#we found a medication that helps our IBS symptoms and some stuff that helps relieve the pain from our migraines | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ghostgirl5623 · 7 years ago

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Don't Wait To Go

Yep, I'm a potty mouth for this post. Guys, please do not wait to use the bathroom. I know, gross subject matter for a post, but its important to know this about your body okay? Your body can only hold stuff in for so long. And I'm going to use my cat as an example and myself as an example for this post since the two of us have stomach issues and the digestive tract for most things on this planet are pretty much the same.

Now, concerning where my cat plays into this is the fact that about a year ago my family and I noticed he wasn't using the bathroom all that much and his stomach was getting bigger and harder. Not only that but - this where my cat is smart despite his nickname of Bucket head - he would go wherever we were at in the house and squat. And we could see him trying to push something out but nothing would. It took a few weeks to gather the money needed, but we eventually took him to the vet. Once the vet took a look at our cat and felt around at his stomach and listened to us talk about what was up, he asked us a simple question.

"What have you been feeding him? Have you been giving him human food? As he been drinking enough water?"

The truth was that my brother had been feeding him human food - which is bad for cats. But what made it worse was that he only ever gave his cat takeout and fast food due to him being single, in his early twenties, and working at a low-paying part time job.

And then when he moved back in with my family due to quitting his job like the idiot he is, we also started giving Bucket human food. But what we didn't know was that it was making it harder and harder for Buckets stomach to digest it all. He wasn't drinking a whole lot of water either to try and soften his stool (medical speak for 💩 btw).

And because his stool sat inside his intestines for so long, they ended up expanding wider than normal, making it that much harder for his nervous system to send a signal to let him know he needed to go to the cat box.

He ended up having to get a surgery to remove it all as it was all the way up into his stomach due to how long it had been since he had last gone normally. We've had to take him in every few months since then due to his issue, and have to give him two dosages of two different medicines, as well as pumpkin to help him go. Luckily he's one of the more chill kinds of cats, but he's going to need to take medication for the rest of his life.

There are a few things to pull from this story that apply to those of you who have read this far. Make sure what you're putting into your body is something that can be easily disgusted - because if it takes a while it probably isn't meant to be digested by you in the first place. Drink plenty of hydrating fluids to help keep things running smoothly. And be sure not to eat too much cheese and bananas and other foods that make your stool harder to pass.

Now I said I'd be using myself as an example and I intend to keep that promise. Ever since I can remember I've had stomach and digestion issues - it runs in my family sadly - and have had too many doctors visits due to it. I think I remember my first doctors visit regarding the issue happening when I was about three or four because it would take me up to two hours of sitting on the toilet for my tract to relax enough to even start going.

When I was seven or eight I spent an entire night in an ER during the summer because it has been a month since I had eaten more than a couple crackers for a meal. And even then after eating a few of them I would feel so full I'd get nauseous and dry heave. It took over seven hours for a nurse to come into my room due to how little my stomach issue was compared to an entire waiting room full of people with broken bones and other things. But eventually I was hauled off for an x-ray to see what was up with my stomach. It turned out I had the exact same issue as my cat did in the first half of the story.

I hadn't been eating right on top of holding it in for too long. They ended up giving me some VERY strong laxatives to take and my god was I miserable the next day. I was practically throwing up due to how bad it hurt to get it all out and getting my ear chewed off about eating healthier and getting my back rubbed by my mom.

Later on down the line - I was probably twelve when this came up - I had to go to another hospital because for every other week nearly over the past year I had been getting bad cases of stomach cramps, diarrhea, and throwing up bile (which is REALLY bad and you know its bile because its a lot warmer than regular vomit and - at least for me - tasted like ear wax). The doctors diagnosed me with Irritable Bowel Syndrome which pretty much means that if you eat a certain food, your stomach basically has an allergic reaction and my symptoms I had is your bodies way of getting the allergine out as quickly as possible.

My doctor prescribed me some medication to try and get it to either go away completely or at least get it to where it wasn't as severe and told us to come back in six months and if it didn't work they'd so some more testing because they weren't 100℅ sure and were just giving an overall diagnosis as they hadn't treated anyone with my specific symptoms in the near ninety+ years the hospital had been open that they still had records of.

Six months passed and everything looked alright so they took me off the medication finally (I HATE taking medicine even though its meant to help you). But after a few weeks I had the worst episode we'll call it since I first got them. My mom took me back and I had to get a lower GI scan - you have to take a day off from work/school, drink water and Gatorade ONLY with some very very heavy laxatives in it, and then have a camera shoved up your butt the very next with zero food until about six hours after the procedure.

I was FINALLY diagnosed with EOE, Eocynaphil Esophagitis (I think that's correct) which is pretty much the same as IBS but a bit more extreme on the scale in terms of symptoms if I remember correctly. They put me on a strict diet and medication that I had to take three times a day which they slowly weened me down to once over the course of nearly two years.

My last visit to that specific doctor I was told I would have bad episodes every now and then, and when those happened to review what I had eaten in the past few hours to find what was causing them, and to take my medication as needed from now on.

A few months ago I was trying a diet out to lose a few pounds due to bullying (and they weren't wrong, I was nearing on forty pounds overweight and I took their words as motivation to push myself in PE and dieting) which meant giving up pork and beef mainly. By this time my family had deduced that tomatos and very acidic food triggered my episodes and I was laying off those as much as possible. I ended up losing enough weight to be more confident and comfortable to start showing off my body and I tried eating pork and beef a few times after doing that specific diet.

But I noticed something. Every time I would eat either of the two, I would get an episode. And a bad one at that. I talked to my mom about and told her I thought that due to how long it had been since I had eaten the two kinds of meat my stomach probably wasn't used to eating it anymore. She then suggested maybe they were what was causing my episodes. And it made sense when I took a moment to look back on stuff. Whenever I would eat beef I'd get gassy to the point my chest and throat hurt and with pork my stomach would begin to cramp after a few hours. The two of us reasoned that both were jist to greasy and fatty for my stomach to handle digesting, so it would trigger an episode to help my body get rid of it so I could intake better food to help my body run.

Since then I've stayed away from the two and my school attendance is better than it has been in nearly five to six years. Every now and then I cave into my cravings and I end up paying for it, as it is hard to give up food you're used to eating - especially when its something your family eats five nights out of the week. But those cravings are coming fewer and farther in between and the smell and sight actually kind of disgust me now. Not only that but I've been able to learn how to cook more which will come in handy once I move out in a few years while I'm out on my own.

Overall what I'm trying to tell all of you is something I've learned the hard way.

- Eat healthy

- Watch what you eat

- Drink hydrating liquids

- Don't hold it in, and if you need to due to an uncle bathroom wait until you find a clean one and then GO GO GO

- If you're gassier than usual its your body telling you you ought to find a place to relieve yourself (I've also found thats when its easiest to go, at least for me it is)

So pleas guys, treat your bodies (and animals) right by feeding them the right stuff and paying attention to the signals they give you.

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