All posts filed under: Diet

Vitamin & Mineral Deficiencies

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I’m back (finally) with an overdue post on vitamin and mineral deficiencies that are possible with IBD; I meant to get this written up sooner, but the Big, Bad Wolf visited us here in Texas last week and tried to blow our house down. Well, more like he tried to pummel it into the ground. April can be a bizarre month here, and this year was no exception. Last weekend, my husband and I were sitting out on the back patio one night, reading and enjoying a fire. All of the sudden, the TV in the living room sounded it’s Emergency Warning siren (which I have long ago learned is NEVER a test here) and the bulletin said that there was a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, with a storm moving through a town about 10 miles southwest of us. I looked toward the sky, noticing a very faint flicker of lightening in the distance, and told my husband that we should probably head inside. I headed in, taking both of our dogs with me, and was …

Intermittent Fasting and Inflammation

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Admittedly, I’ve been hearing about the concept of Intermittent Fasting (IF) for a couple of years now and gave it no thought, as I love food way too much to voluntarily accept any kind of a fast, not to mention that the concept basically flies in the face of everything we’ve been conditioned to accept as gospel in the field of diet and nutrition.  Who hasn’t been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that skipping meals can slow your metabolism?  Up until recently, I have been a follower of the “eat every few hours” mindset, to avoid blood sugar dropping and keeping metabolism up.  Additionally, I have found that since all my surgeries, I can’t consume as much food as I used to in one sitting, and that smaller, more frequent meals were easier on my system. If you’ve read any of my posts in the last few months, you know that my Crohn’s Disease has certainly been beating the hell out of me, what with frequent obstructions, ER …

Holiday Eating

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Whether we accept it or not, the holidays are fast approaching, and with them come the temptations of foods we don’t normally eat.  I’m not talking about the extra servings of desserts that add that comfy padding to our hips, or the dozens of “coffee” drinks that appear this time of year that contain more shit than they do actual coffee.  No, I’m talking about the appearance of things that you know you really can’t have, at least not without a trip to the ER. The infamous coconut macaroon incident of Christmas Eve 2011.  I remember it well, and it has kept me on a fairly straight path ever since, mostly because, as many of you know, the pain of an obstruction is something that I can only compare to that scene from The Princess Bride when Wesley is stretched out on that death machine after being captured by Prince Humperdinck’s men.  (Not that I’ve seen the movie a lot or anything…)  Remember that scene when Humperdinck runs in and cranks the machine up to ten and …

Dietician Advice

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Recently, after a couple of hospital stays due to my electrolytes being really screwed up from absorption issues, I took up my GI doc on his offer of a referral to a dietician for a consult. In retrospect, I probably should have gone a lot sooner given that I’ve had Crohn’s for 13 years now, but hey, what can I say?  Guess I had my head up my ass. I’ve always been a pretty healthy eater (everything in moderation kind of thing) as far as eating my fruits and veggies and such, though I will admit that ice cream was my vice and has been for years. I figured that another set of eyes couldn’t hurt to see if there was anything I could be doing differently in my day to day routine. I had sent the dietician a three day log of my eating prior to the visit at her request, so she would have time to analyze it, and was happy to hear that for the most part, my diet was great and …

A Laugh for Today

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So I know I need a laugh today, as yesterday I had an awful day, spending a large part of it at the radiology clinic downtown chugging gag-inducing amounts of barium down and then spending the next three and a half hours having pictures taken every 20 minutes so they can try and pinpoint where the narrowing in my small intestine is, as I’m considering the possibility of a surgical option to correct this.  Seriously, how in the hell is it possible that medical advances have come far enough along that we can use the heart of a baboon in a human’s body, yet no one has come up with a way to make that god awful chalky barium nightmare taste any better???  Anyway, thank god that is over, and in the spirit of having a better day today, I thought I’d share an experience I had with my ostomy right after I was cleared to eat what I wanted from my surgeon after the colectomy in 2006.  Those of you whom have suffered for …