franksolich's adopted grandmother has health problems

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x48883

Oh my.

hippywife  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 08:15 AM
Original message

My foodie card has received another crimp in it.
   
I have diverticulitis. Very painful and nauseating. This is going to mean no more of many things that I dearly love. No more everything bagels. Probably no more adding fennel seed to my sauce. No more corn.

Okay, I don't mean to make light of the problem, any more than if it were my real grandmother.

Never having had intestinal problems, I'm confused about this "diverticulitis" thing; isn't that something that can be cured by having a megamajor Roto-Rootering out of the alimentary canal, after which everything flows easily and naturally?  One suspects the hippowife would rather take pills to hide the problem, than have something done to cure the problem.

I dunno.  I honestly dunno.

hippywife  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 08:44 AM
Response to Reply #1

2. It is very painful.
   
I went to the ER last Saturday with pain and a 105 degree temp. I was sick all week from one of the anti-biotics and had to discontinue it after a few days because I just couldn't face another day of the incredible nausea and nasty taste it lent to everything, including water. I was also so muddle headed I have no idea how I got through my tasks at work or even drove to and from. I just know it was incredibly difficult and I started feeling better once I dc'd that med.

Until this morning. Now I'm having the pain again, but thankfully without the fever. I know most of what I should avoid but haven't gotten very practiced at it yet and foolishly ate a Greek salad for dinner last night.

I didn't believe the ER doc when he told me because I was also passing a kidney stone at the same time, but my regular doc confirmed it yesterday.

The real irony is that we had started eating so much healthier this past year, but I guess it's hard to make up for the damage years of abuse have caused. Sigh.

Uh-huh.

yellerpup  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 11:43 AM
Response to Reply #2

3. Antibiotics kill off all the good flora in your intestinal system as well as the bad stuff. I had a crisis last year after I was given acid reflux meds (you name 'em, I got a scrip for 'em). A friend of mine is an award-winning drug researcher and she sent over a jar of pro-biotics (acidophlious). When I started feeling queasy, heartburny, or like I had another attack of (up to that point) uncontrollable diarrhea I dissolved them in a half glass of water and chugged them down.

It took a few days, but my bowels started behaving normally for the first time in more than a year. As it turned out, I didn't have adic reflux at all, but a condition that was cured completely by laparascopic surgery. Latest research says that nuts and other high fiber foods are not the triggers for diverticulosis but actually help.

My friend also sent a bottle of aloe vera juice that I hated drinking but it soothed my gut and helped me heal really fast. Not trying to be your doc, but I know you like to hear about alternatives. Antacids and antibiotics made me MUCH sicker and doctors hardly ever think to restore the intestinal flora that these products destroy.

Good luck!

Warpy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 12:29 PM
Response to Reply #3

6. Yogurt with live cultures does the same thing more pleasantly
   
It's one of those healthfoody things I do whenever I go on antibiotics. It really does help if it's a long course of antibiotics, which it usually is in my case.

Just read the label to find out whether that brand has live cultures or has had them pasteurized to death.

Hmmm.  One is appalled to hear that statement from the warped primitive, a registered nurse.

Pasteurization is good, not bad.

One wonders if the warped primitive has some sort of secret agenda here.

Warpy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 12:59 PM
Response to Reply #7

8. I'm lactose intolerant and I can manage yogurt because all those little acidophilus bugs have eaten most of the lactose.

However, I only get ice cream when I'm constipated. It has all the advantages of milk of magnesia and none of the drawbacks.

Why wait until one gets plugged up?  Why not just prevent getting plugged up?

Warpy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 12:26 PM
Response to Original message

5. You can still use the fennel seeds

Just buzz em up in a spice grinder first so there are no whole seeds.

The everything bagels are OK as long as you chew those seeds completely. Most people aren't willing to do that, though, which is why they say no more to anything with seeds on it. The best idea is to pick the offending seeds off first. They left their flavor behind, anyway.

The corn is more problematic. I'm afraid you'll have to kiss it goodbye forever.

Diverticulitis is nothing to play with but it won't damage the foodie card that much. I have food allergies like crazy and still manage to keep my foodie card because of the challenges of rewriting recipes to accommodate them.

hippywife  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #5

9. The way I'm feeling right now I wouldn't risk the everything bagels. I've had kidney stones about 20 times in my life and this is every bit as painful...every bit. The pain pills are barely touching it so we are getting ready to go to the hospital. They will probably keep me for a few days. They wanted to last weekend and I said no. I'll not say no again today.

