Friday Update

[clevermanka]

It's been around five years (I think) since coffee showed up as a no-go on my food allergy/sensitivity panel. So I haven't done more than just smell it since. Since I've successfully reincorporated a lot of other foods in the past year, I thought I'd give decaf a try (caffeine will always be on my Extremely Limited in Small Amounts list). It was decaf, and it was reheated, but dogs it was delicious. Alas, two hours later my abdomen was swollen as fuck and it's still a little bloated. No pain or other GI distress, just an additional four inches or so around my waist all day. So that answers that. Apparently some food sensitivities are still with me (hurray for being able to reincorporate blueberries, cranberries, mushrooms, and most cruciferous vegetables).

I planned to have a hermit weekend but turns out I'll be socializing on Sunday with one of our profs (my faculty BFF) and our department's student assistant who is graduating after working for us for four years. She's leaving for grad school and this might be the last time the three of us get to hang out before she takes off. *weeps* It's a rough thing about making friends with students. It's good when they leave (that's what's supposed to happen anyway), but it's still sad.

Had another 3am wake-up this morning. mckitterick  keeps trying to make suggestions about things to do and (I think) gets frustrated with my continued refrain of "There Is Probably No Solution To This It Just Needs To Be Survived." I feel like he thinks that's me being defeatist, but I don't know a single person who has hit menopause and still sleeps eight hours seven nights a week. Nothing is going to help with hormone fluctuations and that's just life.

Comments

[clevermanka]

Oh, wow, that's a major (and scary!) bummer. Geez, how did you figure that out/narrow that down? Sounds...horrible.

[teaotter]

I was having stomachaches and a friend suggested I switch from coffee to tea for a while. After a month, the stomachaches were still there, but my seizures had dropped from one-or-more a day to two-to-three a week.

Biggest accidental improvement in my life ever.

[clevermanka]

Wow. Well, thank goodness for that, anyway. Did you ever find the cause of the stomachaches?

[teaotter]

Eventually. I'd started taking calcium pills as my doctor recommended, and it turns out I can't take calcium carbonate. I have to take calcium citrate or calcium phosphate.

My body is like an incredibly finicky cat. I get the 3%-of-the-population side effects to medications, I can only digest specific brands and formulations of supplements, and I have to be incredibly careful about changes to my diet or schedule. But it's awesome when I get everything to work.

[clevermanka]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay for finicky bodies, right?

[teaotter]

Yep -- it's like having your own permanent on-going science experiment!

[clevermanka]

Yep. I have a tag for my body my science experiment. I haven't used it much lately (bc I mostly just started posting here again thanks to y'all delightful Guardian folks), but...yeah. Gotta love those N=1 studies.