Last night was an eye opener for me. I'd always (well since the food allergy discovery) known that eating my allergens caused my digestion to halt to a very slow crawl, causing me to experience such lovely things as reflux, gas, indigestion, and diarrhea.
However, since having AAT treatments during 2009, I have developed a new allergy symptom which I believe is merely a worsening of a previous symptom. Actually, thinking about it, I think I might have had these episodes twice prior two AAT, but very far apart.
The episodes start with feeling a starving fullness. Where your stomach feels full, but you're still hungry. Usually the hunger is for sweeter foods or sugar. Then starts the cramping, the reflux, and the feeling of having a massive burp coming, but never does.
That, is the beginning and in mild cases it tends to stop there if I ate something sugary, as it seemed to start digestion going and everything was hunky dory.
However, in extreme cases of "Digestive Belligerence" (my new term for what my digestive system has decided on its own to do), my body seems to completely refuse to digest certain foods. Onion right now seems to be the biggun. It just sits there. Festers. Ferments. Rots. In my stomach. (Feels a lot like I'm trying to digest razor blades)
Lovely right? Most meals (I looked it up) digest within 90 minutes, or at the very least most of the contents are gone in 90 minutes.
This did not happen last night. Around 6pm, I ate a meal. Around 8pm, I started craving sugar like no one's business. So I made myself some pancakes and ate several. At 10pm, my stomach was on fire. Twenty minutes later my entire body felt like it was on fire. The pain in my upper abdomen & chest was excrutiating, and I remember half-praying for death to come quickly.
I tried benadryl. The pain lessened from 10 to a 9, but didn't completely go away. I know from past experience not to waste my expensive compounded tylenol because it does absolutely no good.
After an hour of pain, I decided to give puking a try. I figured it couldn't hurt, and worst case there'd be nothing in there anyway.
At this point, I was just grasping at straws. I figured by this time all the food would be in my colon or intestines already and forcing myself to puke would do nothing. But after an hour of that pain with bloating and so feverish that I would have welcomed walking out into the artic tundra, I was willing to give anything a shot.
I am not a puker. I can pretty much count the amount of times I've puked on my fingers and probably have a couple fingers left over. Even with years of reflux, I never let myself puke. I hate puking. So I had to force myself to puke.
Up came my entire dinner. The pancakes which I ate later were not to be found, but the entire contents of my 6pm dinner were there in clearly recognizable pieces, 4 hours or more after I'd eaten them. (There was a lot of food in there.)
Immediately after emptying the contents of my stomach, I felt fine. Fever gone. Pain nearly gone (dull roar).
Gastroparesis.
I looked it up. Every case it says there is damage to a certain nerve. I don't think that's my issue as I can normally eat without this issue 99% of the time.
I think my body just refuses to digest certain foods that it finds unsuitable. It's probably trying to protect me. Digestive Belligerence, I tell you.
After that, I was starving and yet not very keen on eating. I tried a smoothie and drank a little bit which was as much as I could mentally stomach. I also think it was too acidic.
14 hours later, I still couldn't fathom eating solid foods and drank water. 24 hours later, I'm suddenly finding food a little enticing. I think I might be hungry. But solid food? It's going to take me a while to warm up to that.
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