This week I have been mostly…
…Having a crap.
Yeh, I know. You didn’t even ask me how I am and I’m going to tell you the intimate secrets of my Benjamin Owls. But actually, I could do with the hive mind’s advice on this one. I’m going to do personal detail here. Not much but I’m going to say the word poo a lot because that appears to be my new hobby. If you are offended by that or find it difficult, please don’t read on. I just wanted to share this, because if I’ve got this, I’ll bet there are others out there who are equally perplexed and at sea with their body’s behaviour. So this is a you are not alone, if you’re a fellow sufferer post, and a here are the things I’ve done, to squirrel away in case, post for if you’re not.
Poo. If I get away with under 12 a day right now, I’m doing OK.
Let me explain … It started two weeks ago, on 15th March, a Thursday. I went to the gym and was a bit surprised to find I needed to go to the loo when I got there. The following days I was selling books at Sci-fi weekender in Great Yarmouth and it was much easier to get to because I didn’t have to do my usual morning IBS ritual. The Thing happened as soon as I got up. Several times. Thinking IBS attack, I’ve been a bit stressed recently, I took the usual meds which worked and headed off without a thought.
Strangely, the same thing happened on the Saturday. On the Sunday, I started needing the loo after eating anything, which was a bit grim and by Monday I realised I had a bug. I never got the V part of this particular batch of D & V, it was only the D and I mostly felt OK. After a week I’d lost a couple of lbs but it showed no sign of abating and long and the short two and a half weeks later there is absolutely no change and I still can’t shake it off. After the first three days, neither imodium nor buscopan touched it, so I’ve given up taking them..
As I hit the marker for the first week, I began to lose weight, to the tune of 1lb a day and I’ve lost 12lbs over the course of the second week and two days… which has gone from great-I-don’t-have-to-diet-off-my-Christmas-weight to rather alarming.
On one level, though I’m not as comfortably upholstered as I was three years ago, I do have some slack in the system vis a vis losing weight. On another, it is quite alarming I’m 11stones 3lbs today, and tomorrow I will be 11stones 2lbs. As someone who weighs in quite heavy anyway, I’m 5ft 6” and I am a size 10 at 9 stones, there’s not quite as much slack as it looks. So that means that unless I can make this stop, I’m going to reach 6 stones, and the point where my levels of malnutrition start to damage my internal organs in approximately 8-10 weeks. Which is a grim thought.
On the up side, I’ve been tested. Extensively. The Doctors were brilliant. I’ve done stool samples, I was sent to the hospital with pages and pages of blood tests. The only thing they can find out of kilter is my lymphocytes, which, apparently, are fewer in number than usual and this points to my having a virus. So it’s probably a stomach virus…
It’s a bit of a case of …
“Physicians of the utmost fame were called at once, but when they came they answered, as they took their fees, ‘There is no cure for this disease…’”
Plus points:
- It’s almost certainly not cancer. If it’s going on next week they have offered to refer me for a colonoscopy but there are no obvious markers or usual symptoms there.
- It’s not heliobactor, the usual parasites, celiac disease etc
- It’s not bacterial.
- My eyeballs and stuff haven’t gone yellow. Always a bonus.
- I’m not throwing up. I feel a bit sick sometimes but I can go out and do things, just slowly and carefully, because, obvs, losing weight at this ridiculous rate, I feel a bit weak and also, if it’s a virus that’ll make me weak too.
So there we are, there’s an upside to everything.
However, I’ve been trying to find out more. Clearly there’s the dietary information:
BRAT: Banans, Rice, Applesauce and Toast. I’m not 100% brilliant on bread usually so I’m going easy on the toast in favour of more rice.
The trick, I’m told, is to cancel out sugar and fats. I definitely know about the sugar one as I felt markedly worse after a piece of chocolate the other day. Bit of a pisser at Easter but there we go. I have kept in the occasional spoonful of Bury St Edmunds honey, hopefully my poor beleaguered gut biome will thank me.
