A Gut Feeling

The trials and tribulations of dealing with IBS, SIBO, and other gut-related chronic health issues. var sc_project=10876873; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="1af55f56"; var scJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://www."); document.write("");

[packupmyspaceships]

If you have chronic undiagnosed pain/illness

- you are not pretending - you are not making it up - you are not having pain “just in your head” - you are not trying to get anybody’s attention - you are not insane - you are not pathetic - you don’t need to “chill and try to think about smth else” - you don’t need to make excuses for your permanent fatigue - you don’t need to feel guilty for your inability to live a normal life

The only thing you should do is to keep fighting for your health. Because some diseases are very tricky to diagnose and most doctors will not believe you.

And please remember that you are doing your best just dealing with pain and not giving up.

[kaleighfratkins]

callout post

my gastrointestinal system:

doesn’t fucking work

[chronicillnessmemes]

It’s so fucked up that good doctors are a rarity instead of the norm.

[flutedcups-deactivated20180826]

My body: Blood sugar feels kinda low. Eating would probably be a good idea, I guess????? Maybe something easy, like mashed potatoes. Especially because we don’t wanna take these meds on an empty stomach.  My digestive system: LOLOLOLOLOL IS THAT WHAT YOU THOUGHT WE WERE GONNA DO? HAHAHAHA OK ok ok ok seriously though Imma fuck you up

[hvngers]

“i shouldn’t eat this” I say as I shove it into my mouth

[potsandaspoonie]

Friend: Hey you wanna go do something? Me: Thanks but I’m too busy trying not to pass out when I stand up.

[a-gut-feeling]

whiny venting time

so we had 2 different kinds of pesto sauce, one with parmesan cheese in it for my regular-diet family and a cilantro walnut dairy-free kind for me. they used up theirs last night and I used some of mine but saved the rest to have on spaghetti squash or eggs later in the week. but my sister has a friend over and they’re making pizzas and I heard someone say something about the pesto so I raced out there and asked them to please not use it so they were nice and stopped but I felt so bad and I still feel bad and now I want to cry because who the fuck freaks out about PESTO sauce like that??? and I just hate it because my body can’t tolerate many foods right now so I really don’t have many choices and I was really excited to have the pesto sauce at my disposal (I was hoping to have some last week but they didn’t have any at the store) because it would make my food a little more interesting and varied, but others don’t understand this because they can eat everything so to them I look really selfish and possessive and neurotic, and I hate that because it is against my personality. I know that if I didn’t have these food issues, I wouldn’t give a shit but the fact of the matter is I DO have these issues and it really pisses me off when people who actually have choices about what to eat decide to just dig into my food because they still have a ton of stuff they can eat but it really puts a dent in my own food supply. and yeah I know I can go to the store but the store that makes the pesto is a 20-25 minute drive from here one-way so do you honestly think I wanna drive out there just to get a jar of pesto and also how would you like having to go to the store several times a week just to have SOMETHING to eat while the people who keep eating your food don’t ever run out of anything (partially because they keep EATING YOUR THINGS??)??? I’m not interested in doing that!!! but no one gives a shit and they don’t have to deal with this so they just think I’m fucking crazy and thus I become more isolated and depressed so fuck

[a-gut-feeling]

I’m really nice and friendly but my shitty digestive system restricts me to the same 6 foods so if you take one of these foods out of the fridge and eat it when you yourself can eat every edible thing known to man then I will shoot you on the spot and never feel an ounce of guilt about it

[jekabeth]

I want to watch a movie about a spoonie...

Where a girl tapes every doctor visit leading up to the one where she finally gets help. 

She finally finds a doctor who cares and knows just where to look for answers and will not give up on trying different treatments.

And she takes each copy of her visits and attaches the good doctors visits and sends each tape back to the doctors who brushed her off.

The doctors have to watch themselves be terrible doctors to her and then watch the one good doctor find answers that make perfect sense and know that they have failed at their only job in life.

I would totally watch that movie.

[thecalminside]

Life only demands from you the strength you possess.

Dag Hammarskjöld (via thecalminside)

[vaticrevelation]

the shitty thing about chronic illness is that after a while you don’t even recognise how shit you feel anymore. it becomes so normal to feel shit that you think that’s normal. but then there’s this feeling that haunts you - one day, somewhere, I felt GOOD - will I ever feel good again?

