Ok, I promise to get to the good stuff such as recipes, suggestions, trials and errors, product reviews, etc. I just want to finish painting the picture for you of where I am coming from and where I have been.
I left off at deciding to become vegan. Of course there is more to it, but for the sake of this blog I am sticking to brevity. Anyway, the headaches didn’t really change with the elimination of dairy, but the stomach problems seemed to lessen for a little while. Oh yeah, I also had sinus problems that my doctor felt may be attributed to dairy, they didn’t change either. All that being said, I had read enough about veganism at that point that there was no way I was going to start eating animals again even if the vegan diet didn’t help my stomach or head.
So, the IBS-C continued and sometimes it was worse than others, but it progressively got worse. Eventually (about 2 years into the vegan diet), I began to experience chronic, intense bloating. I don’t mean feeling a little stuffed, I mean feeling and looking 100 months pregnant! It hurt so badly and I often felt like I may literally explode. I took gas-x on a regular basis. *Please note that I also tried various herbal teas, aloe juice and a daily regimen of pro-biotics (which I still take). At this point, I accepted that my stomach would behave this way and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Last year I reached a point where I was over it. I had been dealing with doubled over pain in my belly for 8 years and I just couldn’t take it anymore. My first stop was at an allergist’s office. He tested me for everything under the sun; food, trees, dust, mold, grasses, animals, etc. Surprisingly enough the only thing I am allergic to is dust, dust mites (YES! No more house cleaning for me! LOL), and cats and dogs. The latter is sad because I have a cat and want a dog in the future. *The cat still lives with me; I tolerate my sinus issues because I could/would never get rid of her. Anyway, the allergist suggested that I could still be intolerant to certain food, I’m just not allergic to them. He said I should try a gluten-free diet. So I did, for 30 days and nothing happened.
I spent the next year, once again, accepting my bowels for who they are. In April of this year, I moved back to Columbus (I had moved away for my job) and the first week back I had a big issue. There was a pain in my left side that had never felt this intense. There was also a large lump, like the size of a grapefruit that could be felt if you pushed around the area to the left of my bellybutton. I figured it was because I had been eating pretty poorly due to the move and having everything packed up. I was eating a lot of bread and fries and things I could access at restaurants that were vegan, but that are still awful for you. I had no choice because for 2 weeks I was living between 2 houses in 2 different cities. Anyway, the pain got intense enough and I hadn’t had a bowel movement in 2 weeks and I ended up in the ER. I figured I had a bowel obstruction and the doctors did too. They took X-Rays and came back and told me I major impaction and it need to come out or I was going to perforate my intestines. They gave me all sorts of unpleasant things to drink to get it moving and sent me to a GI doctor. Long story longer, my bowels finally moved and the doctor I saw told me he needed to do a colonoscopy to rule out cancer and other lovely things.
I had the colonoscopy a week later and it revealed that the health of my bowel tissues was great! However, due to chronic constipation over the years I now have what is called a Tortuous Colon. This is when your colon is stretched out so much that it stays stretched out. Sort of like when someone gains weight and their skin stretches, and then they lose weight but they still have the skin. My intestines are forever changed. There is approximately one extra foot of large bowel on my left side, which is why it always feels like a mass is in that area.
The doctor told me I will need to take Miralax for the rest of my life to keep things moving. If things stop moving, the consequence will result in the extremely risky surgery of bowel re-sectioning. NO THANKS! So, I took the Miralax like a good girl and thing seemed fine. For a while at least. In addition, he tested my blood for Celiacs Disease (an auto-immune response to gluten) and it came back negative. He said that didn’t mean I don’t have it and that I should try a gluten-free diet again.
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