose isomerase from Amazon because what can't you get from Amazon?!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apt.12057/full (the article)

And to make this a cautionary tale, this is why it's really important that we do our own research and that we become our own best advocates. 20 years ago I was diagnosed with IBS-D and told there was no solution to my daily diarrhea. 12-13 years ago I was tested for celiac, it was negative, and I was told there was no solution. While research celiac, I stumbled upon fructose malabsorption, made the appropriate dietary changes, and WHAM, the diarrhea vanished. My doctors were completely useless and if I hadn't connected all these dots and looked into things on my own, I'd probably still be having diarrhea all the time and having to plan my life around my bowels. It was a horrible way to live and even more horrible to be told by countless doctors that there was no fix action.

I'm so glad you may have found the problem! GERD is nothing you want to "live with". Having blind trust in your doctor is foolish. We all need to be our own healthcare advocates.

Seriously on all counts. I can't agree more. (And this was my #1 job for my dad - to be his healthcare advocate when he wasn't able to be anymore. I think it's why it's so important to me that someone always wait with me during surgeries, since I'm in a position where I can't advocate for myself and need to know, ahead of time, that someone who can advocate for me will be there.)

So glad you seem to have figured it out! I can't wait to hear how the changes all work out for you.

Me too!! My fingers are all crossed. (Figuratively. It'd be hard to function with them actually crossed...)

I think the xylose isomerase will arrive on Monday. I can't wait :D

This is great info, Gwen. I have never heard of fructose malabsorption. I'm going to look into this. I've had GERD for years, but I've just figured it was GERD... Thank you for sharing your research.

It's funny - fructose malabsorption is much more commonly diagnosed outside of the US from what I can tell. I think it's also more rare for people to have symptoms, because other countries don't use HFCS the way we do. I can't help but wonder how many people have been diagnosed with IBS when they really have FM like me.

But.. I've also learned that IBS is a diagnoses often given when doctors have no clue. "Oh, you have unidentified stomach distress? Must be IBS!" It's super aggravating.

This is an interesting read. I've been having some reflux even though I'm taking Prevacid and Zantac everyday that feels like it's irritating my esophagus. I don't get it every day and I brought this up to my surgeon and he wants me to watch it another 3 months and see if slowing down will help it. Ironically this started around the beginning of the year and about the same time I switched to baratric fusion chewables. I wonder if there is a connection? I may have to read into this more. Thanks for the link!

I recommend the wiki article on Fructose Malabsorption as a good place to start if you think it might be a fructose issue.

My history, in brief, is that I started drinking soda in earnest when I went to college and I also started having diarrhea ALL THE TIME. To the point where I often had to miss class and ended up dropping out of college all together. The IBS diagnosis made me believe that I just couldn't handle college because I was too stressed out. Then I lived in England and while the soda there was HFCS free, I drank a lot of apple juice.

During the celiac testing I remember saying to my partner, "wouldn't it be funny if I was allergic to gatorade?" (Gatorade had become my drink of choice.) And I read the ingredients and HFCS was one of the first ones. And that's when everything started coming together, and I found out about fructose malabsorption, and I started eliminating things from my diet starting with HFCS (which is in every freaking thing) and then including honey and apples. My problems went away about 95%. I still get "fructosed" occasionally, and I don't eat out often. The VSG diet helps, but sauces in restaurants can be problematic.

It's gotten easier over time to avoid HFCS thanks to more and more organic products. Organic ketchup is my BEST FRIEND. ;)

Oh. And monk fruit extract which is also known as luo han guo is a problem. As is agave.