FODMAPs

Ahh...it has been a good six years since I wrote anything here and, after much poking around the new changes, finally found the window to write in.

Moving forwards...

BACKGROUND
I started a FODMAPs elimination diet two days ago, and am tracking my food over at fitday.com (link listed below). My profile there is public but, for some reason, I am unable to make the writing journal portion of it public...which is really needed to go along with the food portion for folks who are interested in what I am going through with this.

BRIEF BIO and lead up to FODMAPs
I have had a digestive disorder since I was a teenager, and finally went to get diagnosed about 4 years ago. I sometimes deal with GERD (excessive acid reflux), have a hiatus hernia (valve doesn't close properly at the top of my stomach so the acid moves up my throat), and have IBS-D (digestive duress). The hiatus hernia may have been caused by heavy weight lifting as it developed when I was older, and the IBS-D is likely hereditary as both my bio mom and nan had digestive issues. In the past, I have gone through phases of being a vegetarian (twice, and I really suck at it), low fat (it was terrible for my health), gluten free/sugar free/fermented foods free (was great for my health but hard to maintain much beyond the 3 years I did it), super clean eating with high protein (the way I get eating when weight lifting and my body loves it), moderately clean with lower fibre and higher protein (the way I usually revert to eating, and one that is moderately well tolerated by my body). I have also followed Weight Watchers 2 or 3 times (both core and points), and read a lot of information about food and healthy eating in the past. And still...I continue to deal with both the HH and IBS-D no matter which way of eating I am following, it is getting worse as I am aging, and, to be quite frank, there are times it kinda just plain wrecks my life. Oh, and I am unable to take medications for any length of time as my body doesn't metabolize them properly so they can pool in my system and become toxic. After two bad reactions, one of them particularly nasty and expensive, I just plain stopped taking meds on a regular basis. I also deal with psoriasis which I personally think may be related to food along with the common stress trigger.

I have tried to figure out the root triggers of the IBS-D before without much success. Thankfully, the HH doesn't act up often. However, the IBS-D acts up on almost a weekly basis due to a multitude of unknown causes, and even more if I am really stressed. Stress is one of the one triggers, along with lots of high fibre foods, and/or excess grease or fats, that I know can trigger it. Maybe. It is kinda like trying to manage a huge octopus in a very tiny bag. So...once again...I wound up at the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago in desperation begging her to help me do something to control it as it often controls my life (think missed days of work, missed social events, and being nervous to travel too far some days). This time, I wound up seeing the nurse practitioner instead of said, "Have you ever looked into FODMAPs?" Well, sometimes that is all it takes, a single question, and I am off and galloping along doing research on a topic

The FODMAPs way of eating sounds logical as it all has to do with the way the body digests sugars, fibre, and carbs. The food doesn't get digested properly in the small intestine so moves into the large intestine partially digested. This food, in turn, ferments and the body sends in lots of extra fluid to flush it out...this the D part of the IBS-D. That is it in a nutshell without any big long complicated words. Eat fewer foods that trigger the osmosis, and all is better if not totally good again. (PS - I am in touch with my doctor about this, and have free access to a dietitian to discuss any issues I may run into with it.)

USEFUL ARTICLES (for those folks who are interested)

This is a basic explanation of IBS-D:
http://www.webmd.com/ibs/guide/ibs-with-diarrhea-ibs-d

More indepth explanation of IBS:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3921083/

The following site has a good synopsis of what FODMAPs are. It includes the big words - yayy! Site:
http://www.webmd.com/ibs/what-is-fodmap

Here is a good article on PubMed explaining the efficacy and research behind FODMAPs. It also explains a chemical sensitivity elimination diet, which I am not currently following but may speak with the dietitian at my doctor's office this week about doing it at the same time as the FODMAPs elimination diet as I just started a few days ago. Great article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3388522/

This explains a hiatus hernia:
http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/hiatal-hernia

Finally, I strongly suggest to anyone who has any kind of digestive condition that you go see a gastro-intestinal specialist and run all the tests or do whatever your doctor suggests to get an idea of what is going on. I self diagnosed in the past only to find out I was heading in the wrong direction. The good thing about having a label is at least you can start to do research on what may, or may not, help you. And it can keep you from jumping on a potentially unhealthy band wagon just 'cause it is trendy.

FODMAPs JOURNAL

Now....

Here is the link to my fitday account:
http://fitday.com/fitness/PublicJournals.html?Owner=bellajane

And here are the last three journal entries from my fitday.com account:

July 16th, 2015
Day 1 of FODMAPs elimination diet. My body rumbled and grumbled starting shortly after lunch. I ate a huge pile of vegetables, and think I may become part rabbit by the end of six weeks. My stomach was upset much of the evening until I fell asleep about 3:30 AM. It was okay when I woke up the next morning.

Ate lunch of tuna mixed with mayo, rice crackers, tomatoes, cucumbers....stomach reacted poorly about 1.5 - 2 hours later.

Supper went okay.  Hopefully, everything will stay put.

July 17th, 2015
Day 2 of the FODMAPs elimination diet. My body hated it, and started to reject food shortly after lunch. This continued on until about 6 PM when I fell asleep exhausted. I have doubled the amount of veggies I normally eat, and think the two stalks of celery may be what caused the stomach upset as it is something I don't normally eat (all other foods were usual foods for me). I looked it up, and found it has a rather high insoluble fibre count. I have often said that celery is a waste of time to eat as it takes more calories to chew it than it puts in the body! Later... found celery listed on a list of okay to eat FODMAP foods, and it says to limit it to 5 cm. I ate 60 cm! No wonder I had issues (some foods are limited in quantity for FODMAPs). This is a good FODMAP friendly food list:
http://www.ibsdiets.org/fodmap-diet/fodmap-food-list/

July 18th, 2015
I am going to continue with the FODMAPs elimination diet but will eat more like I normally do only staying within the range of allowed foods. It is a hard diet to follow as the allowed foods are all over the place...there is no one way for me to remember what I can and cannot eat. My stomach is super upset this morning, I am hungry, and nervous to eat something in case it triggers another upset episode. Ah well...have to eat though so I best go do it :) As well, I weighed in this morning and have lost about 3 pounds in the last week.