Tag: stomach pain

The Crappy Day Continues

I had a bowl of soup for lunch. Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. Classic. I thought that was safe, given that my stomach issues were fading at the time.

Nope.

The lunch time soup sat in my stomach like a dead weight for hours. At the same time, the back pain came back to me all fresh and new. I had some Tylenol before lunch and it’s safe to say it worked. I had some more about an hour ago and it’s working again. I haven’t had anything to eat in about 4.5 hours and I have to have something, but what?

I think I am going to just try a piece of bread or two. Maybe bread and butter. Something light and simple that hopefully won’t nuke my digestive system again.

Let’s see how this plays out.

In the meantime… cat picture.

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Sick Day

Didn’t we just go through a whole sick thing?

I woke up with back pain. That’s new. Yesterday Jen and I did a bunch of moving things around in her office and that involved me lifting heaving things and picking them up off the floor and putting them onto a table and back again, over and over again. I think I strained my back a little. It woke me up a little before 5:00am and then made it really difficult to fall back to sleep.

On top of that I was, gastric bypass recoverally speaking, really fucking stupid and I ate WAY too much last night. I knew I was doing it as I was doing it and for some reason I just kept doing it. Like some kind of moron. I felt okay when I went to bed, so I assumed I would continue to feel okay. I did not. My stomach was a gassy, achey mess this morning and it was all my fault.

Those two things combined made it virtually impossible for me to do anything. I tried to go through my morning routine, but 12 oz of water with my vitamins and a two-protein bar breakfast just made the stomach situation that much worse. Also, the existence of the stomach situation made the back situation that much worse.

Generally speaking the treatment for any gastric bypass stupidity is patience. Eventually it will work itself out. I think I am feeling that now. I feel better. Far from 100%, but better. That’s good. My back is a little better too, but it’s still there. The jerk.

So the moral of this particular story is this:

Don’t be a friggin moron.

QED

Stomach Fun

It’s been an eventful day in terms of gastric bypass life today. My stomach has not really been a team player. I think if I am being honest with myself I cannot blame today’s fun on my stomach. I have to put all of the blame on myself. Which is really the same thing, isn’t it?

Twice today I have had stomach pain caused by my poor little redesigned stomach pouch being too empty. Three hours after breakfast and three hours after lunch I had stomach pain bad enough that I had to eat something to make it go away. As my doctor said when I told her about the occasional hour-three-pains, duh you’re hungry. I thought about adding something to my lunch in the hopes that it would keep me full for longer, but I felt pretty stuffed when I finished lunch and I didn’t want to risk overdoing it. Looking back, I wonder if I should have pushed things a little more. Probably not.

The next fun came during dinner. I had a couple of ounces of chicken on my plate along with a scoop of instant mashed potatoes. I had finished the chicken without issue but I really wanted to get into those potatoes, babie. Just call me a red haired Irish stereotype. I had what I thought were a couple of small bites but either they were bigger than they should have been or I just ate too fast because my stomach felt a little blocked. Something was keeping the last bite or so from getting into the tiny little redesigned stomach pouch and that leads to some real discomfort. Worse than that, it lead to those few bites of instant mashed potatoes coming back up for an encore. Yikes! Sorry about the gross TMI here folks, but I need to document this stuff for posterity… or something like that. It wasn’t bad, just a couple of blasts and it was over. This happens with mashed potatoes once in a while (not very often, but enough to spot patterns) and as usual I felt better almost immediately. I still paused on eating for about half an hour and then I finished my dinner without further issue.

The last bit of stomach excitement is happening as I type this and it really is a non-issue. I don’t like going to bed without having eaten something. It probably makes my sleep less than ideal, but it is WAY better than waking up in the middle of the night with those empty stomach pains. I try to be full when I turn in for the night and tonight I think I may have over done it a little. I was a little behind on the old protein goal so I had a small protein bar to get over the hump. Then 20 minutes later I had some crackers. The two things combined were a little too much and now I feel SUPER full. Not painfully full but a little uncomfortable. I am going to try and stay awake for another hour or so to make sure I feel better before I lay down, but hindsight tells me I should have skipped the crackers. Oh well. It’s hard to gauge what my stomach will need at night so I may actually have to eat something else before I sleep, but I doubt it. I think food and I are done with each other for the night.

So four instances of stomach issues over the course of a single day. That is a lot more than usual for difficult days and given that most days are issue free it’s WAY more than normal for the average day. None of it was really too bad. I mean the vomiting was unpleasant but only for a couple of minutes and as soon as it was over I felt fine. All in all it wasn’t bad. I’d rather a full on easy day, sans-problems, but as problematic days go this one was pretty good.

