[Hypopup]

So as you may or may not know I had an endoscopy and I kinda wish I hadn't. It only reiterates that I really need to change my diet. I know I have to eat but it's gotten to be such a chore. I do eat unhealthy but it's not like I binge eat and I don't eat a lot of sweets. My ultimate weakness is bacon which is listed on not the limit list but the avoid list. I try to eat healthy. If you saw the list it's so damn restrictive to me. Don't get me wrong I was surprised at how gastrologist seemed to be nice because I've never really had a nice doctor but he also prescribed me medicine which I don't believe in. I know it sounds backward to be both an unhealthy eater and not like medicine but I believe that all drugs have the potential to be dangerous (some people need them I guess and that's fine but I'd rather go without). The only drug that I've had is caffeinated drinks and I try to limit consumption of them. I really don't see how reducing stomach acid gets rid of inflammation. Stomach acid is essential. I've read up on it but I still don't get it. As nice as my gastro doctor is and how long he's been a doctor, like other western doctors he too does not have a clue. I really don't see how something that can have so many side effects can be a good thing. It really angers me that I don't have a choice. I have to do it their way or I'll be in pain. Not one natural doctor takes my insurance. I have been thinking though about paying for it myself but it's so expensive. I don't have much to my name and if I go to the wrong one I'm wasting my money. I know that the natural doctor will also tell me that I need to change my diet but at least then I can have a more effective way of reducing inflammation...maybe even faster. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal to change your diet because you don't live to eat you eat to live but why does it have to be such a chore? Even though you're doing it to satisfy a biological need shouldn't it also be enjoyable? I remember when I drank kefir milk. I liked it for a while but I got so tired of it. Prior to this though I've been pretty good at taking probiotic tablets. It tastes nasty but if I can eat what I want with it that's fine. It seemed to help some but I don't think it got rid of any inflammation either. The most messed up part about this is while I'm sure eating unhealthy does not help, I am confident that my digestive system got messed up because of stress. It's like I'm being punished for having the life I've had..for someone else's wrongdoing. Also I have to look into it more but I was also given a sedative once that might have worsened things which the sedative was also given thanks to my life. I feel like no one really understands either. I guess some do about the unhealthy eating but they don't understand the medicine bit. My mom doesn't even get it. I just don't know what to do because I don't know what I can tolerate that I can actually eat. Like I said even if I can tolerate the healthy beverage/food, I can easily get tired of it. It's not enough to have healthy things even some healthy things aren't good for my condition. Can't have milk unless it's low fat even if it's goat's milk. Can't have all natural lemonade (which I prefer to the artificial kinds) because it's citrus. I know it probably doesn't seem like a big deal to anybody. Maybe I'm not even explaining it right but I just feel so forced/controlled. Why can't I just eat healthy because I want to not because I have a condition? It's just too much work to figure out what I can and can't eat and where to get it. It's also usually more expensive.

[Miche31]

Hello, what did your endoscopy show you?

Hi, just want to make sure I understood one thing you wrote. Are you saying that the doctor prescribed a medication to reduce stomach acid? I don't see how that would reduce inflammation in your colon either, but I'm not a doctor.

If you don't want to take the prescription, maybe you could look into some natural antiinflammatories like curcumin. There may be ones that are specifically good for your condition.

I sympathize with you about the restrictive diet. I have a friend who has a health condition that requires her to stay on a very strict diet of certain foods. There's nothing intuitive about the list. It's a huge amount of work for her to stay on the diet.

[possum220]

Not being able to eat citrus/acidic fruits and vegies is hard. I have found that over the years if I eat anything with high levels of vitamin C will make me sick mostly leading to a horrid migraines. It includes oranges, pineapples, melons, lemons, tomatoes, spinach etc. Eating processed foods containing acid can be a mine field. Not to mention vinegar and assorted sauces.

Medications can include acids as well so it would be good to ask the pharmacist if acids are used in the bases of medications.

Food and medications will be trial and error until you can find out what works the best for you. Would you be able to see a dietician to help you with food choices?

Please don't give up.

[Hypopup]

Originally Posted by Miche31

Hello, what did your endoscopy show you?

I have esophagitis AND gastritis but I have to wait a little over a week more before I get the detailed results. Hopefully that will tell me a cause though not sure it will since I'm pretty sure it's stress that caused this.

Originally Posted by jo_thorne

Hi, just want to make sure I understood one thing you wrote. Are you saying that the doctor prescribed a medication to reduce stomach acid? I don't see how that would reduce inflammation in your colon either, but I'm not a doctor.

If you don't want to take the prescription, maybe you could look into some natural antiinflammatories like curcumin. There may be ones that are specifically good for your condition.

