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

[jo_lasalle]

Oh, man, no coffee is rough. Sorry that reincorporation experiment went wrong!

Insomnia is such a bastard. >.

[asya_ana]

Ooohh I so sympathize with your coffee woes. I don't have the specific kind of sensitivity you seem to, but I can't have caffeine. So I haven't had coffee, decaf, or black tea in 1.5 years and every day it is painful. I'm not addicted to caffeine anymore, so I don't crave it in that way, but I am still sad about the taste and the experience, how comforting it is :(

I drink mint tea and fresh ginger tea these days, but ... yeah :(

I still make coffee for others though, and when I smell it, it brings TEARS to my eyes. akldfja;dlfkj

[clevermanka]

Thank you! Luckily I got over my need for caffeine ages ago, so it's just a taste thing BUT STILL.

Insomnia has been one of my life-long plagues. It comes and goes, at least (unlike the other stuff), so at least it's more annoying than debilitating. Sorry it sounds like you suffer from it, too? Boo.

[clevermanka]

OH HONEY. I would be so sad if I couldn't even have an occasional cup of decaf black tea.

If I could make a recommendation for a (admittedly pale) substitute for the real thing, this herbal "coffee" stuff is actually pretty delightful. It tastes nothing like coffee but at least the mouthfeel is similar and it goes very nicely with a milk of choice (cow, nut, coconut, whatev).

I make coffee for my partner, too, and yeah. THAT'S LOVE RIGHT THERE.

[teaotter]

I miss coffee so much. For me, it's not the caffeine -- one of the other various psychoactive chemicals in coffee triggers my seizures -- but the smell of it still makes me swoon.

[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.

[write_out]

Well, damn! I'm sorry coffee still a no-go.

So is your brand of insomnia mostly early wake-ups or do you also get the 'awake for hours in the middle of the night and then fall asleep an hour before the alarm' good times too?

[clevermanka]

Both, but usually the latter. 3am is my sweet spot. A body LOVES waking up at three fucking am.

[jo_lasalle]

Yes, insomnia and I are old acquaintances. *g* Mostly stress-related. At some point, mine switched from 'not being able to fall asleep' to 'being out like a light at 10:30 but awake at 4 and the night is over', and I found that baffling, but I guess.... bodies are weird!

I do things to coffee that make actual coffee fans shudder, but apart from the caffeine hit, I really would miss the taste too if I couldn't even replace it with decaf...

[clevermanka]

As a coffee fan (even if I am an inactive member of the club), I say whatever anyone wants to put in coffee is fine. Gatekeepers of any sort can suck it. =D

[islenskr]

OMG, yes. 3am. What *IS* is about 3am that we need to wake up?

I'm so sorry about the coffee. I love coffee. (Maybe a bit too much.)

[clevermanka]

Well, depending on who you talk to (Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic practitioners, I'm sure others...), it means different things. I know in TCM (because I used to see an acupuncturist pretty regularly) it means stagnant liver qi. Aurvedic practice says it's a Vata imbalance (Vata regulates movement in the body and mind).

Whether or not one buys that sort of thing, it makes for interesting reading!