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Stomach Issues

Carnelian

Carnelian

Active Member
Does anyone here have stomach issues? If so, how do you combat them?

I have this lovely condition (sarcasm) where pretty much everything I eat/drink comes back up. No discretion. It just happens. I don't force it. It just...happens. It's tied to me being overstimulated and anxious as well as being in social situations, but if it happens for too long then my stomach simply forgets how to digest.

And we've been working with this thing for two years now.

I've lost 90 pounds since the condition started and managed to get better after a two month stint in the hospital and an RTC re-learning how to digest, but another few stressful weeks have gotten me right back to where I started.

AKA being so dehydrated that standing up causes me to black up and faint and I can't walk up the frickin stairs without falling over.

The problem is I'm at my vacation home in WI (well, it's just a cabin really) and my doctors are all the way in Chicago which is seven to nine hours away depending on traffic. My mom doesn't want to take me to the doctors or the ER here because my father ended up going to the ER here and died two years ago (which triggered this condition) and so she doesn't want to step foot in the ER.

Does anyone else have conditions like this? I've heard that ASD/Aspergers/etc. can cause stomach issues for some reason. How do you combat them?
 
I get stomach issues where I'm too anxious to eat, and then go through starvation/binge cycles and then sleep disruption.

One thing that's helped: moving to six meals a day and redefining what a meal is in terms of "a handful of food."

If you've been working with this for years, I doubt that's going to help you, and I'm sorry.

On the condition of mom not managing present anxiety because she's overwhelmed by past memory, and therefore being unable to manage helping her child, I have no wisdom to offer. Sounds like my mother.
 
This just happened to me yesterday; my stomach was growling but my appetite would have none of it. A few minutes after I (forcibly) ate some food, I vomited it back out and kept heaving still after nothing was left (putting some damage on my epiglottis, which still hurts today); I also had a bad headache and my eyes were swollen. I just had to tough it out yesterday, and since then everything (except my throat) has recovered fully.
EDIT:My way of toughing it out was using distractions (bicycling, gaming, t.v., etc.).
 
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Dumb question, but have you exhausted all the options with anti-nausea medicine? Prescription, over-the-counter, and holistic remedies?
 
Yes, I have stomach issues! My main one is GERD and so, my stomach acids are not kept where they should and rise up, which is just awful.

I also suffer from IBS. If I do not eat, due to anxiety or feeling sick, soon enough, I am doubled over with cramps and only goes away when I eat something, which I guess is good lol

So, for me there is a medical reason, why sometimes my food does not digest properly and I have to be VERY careful. However, I am going out of my comfort zone rather too much, of late and the other night, I had a severe attack of anxiety and that night, I suffered terrible indigestion and yet, I had not eaten for hours ie went to bed on an empty stomach.
 
When I'm moderately anxious, I lose appetite and have to force myself to eat. When I'm more severely anxious, and it's prolonged, I feel nauseous. It helps to go and lie down for a while with the lights out. Stimming might help, or pressure: something heavy over your body. Severe and sudden anxiety can also cause very dodgy bowels, I won't go into that one, TMI!!
 
I just forget to eat, I don't get hungry unless I go 2-3 days with no food. I usually have to try to remember that I need food to stay healthy. Thinking of which I haven't eating anything in 2 days.
 
Thanks for all the answers guys! Glad I'm not the only one. Or, well, not glad. It sucks we all have issues.

As for medication, yes. I've tried basically everything.
 
When I was younger I hated eating and I hated food, mostly I believe because of being on Ritalin. My meals still tend to be variable in size. I remain skinny and I sometimes end up skipping meals, especially breakfast or lunch, although I am nowhere near as tolerant of hunger as I used to be.
 
I do, and one of the things I've tried lately to combat some of it is not drinking out of plastic. Even the BPA free stuff can leach junk into your system, and I was finding by the end of the day at work drinking from a (reusable, filtered, BPA free) plastic water bottle was leading to me feeling nauseous and just generally terrible by the end of the day.

