I Am Not Yet Dead: What's Up with my Guts

I return!

Well, technically I returned a few weeks ago, but I forgot to tell anyone.  Check that out here: A Return (of sorts)

It's been a while since I've had anything productive to discuss.  It's been a really difficult summer so far with a lot of doctor visits, (successful) trial and error with self-prescribed health care, training, racing, and gardening.  So with all that said, I'll try to take it slow until I get back into my groove.

I'll start with the most obvious topic: The reason I took this hiatus in the first place.

Let me be frank:  I was having hours-long stomach pain after eating any meal.  It didn't matter if it had gluten or not, whether it was white rice or brown, contained or lacked lactose, soluble versus insoluble fiber, veggies or no veggies, meat or no meat, etc..  I also had embarrassingly frequent diarrhea and had to either leave work early or come in late multiple times.  This lasted for two and a half weeks.

Colonoscopy prep: Argh?

After five separate visits and a colonoscopy, I still didn't have any answers.  My primary care provider said it was irritable bowel, urgent care said it was gastroenteritis, and my gastroenterologist, who took tissue and stool samples plus photos, only confirmed that I didn't have any physiological problems that could have caused the grotesqueries I was experiencing.

Furthermore, because I was losing so much water and eating caused so much physical pain (resulting in less frequent meals, of course), I ended up losing 20 pounds in just two weeks.  That was all from early- to mid-June.  Yeah.  Super exciting.

To deal with my symptoms I tried immodium, pepto, charcoal tablets, and various antacids.  But my problems persisted.  I eventually bought some Peppermint oil tablets and holy shit they actually worked on the very first day I took them I am absolutely not fucking kidding.

Katie chimed in after I was about to buckle and ask my primary care provider for straight up side effect-inducing drugs to resolve my issues with the squirts.  She said that I should try Benefiber because my primary doc suggested it off hand,   I opposed it for a few days because I assume it's highly synthesized, an increase in fiber would probably just hurt me more, and, ahem, "It's not paleo."  But I gave it a shot.  And it worked.  It was same day.  I take it at least twice a day and I haven't had the diarrheas since I started.

To be safe, I also began taking a probiotic, Jarrow-Dophilus EPS.  From my experimentation, the combined probiotics and Benefiber significantly eliminate colon problems, and the peppermint oil totally eliminates the stomach pain.  My problems seem to be solved, but I still don't have any answers about what was causing my problems.

Except an answer to a question that nobody asked: I have a goddamn fucking tattoo inside of my colon, left behind by a previous gastroenterologist who was up in my guts two years ago that marks the location of a polyp he removed from my butt tube.  Again I am absofuckinglutely not kidding about this motherfucking shit right here man.

THIS IS REAL.

Quod erat demonstrandum, I am now happy, and will use a happy emoticon.

:|

That's not quite right

:I

Wait.

:I

Give it a second.

:?

That's probably good enough.

Next week at this blog, I'll teach you how to make a delicious fermented processed pork casserole with raw garlic scapes.