Ha. That title makes me think of a boxing match. It would be very hard to figure whose corner to be in. It’s the battle of the two evils.
It has been quite a winter here. Record-breaking snow covered my area and I caught a couple flus. The latter of the two was a stomach flu. Over a week has gone by and my stomach is still not the same as it used to be, and that was not ideal to begin with. I called the advice nurse line but all she could recommend was bland starchy foods. I told her I didn’t eat carbs (due to insulin resistance) and there was really nothing she could say after that. Yesterday I went to the fancy Whole Foods grocery and stopped by the “whole body” aisle to look up “stomach flu” in one of their big holistic reference books. It had a couple pages on regular flu, replete with recommendations, but when it came to stomach flu, it had only a brief paragraph which said it wasn’t really a flu, but gastroenteritis, an acute inflammatory……something…that clears up on its own in a couple days. Not helpful at all! There should be a much bigger entry for something that is so miserable and whose side effects hang on interminably, at least in my case.
After living on plain eggs and chicken broth fortified with unflavored gelatin for the better part of a week, I needed to move on and rebuild my strength. From here on, the story of how bad I felt and how relatively well I felt seems to have little relation to what I ate. Generally speaking, there were some dramatic cramps, but mostly, just a persistent and definite “not good” feeling. I altered my tactics in response to different symptoms until it seemed I had no distinguishable strategy at all. It was hard to separate the usual problems from the new problems: Too many variables. Finally, I was facing a full eight-hour day on my feet and I wanted fortification, but didn’t know where to turn. I ate breakfast cautiously, only to be so ravenous at work that I ate a huge plate of corned beef and cabbage (with potatoes -Oh the carbs!- and mustard -spicy!-, followed by a slice of apple pie-wrong on so many levels)! Surprisingly, my little observation of the feast of St. Patrick didn’t seem to do any more harm than anything else I’d tried. But all was not well. This is getting confusing and I am starting to question everything!
I am having a hard time distinguishing between the symptoms of the gastroenteritis and the usual problems I have come to call insulin resistance. Is it all the same thing? Do I just have chronically inflamed insides? I have believed so long in insulin resistance, but I can’t really remember the finer points. I will have to backtrack and re-read some articles. And what about the flora and fauna that are supposed to populate a healthy gut? Have their numbers been decimated by my recent illness? Do I need to re-colonize? Should I be desperately throwing sauerkraut, kombucha, kefir, and miso down my cantankerous hatch just to see what will soothe it? I am doing just that, though I should probably wait and see which things work. I am just too hungry and impatient to give the scientific method enough time to play out. I left Whole Foods with a $20 bottle of digestive enzymes. Can’t hurt.
Friends, I have to admit that my biggest fear is that the situation, whatever name it goes by, is the same situation that I’ve been dealing with for over a year now, but with one particularly troublesome new development; the intolerance of dairy. And today, as I write this, the world without carbs AND cheese sounds like a bad, bad place. I have been lactose intolerant before. When I gave up grains, and found that I could tolerate dairy once again, I felt it was a small consolation prize and I’ve been revelling in (and relying on) it ever since. Hopefully I won’t have to face this boring, cheese-less, carb-free world permanently. I am trying to maintain a grip on a positive attitude and look for ways to heal inflamed guts.
About the Author...
Audrey's first love is massage. She is currently a student of energy work but is always up for a new challenge on "earth school." Audrey works part-time in the food and wine industry and is in the process of re-evaluating her relationship to food. She strives, above all, to be authentic as she finds her own way to health.
Mar 10th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
probiotic supplement is what you need.
Apr 11th, 2010 at 7:48 am
Regarding gastroenteritis/stomach irritation
This past year our family has switched to using more fruits and vegetables in their diet. We deal with Type 1 diabetes and possible gluten intolerance so we are trying to use food to heal our bodies and slow down or reverse this with our children.
The first step in this was using more real foods. During stomach irritations (ie:flu bugs, of which H1N1 has been a big problem in our schools for the past two years) we deduced that it would be easier on our stomachs to stick to earth foods or plants that do not require cooking. Unfortunately, my kids gave me lots of practice for perfecting this over this past winter. By the end, the kids returned to better health in hours rather than days and I was able to remain healthy despite having three children which is no easy feat.
Smoothies with only raw fruits were tolerated better than expected. I started with fruits because they are higher in Vitamin C to help boost the immune system. When fruits were tolerated then local honey was added to increase Vitamin C and to take advantage of the natural antiseptic value to help kill germs. If fruit was digestable, fresh vegetable made into soups are added. Soups when cooked at lower temperatures aid digestion and are easier on the stomach than raw it appears. If you actually get hungry and need more substance then bean soups are good to add because they are more filling.
Meats and dairy are harder to digest so should temporarily be avoided until the stomach is stronger. Now my next step is get a garden going for the summer and implement this process on a longer basis. I am curious to see if this will help my husband with his diabetes management and my son with his gluten intolerance recovery. There is much research to indicate there is a connection between gluten intolerance/celiac’s and diabetes. If we can prevent the children from progressing the world will be a better place for them!