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My entire digestive tract hurts! My abdomen is so bloated I feel like my waistband is too tight – and I’m not even wearing a waist band.
I’ve been eating a pretty normal RRARF diet. E.g., this a.m. I took a pinch of salt under my tongue, had about 1/3 cup of coffee with tons of cream & sugar, a piece of white bread with honey, and all I could stuff down of oatmeal made with whole milk with honey and a couple tablespoons of blueberries.
For the last 2 or 3 days, I’ve been hurting pretty much around the clock. It gets a bit better at night and worse an hour or so after eating.
I’ve upped my nexium a bit, and taken tums and gas-x. Maybe that’s a bad idea, long term, but right now getting through the short term is pretty important. I don’t want to give up (yet, anyway), but I’m pretty miserable. Any help or encouragement would be welcomed.
It could be the oatmeal. Is it whole oats or the quick cooking (more processed) kind? I can handle the quick cooking ones, but not the regular ones.
My stomach also gets upset easily. You could try eating things you know you digest easily and just work up to a larger amount. I am not a fan of oatmeal, it sits like a lump for hours in there. Did the toast go down better? You could just eat more toast. I do well with eggs in the morning, with cheese sometimes.
GeeMa, I’m sorry that you’re stomach is hurting. Stomach pain is the worst!! I’ve had stomach pain on and off my whole life (not really at all for the past month or so though:) and I know how debilitating and depressing it can be. I’m sending you lots of good thoughts!
Back to your question, my stomach was really hurting when I started eating grains again and eating things I didn’t eat for years. What really helped me transition to eating everything was taking it slow- first I started out with paleo bread, then gluten free, then regular grains but not at every meal. When my pain would get really bad I would lay off and eat a lot of calories still but from cheese, avocado, etc Not sure if this is relevant to you since maybe you were always eating grains…
Also, what was a HUGE help was abdominal massage. I learned Mayan abdominal massage and I would do that with castor oil and then put on more castor oil, small flannel blanket that covered my stomach and lay a hot water bottle on my stomach. That always did the trick. Seriously it always amazes me and writing this reminds me that I should get back to doing this. Maybe there’s a youtube video about mayan abdominal massage but if not you could try this abdominal massage when you’re not too full. It’s recommended before breakfast and/or before bed and not when you’ve just eaten a big meal, but I did it about an hour or two after eating when my stomach was big and bloated and I was in pain and it really helped.
-Lie flat on your back on a firm surface with your abdominal region exposed.
-Warm up your hands by rubbing them together until they feel hot ? about 15 seconds.
-Place one hand flat on your belly button.
-Begin rubbing in small circles around your belly button, gradually widening the circles using a firm pressure. Each circle should take about one to two seconds.
-Focus on heat, which is building up in your abdominal region as you rub.
-Continue for two minutes, about 40 to 50 circles. Be sure to keep your stomach warm as you perform the exercise.You can use castor oil for this and then put a small flannel blanket (you can get one at the 99 cents store or a crafts store) and a hot water bottle or another sort of heavy hot water bottle (it’s good if it has some weight).
I originally came to 180 after developing severe digestive problems that were exacerbated by following a paleo diet. It got really, really bad. My digestion became so non-existent that the only foods I could eat were plain yogurt, white rice, carrot juice and bananas. Ugh. Anything else resulted in severe stomach distress, Gerd and IBS. Every day I felt nauseas and my stomach hurt really bad. Life was s#*t. I lost so much weight that I looked like a cadaver. I had very little energy and I deeply, deeply feared food. Eating food=pain. It was hard to believe that I had sunk so low. Then on an IBS site I found someone mentioned being helped by a digestive supplement called Digestive Gold. Desperate, I tried it. And it helped! I was then able to slowly add more foods to my daily diet. Then I began to notice that some people on the IBS site were not doing well with added probiotic supplements. I ran out of my current probiotic supplements and noticed that I felt even better. There was no way I could have eaten enough calories for increased metabolism while my digestion was so messed up. If your stomach hurts and food isn’t agreeing with you there’s no way you can “eat the food”. It’s been a slow process for me but I no longer have daily stomach distress, my energy has increased and I can eat. My stomach is no longer bloated. I don’t live in fear of food or spend gobs of time in the bathroom. I can eat out with friends and family. Since I can eat now I can increase calories, and I have found that as my metabolism increases my digestion has improved even more. If you can’t digest the food and your stomach hurts then “re-feeding” will cause you grief. Maybe eat easily digestible foods, find a digestive supplement that works and then slowly increase the amount of food you eat.