I’ve also been drinking cuppa soup (what flavour cuppa soup is this Noddy?) chicken stock (home made) and trying to feed myself up with very small meals comprising things like chicken and um … sprouts (mwahahaharrgh!) which I find I can most easily face eating. I can tell where things are not going down well as I get stomach cramps but I also get those if I haven’t drunk enough water.
Apparently eating as normally as you can, but tiny portions is the way to go.
Another thing I have tried is that Huel stuff that Facebook keeps showing me ads for. Complete meals in a shake. You can buy it ready mixed as a health drink in Holland&Barrett. It is alright but as you might expect, it tastes like chemicals in a jar and it’s really sweet, in an atficicial-sweetner-tacstic kind of way which is a bit bleagh.
Marmite. Oh god, marmite is my friend in need. I am getting terrible cramps in my feet and marmite does help with that.
In order to feed my gut biome, if I still have one—it’s taken a drubbing, I’ve been having the odd, very small portion of home made kefir from my trusty plant, Bob The Blob. Sadly Bob is a milk kefir but fuck it! Needs must and 100ml of that whizzed up with a banana is really, really good. And HUGELY calorific, so that might help. And I can add powdered almonds to help bulk it up a bit. I might see if I can find some Kimche. I’m sure I bought some the other day. But that’s fermented which is supposed to be good. I also have a terrible craving for kedgiree, but the way I make it, with a dry rice base rather than a gloopy, risotto style one. Though verboten, I’m sure a knob of butter in there would be fine.
Here’s a nice picture I took while I was up a down the other day …
I am supposed to give up coffee. I haven’t managed that but I have succeeded in cutting it down from 4 cups a day, to one or two. On the upside, I’ve had no compunction ditching alcohol—also verboten—so I am clearly not the old soak I thought I was.
The applesauce part of the BRAT is a godsend. I had some frozen made with apples from our garden and it’s proper lovely and actually feels very pleasant. I should have frozen it in ice cube trays as it was truly wonderful eating it as it defrosted yesterday, while it still had a crunchy, granular sorbet kind of quality. I also know that you can get liquid meals from the NHS, because I met a dear man in the chemists who is terminally ill, who explained this to me and recommended them. Apparently they’re very small and very expensive to buy over the counter but if all else fails …
So to sum up … I feel ill but I’m not throwing up, so there’s that. I have not found an over the counter medicine that helps, or even makes the remotest dent. I am losing weight and need to try and stop that, or slow it down. Ideas on a post card please …
For once, turning to t’interweb on health matters has not resulted in dire warnings that my time is up. Indeed, it has told me from the get-go that I’m not going to die (no blood in it) although to be honest, if this goes on for another couple of months have grave concerns I may come close (badoom tish did you see what I did there? Yes, that joke was so shit I had to point it out). I suppose if it gets really bad they’ll admit me to hospital and stick me on a drip. I dunno.
What I have learned is that this is Real Thing. Yes, people do get long term stomach infections. It is very rare but it is a Thing. In the case of bacterial ones, they can take anything from weeks to months, to a year to clear. Friends working in pharma sent me the name of the new wonder drug antibiotic for this but sadly I suspect it won’t help as I haven’t the raised white blood cell count that would suggest a bacterial infection, just the low lymphocyte count that points to viral.
Viral infections usually last less time, about 6 months for the longer ones. There is very little information about treatment, management and living with long-term stomach infections on line but a couple of things about having a longer form of gastroenteritis for 2-3 weeks that were helpful.
We are supposed to be going to France on Tuesday. I duly delivered the cat to kennels today, but I suspect that I will not be going. I can’t imagine anything more horrible than travelling like this, or coping, if I get sicker while I’m there. It’s a monumental pisser as I love our spring holiday. It’s always warm in Europe and the flowers are further ahead. It’s alright today but for the most part it’s been fucking freezing here … and it’s forecast to rain for the entire time we’d have been gone. But I’m aware that I’m getting quite weak and having to keep going for a lie down so I’m not certain it’s the best idea to go on a long trip.
