Looking over my last blog post about my stomach issues, I felt it might be of slight interest to a couple people to post a follow-up to that. Well folks, I am back to normal, which is nice, but at the moment I'm still making choices for better food and drinks in my system.
I don't have soda too regularly anymore. I had my mom pick up some caffeine free Mountain Dew, which is great and all, but it leaves a very unpleasant after-taste in your mouth. So... C+ on that one. I had Taco Bell the other night (darn those endless Taco commercials on Saturday) which was some of the first true fast food I've had in a while. Let's just say, I'm not eager to have it again. It didn't mess up my stomach or any gross things of that sort, but it just made me feel really BLAH; not to mention, my dining experience was a huge disappointment because my tacos were put in my bag upside down, so all the meat and cheese fell to the tops and stuck to the wrappers. Frowny face.
Anyways, I've tried small doses of coffee and those have gone fine, so that's good. I still enjoy the taste of it too, so I'm quite happy about that. But this soda thing is just puzzling me... I can't believe how I never really noticed how icky it can taste, until now. So we'll see, again, as time goes on how this all turns out to be.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
A week ago I ended up at Urgent Care at Patient's First because of some severe abdominal pains. These pains had happened twice and the second time was even worse; so bad it brought me to tears. So I decided it best to find out what the heck was going on.
It turned out that I had/have gastritis, which means my stomach lining is inflamed. Treatment is involving doubling up on my antacid and avoiding caffeine, spicy foods, greasy foods, and acidic drinks. Instead, I've been drinking juice, milk, Kool-Aid, and I even had iced tea the other night. I have the occasional Sprite, but my soda intake has gone down completely; I'm not just cutting out ones with caffeine.
Now that I'm past the detox stage (giving up caffeine and all) I wish I could tell you I notice a huge difference in the way I feel, but I just can't truthfully say that. However, I feel better about what I eat and drink, and we all know that the mental portion is half the battle sometimes. Something interesting is happening now that I have had to cut things out of my diet, or significantly decrease them.
One is that I absolutely do not, no way no how, NEED caffeine in the morning. I think it's safe to say that, if anything, the caffeine just made the afternoons even worse. I would be all hunky-dory and alert in the morning, but then the afternoon crash and burn would happen.
The second interesting thing is that I'm taking a second look at soda... a serious one. I've given up soda for Lent in the past, and that was fine and all, but eventually I would go back to drinking as much as I had before Lent and there really wasn't a long-term benefit from it. Not that there needs to be, but I'm just saying. Anyways, the past few days I've tried to reintroduce caffeinated sodas back into my system, but my system seems to rebel when I do this. Granted, this could still be part of the gastritis, but I'm wondering if it's a sign; a sign that I really don't need to be drinking as much soda. We all know that soda is nothing but bad chemicals mixed together to form this addictive, bubbly drink we all love and crave. But I've been thinking about this a lot and wondering if maybe I should try to cut back on soda for the long-term; I'm sure I would feel some benefits then, most definitely.
I admit I'm a little scared of what will happen when I bring coffee back into the picture, because coffee is something I do love. I became a bit of a coffee-enthusiast, if you will, enjoying good, expensive coffees from time to time and savoring the variety of flavors and roasts (yes I drink it black, 95% of the time.) I hope I can continue to enjoy it, but maybe it'll have to be in smaller increments. As long as I can have it, I'll be happy with that. There's no reason for me to drink an entire travel mug full of coffee anyways.
So after a couple more weeks, I guess I'll reevaluate and see where things stand. I feel that this is probably not the last time I'll have to deal with a stomach issue like this (my gastrointenstinal issues seem to keep going up as I'm getting older) and keeping these bad drinks and bad foods to a minimum is going to help me no matter what. Not to mention my teeth will love me for it too. Here's hoping I can stick with it!
It turned out that I had/have gastritis, which means my stomach lining is inflamed. Treatment is involving doubling up on my antacid and avoiding caffeine, spicy foods, greasy foods, and acidic drinks. Instead, I've been drinking juice, milk, Kool-Aid, and I even had iced tea the other night. I have the occasional Sprite, but my soda intake has gone down completely; I'm not just cutting out ones with caffeine.
Now that I'm past the detox stage (giving up caffeine and all) I wish I could tell you I notice a huge difference in the way I feel, but I just can't truthfully say that. However, I feel better about what I eat and drink, and we all know that the mental portion is half the battle sometimes. Something interesting is happening now that I have had to cut things out of my diet, or significantly decrease them.
One is that I absolutely do not, no way no how, NEED caffeine in the morning. I think it's safe to say that, if anything, the caffeine just made the afternoons even worse. I would be all hunky-dory and alert in the morning, but then the afternoon crash and burn would happen.
The second interesting thing is that I'm taking a second look at soda... a serious one. I've given up soda for Lent in the past, and that was fine and all, but eventually I would go back to drinking as much as I had before Lent and there really wasn't a long-term benefit from it. Not that there needs to be, but I'm just saying. Anyways, the past few days I've tried to reintroduce caffeinated sodas back into my system, but my system seems to rebel when I do this. Granted, this could still be part of the gastritis, but I'm wondering if it's a sign; a sign that I really don't need to be drinking as much soda. We all know that soda is nothing but bad chemicals mixed together to form this addictive, bubbly drink we all love and crave. But I've been thinking about this a lot and wondering if maybe I should try to cut back on soda for the long-term; I'm sure I would feel some benefits then, most definitely.
I admit I'm a little scared of what will happen when I bring coffee back into the picture, because coffee is something I do love. I became a bit of a coffee-enthusiast, if you will, enjoying good, expensive coffees from time to time and savoring the variety of flavors and roasts (yes I drink it black, 95% of the time.) I hope I can continue to enjoy it, but maybe it'll have to be in smaller increments. As long as I can have it, I'll be happy with that. There's no reason for me to drink an entire travel mug full of coffee anyways.
So after a couple more weeks, I guess I'll reevaluate and see where things stand. I feel that this is probably not the last time I'll have to deal with a stomach issue like this (my gastrointenstinal issues seem to keep going up as I'm getting older) and keeping these bad drinks and bad foods to a minimum is going to help me no matter what. Not to mention my teeth will love me for it too. Here's hoping I can stick with it!
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