In closing, I will quote the band Traffic, whose legendary self-titled second album was released 55 years ago this month, and say who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Stomach Fail

Why?

I’ve found that if I make a mistake while eating instant mashed potatoes and some of the instant mashed potatoes get stuck outside of my redesigned stomach, after 15-20 minutes those ‘taters will come back up in mildly spectacular fashion. It’s unpleasant and gross, but it’s also my stomach literally fixing the mistake and within minutes I’m back to 100% normal and all is well.

I’ve also found that if I make a similar mistake while eating quinoa it will last for hours, yes hours plural as in multiple hours before it clears up. It isn’t painful, I can just tell that there is something subtly off about my digestive situation. After a couple of hours I’ll convince myself that I’m imagining it and try to eat something small. That will get stuck behind the quinoa that I wasn’t imagining was stuck and that will be painful and cause foamies and nausea. Unlike the potatoes though they never come back up. I just have to continue to wait for it all to pass on its own, even though I’ve already waited multiple hours and no other food ever gets stuck for more than an hour, or an hour and a half tops.

Jen made quinoa tonight and it was magical. It also got a little stuck and two hours later I thought I was okay until I had a bite of a protein snack. Now my stomach hurts and I’m nauseous and spitting up foamy saliva and just waiting for the damn stuff to pass, damnit.

Why is the reaction so different when the diagnosis is exactly the same?

I finished mixing three songs and I’m part way through two more. I paused so I could watch episode three of Ahsoka but I had to pause that while I deal with my stomach issues. I still hope to finish the episode and the two songs (and the protein snack) before I turn in for the night, but it’s already 10:00 so maybe I won’t get to it all.

After typing up all of this on my iPad while leaning over a bucket in the bathroom, some of the protein snack came back up and I feel a lot better. Okay, so the snack and the instant mashed potatoes have something in common, but what’s the deal with the quinoa? Why no improvement after two hours plus? We may never know.

Okay, back to Ahsoka. May episode three be as good as episodes one and two.

When Your Stomach is a Jerk but You’re a Bigger Jerk

Havin’ one of those days, I guess. One of those gastric bypass surgery recovery kind of days.

I woke up with a stomach ache this morning. It was bad but not too bad. I thought it was a sign that I was going to have a rough day but after a little time in the little boys room (TMI, sorry) I was a lot better. I still waited a while before I had anything to eat. When I did have breakfast it was free of any issues. I guess my problems worked themselves out, right?

Sometimes I have stomach pain when I am hungry. My stomach is empty and it lets me know by hurting a bit. I fix it by having a little something to eat and then the pain goes away. That happened today at around 11:30. That’s when I screwed up my whole day.

I had a snack. Unfortunately it was too big of a snack. It took a little too long to get through it, and it was too much. I have to wait 60 minutes after eating before I can have a drink, and I needed to have a drink to take my lunch time vitamins, and then I have to wait 15 minutes before I can eat again. The snack meant I wasn’t going to be able to have a drink before it was time to make lunch, which meant my lunch time vitamins were going to wait until late afternoon at least. It also meant that I wasn’t quite hungry when lunch time came. I managed to have something but it left me low on my protein count going into dinner.

Then what happened? I had something to drink, but not quite enough to hit my daily goal, and I had my afternoon vitamins, but by the time I punched out of work I had a hungry stomach ache again. Oh good. I had a small protein snack as I was cooking dinner, knowing it was going to mess up my dinner the same way I messed up my lunch. I had a tiny snack this time and my stomach ache was already inching back by the time I sat down to dinner. It still left me feeling super full really fast though and I couldn’t finish dinner.

The cherry on top? I paused dinner while I was feeling full because I really wanted to finish my chicken and mashed potatoes and broccoli but 10 minutes after I paused dinner I had myself a nasty dose of the foamies. I felt nauseous out of the blue but I didn’t throw up. That’s good, right?

So now it’s almost 8:00 and I am still behind on my liquid goal and my protein goal and I still have a dose of vitamins to get through tonight. I am 100% sure I am going to reach all three goals, but I am also really ticked off at myself for screwing up my whole schedule today. All because my stomach was bothering me when I woke up.

Nice work, red head.

Monday is Okay: So Far

After a tough couple of days, it’s almost 10:00am on Monday morning and everything is okay.

Stomach issues are normal for gastric bypass patients. At least that’s what everyone tells me. Every once in a while I am going to zig when I shoulda zagged and my new little redesigned mini stomach is going to let me know about it. That’s all the last couple of days were.