Hmmm.  One wonders if the use of drugs, licit and illicit, encourages the development of kidney stones.

And then franksolich's adopted grandmother reports back later:

hippywife  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-27-08 03:20 PM
Response to Reply #10

12. We didn't go.
   
The most amazing thing happened. I wanted to take a quick shower first and I started feeling a little better. I think it was the hot water on my body, I don't know why tho. The hospital is about 30 mi. away and by the time we got about a third of the way, the pain had reduced to some cramping. So I had Bill bring me home. I hope it doesn't spike again.

We stopped at the store to get things I can eat since I can't have whole grains. Wonder white bread, white flour tortillas, some special K and some milk. Yum. But I'll not stray until I know it's safe again.

And then this, from the bathroom in the basement:

Husb2Sparkly  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Sun Sep-28-08 03:35 PM
Response to Original message

28. Oh man .... that sucks.
   
My aunt has had that for years. She gets by, but has to be careful.

[BEG]

My brother-in-law had it and ending up getting a perforation and almost died.  They had to take a large portion of his colon when he had the perforation.

[franksolich]

My brother-in-law had it and ending up getting a perforation and almost died.  They had to take a large portion of his colon when he had the perforation.

Of course, naturally, I assume it's no laughing matter, and don't mean to make light of it.

I'm no medical expert, and am operating under the assumption that it's some sort of instance where digested stuff, instead of flowing naturally through the system, for some reason creates some sort of bulge, and then a dead end, and the digested stuff packs itself in there, instead of continuing to flow.

I'm pulling all that out of thin air, from the word "divert."

In case I'm somewhere near being right on what it is, of course it's no laughing matter.

But if that's the case, why not just surgically open up the gut and correct the problem?

One suspects the hippowife, being a primitive, is simply taking pain-killers, which of course doesn't solve the problem.  But she's a primitive, believing medicine and science is God.

Why this is of some interest to me is that my mother and all of her sisters, and then all of my own sisters, and one niece, eerily died (and too young too) from some sort of microscopic aneurysm in the small intestine, that caused them to hemorrhage to death without realizing what was going on.  But that was something different, and I have no idea if such can be detected before an autopsy.

[dandi]

My brother-in-law had it and ending up getting a perforation and almost died.  They had to take a large portion of his colon when he had the perforation.

Of course, naturally, I assume it's no laughing matter, and don't mean to make light of it.

I'm no medical expert, and am operating under the assumption that it's some sort of instance where digested stuff, instead of flowing naturally through the system, for some reason creates some sort of bulge, and then a dead end, and the digested stuff packs itself in there, instead of continuing to flow.

I'm pulling all that out of thin air, from the word "divert."

In case I'm somewhere near being right on what it is, of course it's no laughing matter.

But if that's the case, why not just surgically open up the gut and correct the problem?

One suspects the hippowife, being a primitive, is simply taking pain-killers, which of course doesn't solve the problem.  But she's a primitive, believing medicine and science is God.

Why this is of some interest to me is that my mother and all of her sisters, and then all of my own sisters, and one niece, eerily died (and too young too) from some sort of microscopic aneurysm in the small intestine, that caused them to hemorrhage to death without realizing what was going on.  But that was something different, and I have no idea if such can be detected before an autopsy.

That's diverticulosis, frank. Diverticulitis occurs when those bulges become infected, inflammed, and may possibly bleed or even perforate spreading the infection to adjacent abdominal tissues. Sometimes diverticulits can be treated with diet and antibiotics but more severe cases require surgery to remove the affected section of colon. You're right, though. The DUmmy shouldn't have ignored it just because the pain lessened, but that's what makes them DUmmies.

[debk]

My other half has diverticulosis. He was diagnosed about 5-6 years ago when he had a colonoscopy.

He eats tomatoes and corn sometimes. I buy rye bread without seeds, he doesn't eat any sesame seeds, or anything with seeds on it. I cut the seeds out of cucumbersOccasionally he will eat nuts, like in cookies or my brownies. He's really good about not eating stuff to irritate it.

A secretary in my old office also has it. But she is not good about avoiding stuff that she shouldn't eat. Like popcorn, nuts and veggies with seeds. When she has attacks, it's pretty bad. But she gets good drugs ....