[a-gut-feeling]

does anyone have experience with meditation/guided imagery and healing?

I’ve read a bit about meditation/guided imagery completely eradicating people’s chronic illnesses and, after having so little success with any other course of action, I’ve been wondering if it could help me just as much. if there is anyone out there who has anything insightful to say about this, please reply or send me a message!

[a-gut-feeling]

I know I’ve been bad about updating this blog with my own personal journey stuff so this post is just to acknowledge that and to assure you that, if you’ve really just been dying for such an update, I will be doing that soon 

in the meantime, I just want to say that all pea protein powder, no matter the flavor, makes stuff taste like peas. this shouldn’t be so shocking but honestly I thought that in labeling the different flavors as “vanilla” and “chocolate” and “berry,” the manufacturer would put effort into making these things taste not only different from each other, but perhaps like the thing the label says they taste like...? but apparently they figure that anyone stooping this low is truly desperate and won’t complain about everything tasting like peas and you know what? they’re 100% fucking correct. bring on more powdery pea shit I need to maintain my 1000-calorie-a-day diet somehow

[imadeanewblog]

Let me just say that IBS counts as a chronic illness? There’s people out there making IBSers feel like they don’t belong? Reblog if you think IBS is a valid chronic illness please!

[a-gut-feeling]

Stomach: *feels fine*

Me: Okay... that sounds fake but okay

[chronicillnesshelp]

every healthy person who recommends yoga and vitamin supplements to a person with an incurable illness owes me 10$ pay up uglies

[mylittleghostbunny-deactivated2]

And if they recommend veganism, they have to give 50$.

[nezumiko]

$100 if they say “you just have to have a positive attitude”

[malsmomforever]

$200 if they say “going gluten free really works! You should just try that!”

[aerylon]

The fine is $1,000 if they tell you to”Just go for a walk!  It’ll cure what ails you.”

$2,000 if you use any sort of mobility device.

[iopele]

$100,000 fine for smiling condescendingly and saying “that’s not actually a real condition”

this goes up to $10mil if the speaker is a specialist you’ve waited 6 months to see, who doesn’t take your insurance so you had to pay the outrageous fee up front and out of pocket, who then follows up that statement with “try not to sleep so much and don’t let things bother you”

[fuzipenguin]

Another $100,000 for the specialist that says ‘You’re just hypersensitive to what is happening in your body so you make every little twinge a big thing. Just rest and have plenty of fluids and try not to stress too much’, which came after the statement of ‘I don’t like treating Lyme disease patients; they’re so whiny.”

[crypticcripple]

Ableists officially owe me more than I owe in medical debt

But not by much

[biculturalist-deactivated201612]

This is a firm reminder that the medical field, despite committing itself to the service of all of humanity regardless of social, cultural, biological, and economic differences, is still an institution that exists within a troubling social context.

A report recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science surveyed medical students and residents on their beliefs about race and health. The study concluded the following:

Out of 418 medical students and residents in the study, 222 were white. About 50% of the white respondents held at least one false ‘biological’ belief about black people, which included at least one of the following:

Black people have less sensitive nerve endings than white people

Black people feel less pain than white people

Black people’s blood coagulates more quickly than white people’s blood

Black people have thicker skin than white people

58% of the total medical students and residents quizzed believed that black people had thicker skin than white people. This included about 40% of first and second year students and 25% of hospital residents

It was further shown from this study that racial biases falsely rooted in biology affects the treatments that doctors give to black people. For instance, a 2000 study from Emory University found that “74% of white patients with bone fractures [in an hospital emergency room in Atlanta] received painkillers compared with 50% of black patients.” Likewise, “a paper last year found that black children with appendicitises were less likely to receive pain medication than their white counterparts.”

Finally, “a 2007 study found that physicians were more likely to underestimate the pain of black patients compared with other patients,” which overall correlates the ignorance in the medical community about race and biology. 

Solutions

As it might turn out, patients of a certain race or ethnicity may fare better when they visit a physician of the same race or ethnicity. For example, “A recent study published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology found that black patients are 19 percent more likely to die from common gastrointestinal problems than white patients, but fare better when treated by black doctors.”

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