I’m on vacation today and tomorrow so I slept about an hour late (ahhhh). When I went to sleep yesterday is was feeling okay. No pain but maybe a little gassy discomfort. I didn’t hit my water or protein goals until maybe half an hour before I fell asleep. I feel good about that. I thought I was going to fail on both counts. I did miss my exercise goal and I’m upset with myself over that, but given the circumstances it’s okay.

This morning I woke up without any pain or issues. I was a little nervous that something might crop up, but I did my 30 minute fake jogging in the cellar (pronounced “yogging” with a soft “j”) and I ate a normal protein bar breakfast. It’s been a couple of hours and all is still well.

Is that optimism I’m feeling? Maybe. It might just be me wanting a grilled hamburger and fries for lunch. it could be either one

Bad Stomach Evening

Remember that post from earlier where I was talking about bad stomach issues? They cleared up quickly enough back then, but they came roaring back after the little protein bar dinner I had.

It was really bad for a couple of hours but I think it’s clearing up again. My one question to my little re-wired stomach pouch is:

What the fuck, bro?

My evening is a pretty screwed up mess, you know? Here’s hoping it stays away and I can rejoin society. I was planning on sunrise-over-the-ocean photos tomorrow but now I’m afraid to even think about getting off the couch. It’s just me and Doctor Who season five for now.

Good Progress

I feel like I have made good progress on a couple of fronts today. First, my stomach is still okay. I had a protein bar for lunch and I have some french fries in the air fryer right now. Not the Golden Crispers from the comfort food post from earlier this morning, but a different type of Ore-Ida frozen french fries. Not as good, but close. We’ll see how we feel after eating a little bit of actual food.

The second progress front is guitar! The 50/90 Challenge and all that stuff. I put rhythm guitars onto two songs, and lead guitars onto two different songs. I played my Les Paul. If I get a chance later I will do some more and play my SG. Variety is the spice of life, after all. I’m also hoping to mix a tune or two before the day comes to an end. We’ll see about that. For now, season five episode two of the new Doctor Who series. Hey, check it out! Prince Daemon Targaryen from House of the Dragon is The Doctor and Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy is the companion. This might end up being my favorite cast.

Guitar pictures!

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Bad Stomach Morning

I wrote (twice) about having a tough day on the stomach front yesterday. By the time I got through lunch I was okay and everything seemed back to normal. It hasn’t quite stayed that way though.

Last night the gas started coming back not long before bedtime. I was drinking lemonade at that point, which more or less debunks my it-was-the-grape-juice theory. It felt different at first, but as the night wore on it revealed itself as more of the same. Fortunately it didn’t keep me awake and I was able to sleep.

This morning was when things started going sideways. When I woke up I had stomach pain. Real pain. Maybe a six or a seven on the scale from 1-10. Yesterday it was more like discomfort. Today was actual pain. There was nausea too. I felt pretty bad. I spent some time in the bathroom but that didn’t help. I was afraid to eat or drink anything. I grabbed a pillow and laid down on the couch. There was a part of me that was nervous that this would be my third experience with whatever it was that made me go fetal, groaning in pain, for hours at a time. It wasn’t though. I laid down for about 45 minutes. I think I dosed off.

When I came to the pain was gone. I won’t say I was 100% better. More like 95% better. Almost but not quite right. I had 12 ounces of water and my morning pills and I was still okay. I waited 15 minutes after drinking (doctors orders) and then had a small protein bar. Things were still good so I had one of my usual breakfast protein bars and things are still okay. That was 45 minutes ago and nothing has changed. In 15 minutes my one hour of waiting after eating (doctors orders) will be over and I will try to drink a little zero sugar gatorade.

So that means I had some trouble on Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, and now Sunday morning. Fun fun fun. Here’s hoping I’m through with it. I am probably going to stay with protein bars for lunch rather than make something complicated. Simple is the way to go today, I think. Let’s see if I change my mind over the next few hours.

Weird Stomach Day: Part 2: The Squeakual

Well that sucked out loud.

I had fun outside while grilling up my one hamburger. Then I came inside and started eating. I got maybe a third of the way through it when I started feeling queasy and stopped. A few minutes later that one third of a burger came back for another visit.

Shit. Now what do I do?

I set a 15 minute timer. When that runs out I will reassess. Today might be a tough day. It might be a protein bar only kinda day. It’s been months since I’ve had a day like this. Here’s hoping they continue to get rarer and rarer.

Gastric bypass is most definitely not a short cut around weight loss. Definitely, definitively not a short cut.