I noticed this doesn't happen to me at home, so I went out and bought a glass water bottle, have been filling it daily with water from the same source and have not experienced the end of day sickness since. I have had a couple similar situations in other jobs with other plastic bottles and think I might just be sensitive to something they're made of. I wouldn't be surprised, I'm really sensitive to a lot of stuff :/
 
I was diagnosed with Crohn's in 2000 and have had two operations in the past two years. In the first operation my colon was removed and an ileostomy created. In the second, the ileostomy was taken down and the ileum joined to the rectum.

Yeah, I got stomach issues.
 
Wow, that sounds really difficult to deal with, you have my sympathy Carnelian. I've had ulcers and IBS several times related to jobs that were highly stressful. When I had ulcers they treated them by diet, now I believe they've discovered that its related to bacteria in the stomach. Have you been checked for conditions like acid reflux? Hernias on the stomach valve? These were all conditions that were concomitant with my other conditions at the time, and contributed to many difficulties. Found this and it might be of interest to you:

The lower esophageal sphincter (or LES) is a muscle that separates the esophagus from the stomach. It acts like a valve that normally stays tightly closed to prevent contents in the stomach from backing up into the esophagus. When we swallow, the LES opens up (the muscle relaxes) so that the food we swallow can enter the stomach.

Difficulty swallowing liquids or solids, heartburn, regurgitation, and atypical (or non-cardiac) chest pain may be symptoms of an esophageal motility disorder.

http://www.aboutgimotility.org/site/about-gi-motility/disorders-of-the-esophagus/
 
Too hot, too anxious, upset, angry and I don't eat. I have never forced myself to eat if I do not feel hungry and, never will. Any strong, negative emotion means I do not feel hungry so, I don't eat until I feel better. Might be a few hours, might be a few days. It's what my body wants so, I let it be. I do drink a lot of liquids though so, dehydration is never a problem. For me hunger and thirst are not the same so, I drink even if I'm not hungry because I usually am thirsty every hour or so.
 
Mia said:
Difficulty swallowing liquids or solids, heartburn, regurgitation, and atypical (or non-cardiac) chest pain may be symptoms of an esophageal motility disorder.

http://www.aboutgimotility.org/site/about-gi-motility/disorders-of-the-esophagus/
Click to expand...

Wow, I had no idea this was a thing! Sometimes I have trouble swallowing too, and it takes awhile for the spasm to stop. Sometimes I can force it by drinking water. When it happens, I am almost always eating some kind of starchy food. Is it worth getting checked out?
 
I don't have a problem swallowing, I just have a problem keeping it in. It always feels like it's in the base of my throat.
 
If it feels like food is getting stuck and not going all the way to your stomach, it might be muscle spasms or tension. A cup of warm Valerian or chamomile tea before you eat can help that. I have to do that when I've overexerted myself physically.
 
Beverly said:
If it feels like food is getting stuck and not going all the way to your stomach, it might be muscle spasms or tension. A cup of warm Valerian or chamomile tea before you eat can help that. I have to do that when I've overexerted myself physically.
Click to expand...
I find Valerian has strong effects on me and I use it only in emergencies. Chamomile is wonderful, however, and I will be sure to grab some when this issue seems to be coming up. No pun intended.
 
Carnelian said:
I don't have a problem swallowing, I just have a problem keeping it in. It always feels like it's in the base of my throat.
Click to expand...

It's not just the swallowing that's involved in this. It's the regurgitation that seems to be caused by a stomach valve problem, and that could be a possibility for you to look into.

"food can also stick because the lower esophageal sphincter does not relax to let the food into the stomach (a disorder called achalasia – see below), or because the esophagus contracts in an uncoordinated way (a disorder called esophageal spasm)."

It could be so many things, causing your difficulties, but this might be one to consider, beyond the anxiety and stress.
 
I'll have to look that up. I've had an endoscopy and a colonoscopy and pretty much every test available, though. So who knows?

And yeah, sometimes I'm SUPER hungry but I just can't and don't want to eat.
 
Carnelian Have you had some improvement with this? I don't have the regurgitation but the difficulty swallowing. I know I'm hungry but cannot eat. Sometimes making smoothies helps.
 
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