I sympathize with you about the restrictive diet. I have a friend who has a health condition that requires her to stay on a very strict diet of certain foods. There's nothing intuitive about the list. It's a huge amount of work for her to stay on the diet.

Yes, it's a proton pump inhibitor. I guess it prevents more inflammation if you have excess stomach acid but certainly doesn't get rid of it.
I have seen a few natural anti-inflammatories...just not sure which one to try because I get all different answers when researching. I do LOVE cinnamon which is said to be anti-inflammatory but what food would be safe to have cinnamon with? Should I just put it on regular bread?

Originally Posted by possum220

Not being able to eat citrus/acidic fruits and vegies is hard. I have found that over the years if I eat anything with high levels of vitamin C will make me sick mostly leading to a horrid migraines. It includes oranges, pineapples, melons, lemons, tomatoes, spinach etc. Eating processed foods containing acid can be a mine field. Not to mention vinegar and assorted sauces.

Medications can include acids as well so it would be good to ask the pharmacist if acids are used in the bases of medications.

Food and medications will be trial and error until you can find out what works the best for you. Would you be able to see a dietician to help you with food choices?

Please don't give up.

Yup in a healthy diet you should be able to have things like lemon and oranges as it boosts your immune system but yet you can't have it if you have stomach issues.
Spinach too? That's one of the few vegetables I like to eat. The other one I will eat is celery but it seems like eating it makes me more hungry and it tastes too ripe when eaten by itself. I usually have ranch dressing but again that's acidic.
I would imagine a dietician would be expensive like a naturopath. It most likely is not covered by my insurance.

[Perna]

My husband has GERD and now has cancer of the esophagus partially as a result of not treating that. The medicines he takes now help him not throw up so often.

Medicine does not cure you, only your body can do that. But medicines can help your body get to a position where it has an easier time of it and you have fewer symptoms.

I take an anti-inflammatory daily for my arthritis, otherwise I have a great deal of pain and can not walk well. It's a choice I make. You have to try the meds and see if they make you feel better and if feeling better is more/less important than what side or long-term effects there may be. My appendix burst and I had an infection wandering around for 5 months before the right combination of antibiotics finally knocked it out. Meanwhile, I had too much of the wrong antibiotics and it wrecked some of my health now in the future. But I'm alive and I would not have been and I did not have to be operated on again, etc. and I like that better than the alternative would have been?

Too much stomach acid is not a good thing. Yes you need some to digest your food, etc. but if there is too much or it gets in the wrong place because another part of your body cannot deal with it (inflammation wrecking linings, making them not work) things just get worse and worse. And if you have the inflammation from a not-every-good diet, the playing field is skewed and just eating better is not going to work fast enough, if at all. Medicine can provide support to a better diet so it can work quicker and you can maybe quite taking the medicine quicker. But not taking the medicine probably means things will get worse and they can only get so much worse before they can get unfixable!

I would give myself the gift of a one-week experiment. I'd figure out what to eat for a week (only) and I'd take the prescribed medicine and eat the healthy diet I'd decided on and keep a journal about how much better/worse I felt. Only after that would I start messing with the medicines and think about which I felt helped me and which were not worth their side effects, etc.

Deciding not to eat at all because you currently cannot have bacon? There are lots of foods out there, get experimental and try some you have not before. I am having "fun" because my husband needs a very bland, "unhealthy" diet to help control his negative radiation and chemotherapy side effects. I had to buy white bread the other day! I was almost at a loss, trying to choose as we switched over to whole wheat and I researched that religiously (most fiber, less sugar, etc.) back 6-7 years ago and we did taste tests, etc. So, looking around for the "Wonder" bread (the "white" bread is not my white bread from the 1950's anymore :-) and trying to figure out and get my head around the importance of calories and eating at all at the moment versus "healthy" had me almost laughing, it seemed so ridiculously hard based on my current healthier habits.

Try weird stuff that you would not dream of trying before, just to see what you can see? Read nutrition books and try to optimize nutrition and taste at the same time. My husband hates broccoli, even smothered in cheese :-) so I promised him I would still not serve him broccoli, not matter what, while we go through this, LOL. But I "taught" myself to eat liver, for example, and now like it. And fresh tuna! I'd steered away from it because it is only cooked "rare" and I thought it would be fishy and unbearable but "blackened" at this one local restaurant, it tastes just like filet mignon! Who knew? You have to try things instead of letting your imagination tell you what it thinks you might want to hear?

[Hypopup]

Originally Posted by Perna

My husband has GERD and now has cancer of the esophagus partially as a result of not treating that. The medicines he takes now help him not throw up so often.