[franksolich]

That's diverticulosis, frank. Diverticulitis occurs when those bulges become infected, inflammed, and may possibly bleed or even perforate spreading the infection to adjacent abdominal tissues. Sometimes diverticulits can be treated with diet and antibiotics but more severe cases require surgery to remove the affected section of colon. You're right, though. The DUmmy shouldn't have ignored it just because the pain lessened, but that's what makes them DUmmies.

Thank you for the clarification, and thanks also to morningAngel, who explained other details in the "shout box" (note to lurking primitives; the "shout box" is open only to registered members, and yes, the primitives are discussed much there too).

Grandma, who has many fine and sterling qualities, could stand to lose some pounds--not just a few pounds, but lots and lots and lots and lots of pounds.  Does not being overweight prevent, or at least retard the development of, the condition?

If so, Grandma is in one Hell of a fix, having to change to a low-fiber, high-calorie sort of diet.

Damn.

I'm exaggerating--but only slightly--but if I were told to eat only white bread, I'd just as soon put a revolver in the mouth and pull the trigger.  Damn.

Grandma and her husband are out on the western coast, trying to live a "simpler life," growing their own food, making their own meals, roughing it, whatnot, "recreating" a pastoral life of a long-ago era (which however is just playing around; Grandma uses an electric mixer and a microwave oven, and such things didn't exist back in that kinder, gentler era, and so it's all just fanciful imagining this is the way it was--sort of like the snobbish primitive, who also lives out that way, using an electric log-splitter instead of an axe, and thinking this is "life" as it was in the old days).

Now, my first thought was that if I learned I had this diverted condition, I'd eat wood, so as to get so much fiber everything is shoved out.  But apparently not a good idea, based on BEG's post above; perhaps fiber weakens the walls, causing perforations.

Damn, Grandma is in one Hell of a fix.  I'm very grateful I'm me, and not her.

[debk]

That's diverticulosis, frank. Diverticulitis occurs when those bulges become infected, inflammed, and may possibly bleed or even perforate spreading the infection to adjacent abdominal tissues. Sometimes diverticulits can be treated with diet and antibiotics but more severe cases require surgery to remove the affected section of colon. You're right, though. The DUmmy shouldn't have ignored it just because the pain lessened, but that's what makes them DUmmies.

Thank you for the clarification, and thanks also to morningAngel, who explained other details in the "shout box" (note to lurking primitives; the "shout box" is open only to registered members, and yes, the primitives are discussed much there too).

Grandma, who has many fine and sterling qualities, could stand to lose some pounds--not just a few pounds, but lots and lots and lots and lots of pounds.  Does not being overweight prevent, or at least retard the development of, the condition?

If so, Grandma is in one Hell of a fix, having to change to a low-fiber, high-calorie sort of diet.

Damn.

I'm exaggerating--but only slightly--but if I were told to eat only white bread, I'd just as soon put a revolver in the mouth and pull the trigger.  Damn.

Grandma and her husband are out on the western coast, trying to live a "simpler life," growing their own food, making their own meals, roughing it, whatnot, "recreating" a pastoral life of a long-ago era (which however is just playing around; Grandma uses an electric mixer and a microwave oven, and such things didn't exist back in that kinder, gentler era, and so it's all just fanciful imagining this is the way it was--sort of like the snobbish primitive, who also lives out that way, using an electric log-splitter instead of an axe, and thinking this is "life" as it was in the old days).

Now, my first thought was that if I learned I had this diverted condition, I'd eat wood, so as to get so much fiber everything is shoved out.  But apparently not a good idea, based on BEG's post above; perhaps fiber weakens the walls, causing perforations.

Damn, Grandma is in one Hell of a fix.  I'm very grateful I'm me, and not her.

It's not the result of a weight condition.

Some people's intestional tract just cannot handle seeds. Eating fiber does help to move all contents through the tract better, particularly if one is susceptible to the problem.

According to M's gastroenterologist (we go to the same one), it can be diet controlled. No seeds (poppy, sesame, tomato, popcorn, corn, caraway, cucumber) or nuts in a diet can keep it from flaring up. Unless one doesn't see a doctor until it's fairly advanced.

M went in for a different issue and the dr determined he also had diverticulosis, which is how he's been able to control it by diet.