Your in a conundrum. Your taking an acid suppressor because your tummy hurts but you can’t digest your food because your suppressing your stomach acid. When I quit nexium it was three weeks of living hell dealing with acid rebound. If I can help it I will never touch the crap again.
Agree with those who say the nexium is probably hurting more than it’s helping. You may want to consider weaning yourself off of it slowly, decreasing your dose a little more each day and trying to eat foods that are as soothing as possible during that time and for a bit afterwards so your system can normalize. You need that acid for effective digestion!
Heatheriv, exactly. I went cold turkey and it was hell. Not to get to graphic but I had burning acid coming out of both ends at once and I had to sleep upright in a chair to keep it from burning my throat. I have been off of nexium for four years now. I just had an endoscopy the other day and everything looks fine down there. When I started refeeding I got heartburn a lot. Especially from wheat and sugar and fruit. Now that my body is adjusting the reflux has calmed down significantly. I also got a lot of bloating at the beginning of my refeeding. This caused me to feel pretty rotten at times but because my energy levels were coming back I stuck to it. I believe that nexium causes gut dysbiosis. Gut dysbiosis causes poor digestion and bloating and poor metabolism. The only way through is to tough it out until everything gets back to normal. One piece of advice that may seem counterintuitive is to take a hydrochloric acid supplement with betaine in it before meals. Especially when eating meat or other hard to digest stuff. I believe that your reduced stomach acid is causing food to stay in your system longer and giving the bad bacteria more time to cause bloat and pressure. Stomach acid is essential in killing bacteria and stuff that we don’t need in our digestive tract. Reduce it greatly over a number of years and your playing with fire. Reducing it also causes malabsorption of certain nutrients. One big one they have discovered recently is calcium. That is why there are bone fracture warnings with nexium. Nexium is only meant for short term use. Unfortunately doctors won’t tell you that and they are prescribing it to people for life. I even know someone who’s newborn baby is being put on nexium. Throw in the obligatory antibiotics she’ll get before the age of ten for every little sniffle and you have a recipie for life long digestive and health problems. It’s sad.
GeeMa, I know several people on this site swear by the HCL supplement that Jdubs mentioned. Helped them get off the nexium type meds and apparently worked even better.
If you want a cheaper option to increase stomach acid,then take a gulp of apple cider vinegar or lemonjuice a couple minutes before each meal.
Ginger is soothing for an upset stomach,maybe drink some ginger tea?
While MDs are telling you that you have excessive stomach acid, my research and experience is telling me that I had too little acid. There’s a way to experiment with taking a low dose of HCL with a meal, and then SLOWLY increasing it in future meals until you feel a warmth in your stomach. Then back down to one pill under that level, and stay there until you feel the warmth again. Drop down again. YOur body is learning to put out the amount of HCL you need.
Taking a gulp of apple cider vinegar can be VERY harsh on your throat. You can dilute it, put it some honey and drink that. Apples are good.
Also, I add baking SODA into my juice, and that immediately calms the heartburn. Don’t take tums, or that stuff! Axia3- has prodigestive enzymes, and gets rid of the burning feeling fast. (it’s a life saver when I’m having trouble… not cheap, but truly worth it for me)And the bottom line is: WHAT is stressing you? Your body is giving you a message- and you will have symptoms until you understand what’s bothering you! Your body is giving you a literal message, and it’s up to you to decipher it. That’s how the Mind/Body works!
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