Medicine does not cure you, only your body can do that. But medicines can help your body get to a position where it has an easier time of it and you have fewer symptoms.

I take an anti-inflammatory daily for my arthritis, otherwise I have a great deal of pain and can not walk well. It's a choice I make. You have to try the meds and see if they make you feel better and if feeling better is more/less important than what side or long-term effects there may be. My appendix burst and I had an infection wandering around for 5 months before the right combination of antibiotics finally knocked it out. Meanwhile, I had too much of the wrong antibiotics and it wrecked some of my health now in the future. But I'm alive and I would not have been and I did not have to be operated on again, etc. and I like that better than the alternative would have been?

Too much stomach acid is not a good thing. Yes you need some to digest your food, etc. but if there is too much or it gets in the wrong place because another part of your body cannot deal with it (inflammation wrecking linings, making them not work) things just get worse and worse. And if you have the inflammation from a not-every-good diet, the playing field is skewed and just eating better is not going to work fast enough, if at all. Medicine can provide support to a better diet so it can work quicker and you can maybe quite taking the medicine quicker. But not taking the medicine probably means things will get worse and they can only get so much worse before they can get unfixable!

I would give myself the gift of a one-week experiment. I'd figure out what to eat for a week (only) and I'd take the prescribed medicine and eat the healthy diet I'd decided on and keep a journal about how much better/worse I felt. Only after that would I start messing with the medicines and think about which I felt helped me and which were not worth their side effects, etc.

Deciding not to eat at all because you currently cannot have bacon? There are lots of foods out there, get experimental and try some you have not before. I am having "fun" because my husband needs a very bland, "unhealthy" diet to help control his negative radiation and chemotherapy side effects. I had to buy white bread the other day! I was almost at a loss, trying to choose as we switched over to whole wheat and I researched that religiously (most fiber, less sugar, etc.) back 6-7 years ago and we did taste tests, etc. So, looking around for the "Wonder" bread (the "white" bread is not my white bread from the 1950's anymore :-) and trying to figure out and get my head around the importance of calories and eating at all at the moment versus "healthy" had me almost laughing, it seemed so ridiculously hard based on my current healthier habits.

Try weird stuff that you would not dream of trying before, just to see what you can see? Read nutrition books and try to optimize nutrition and taste at the same time. My husband hates broccoli, even smothered in cheese :-) so I promised him I would still not serve him broccoli, not matter what, while we go through this, LOL. But I "taught" myself to eat liver, for example, and now like it. And fresh tuna! I'd steered away from it because it is only cooked "rare" and I thought it would be fishy and unbearable but "blackened" at this one local restaurant, it tastes just like filet mignon! Who knew? You have to try things instead of letting your imagination tell you what it thinks you might want to hear?

It's not just bacon (that's just my favorite). It seems like most everything I like to eat I can't have. I have tried some stuff like the kefir milk. I was able to have it for a while but I got really tired of it. It also had a weird after taste. I thought I would be able to stand it for a while but I couldn't.
I've also had probiotic drink..two different flavors that I thought I would like. It tasted like yogurt which I hate. I also know that I don't like most vegetables.
I've also tried fish. I even tried mussels once..yuck!. Mushrooms are okay in chinese rice but I know I would not like them by themselves.
I do like some fruit but I usually have something added to it because I've tried for example eating banana by itself before. I had no expectations about lobster I thought I'd try it. It's supposed to be good for you but after eating it once, don't like it. It tastes too much like dinner sausage.
Also drank vanilla chai tea for a while. It got too dry so I really couldn't stand it anymore.
This isn't all healthy stuff don't get me wrong. I used to love Minute Maid lemonade now I can't stand the stuff. I prefer the natural now but like I said even the natural lemonade is supposed to be bad for you when you have gastritis.
Plus I hate cakes as much as I hate vegetables and don't even get me started on hot dogs so some bad foods I have never liked either.
So yeah I do try things sometimes. I'm just picky and know what I like and what I don't. It sounds really stupid to a neurotypical person I'm sure but I just don't see how I could ever tolerate being a vegan.
It's just so difficult. Figuring out what your taste buds can be okay with, what your stomach can handle, the cost of the food etc. I don't understand why eating can't just be simple. It used to be simple. It's not enough to just try and eat healthy. It seems like you have to eat healthy 100 percent of the time. You can't ever treat yourself to your favorite foods.
I also don't cook. My mom does and she's worse at her diet than me so you know where that's going to go.

[possum220]

Dieticians may be expensive. Ask your doctor if they know of a local place that you could access that does provide this service to the general public for minimal cost.