I have until Monday to recover … stranger things have happened.
Upsides?
There is one. I had a story competition I wanted to enter but I have to send it in by 7th April. There is now an outside chance that, since I lack the energy to do much more than sit in bed/on a sofa and write I am going to finish a story for this. There’s a chance. I just have to decide which of three things to send …
M T McGuire Authorholic 
Since having my gall bladder out, toast and marmite is fine.
But even better is toast and marmite, cut into ‘fingers’ and dipped into a cuppa soup 🙂
The marmite gives everything an edge 🙂
I’ve got nothing – except to recommend you do all the hygiene things so you don’t pass it on to spouse and offspring. You need them healthy to help you. So sorry – it sounds awful.
That and examining every single possible thing in your diet that’s not helping. There are so many things I can’t eat any more because they attack me, but didn’t get the gift of weight loss – just feeling horrid if I eat them.
Any possibility you could use helps to get to the warm place? They make a wide variety of paper products. Just to get you to a warmer climate for a while? Assuming your eating there wouldn’t add to the problem.
You’d think the doctors could handle this kind of problems.
I’ll be thinking of you – hope you find something quickly.
Thanks. I think I just have to pace myself.
Nothing more irritating than people who keep offering useless suggestions. Pacing helps with a lot of things. I do it all the time. 🙂
Definitely. If push co.es to shove I’ll end up in hospital on a drip. Worse things have happened. I’m so glad I have the chicken stock to drink as well. The supplement drinks are good but they are all sweet so it’s good to have something savoury. I may make more.
Hey up Mary!
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div>Just a quickie as I’m
PS I can also send you an efficient anti inflammatory for the gut which also has a thing for improving your immune syst
The other comment hasn’t come out but yes please to the gut anti inflammatory. There’s nothing but immodium or buscopan here and neither is making a dent. 🙂
I currently have the opposite problem, but can still empathize — especially the need to be aware of bathroom locations when out and about.
Although this is not really mainstream yet (at least here), and sounds pretty gross, I wonder if a fecal transplant might be an option for you. They have proven to be really effective in treating things like C-difficile (although still not readily available for that) — in part because they replenish the struggling microbiome with the citizens of some other person’s healthy microbiome. And I am not sure how available such things are.
From what I have read/heard, the process is not as grim as it sounds.
I would also suggest making sure you are getting good prebiotics and probiotics, though, if you aren’t already doing this.
That’s about all I can advise (and it’s all second-hand advice, since although I try the pre and post biotics I am not consistent). There are ways to get your microbiome tested — but standard medicine (here at least) is not as up on this as the more natural/functional medics are.
I have a relative who is big into natural remedies (and even creates her own — or at least has in the past) so will ask her for a bit of feedback, too. Just in case she has some suggestions.
Trusting and praying for a quick resolution of this problem for you! And also hoping you enjoy writing (and perhaps even travelling) as you wait.
I have done the zoe app and they do test your gut biome and I’m happy to report that mine came up as good but there are gaps. But I’ve been trying to eat things that will help it. We shall see.
I lost two stone last year from not eating much because I couldn’t do anything with my hands and lost my appetite. I realised I had to eat more when my leg muscles lost the ability to work my knees. So my standby is that old meal replacement for dieters – Slimfast. I think it’s better (and certainly cheaper) than the protein replacement drinks. So I replace the meal I don’t want with a Slimfast shake, which is actually pretty acceptable. I’m still losing c2 kgs a month, now…. but that’s okay, as I’m still overweight, it just the losing is under control now, and I am doing gentle exercises for my muscles.
Get well soon, and good luck (hugs).
Thanks. Ugh its a massive pain!
Heavens to Murgatriod! … hope this ends soon-ish rahter than late-ish.
So do I! Thanks.