sensitivetummies.com Blog

You may wonder how so many recipes have come about that comply with the GERD and IBS diet.  All I can say, is that a lot of creative ideas are involved.  The recipes that make it into the cookbook are the chosen few and the rejects, well they make pretty interesting stories.  Here are a couple:

1. Jelly Bean Soup: This is a brilliant idea.  (I wish I could show sarcasm online.)  Instead of adding sugar, jelly beans were added to the soup.  ”Don’t worry; they disssolve,” I was told.  Yup, the sugar part dissolves but the waxy outer cover does not and when it gets in your mouth it makes a really weird taste.
2. Blue Powerade Chicken:  Even though it was cooked in blue powerade, it turned green.  It didn’t taste so bad but the coloration was distracting.
3. Tufu Lasagna: Mashed tufu cooked in beef broth with lasagna noodles.  Enough said.

Okay, so some these obviously did not turn out so well.  But the fruits of our creativity shine through in other ways.  Sometimes thinking outside the box leads to really great recipes, like these:

1. Plum Upside Down Cake:  The thought of it, makes my mouth water.  This is a favorite.  Check out the cookbook for this one.  It was SOOOO good!
2. Barbequed Honey Marinated Fruit Kabobs: You need to get the cookbook for this one too.  It was delicious! 
3. Mango Salsa: Okay, I eat this on like everything.  Check out our recipes.  I put this on ice cream, chicken, fish, waffles, and anything else that I think needs flavor.  LOVE IT!!
4. Jelly Bean Cookies: Who ever thought that our strange obsession with putting Jelly Beans in EVERYTHING would pay off.  These are really good, but are a new invention so they’re not in the cookbook.  (Sorry!!!)  These taste so good.

Okay, now I’m really hungary and need to go eat. Remeber, utilize your creativity but be careful to keep everything in compliance with the diet.  Good Luck!

HAPPY NEW YEARS! 

Did you see any fire works?  Did you go to any parties?  Did you make the famous “New Year’s Resolution?” You’re not alone.

Why do I even bother making New Year’s Resolutions?  I never keep them past the first three weeks.  I say I’ll stop fighting with my sister, practise the piano or guitar everyday, stop procrastinating, go to bed earlier, exersicise my dog more, clean my room, and listen to my parents.  If I do any of those things past February, I’m lucky.  Sometimes in the middle of May, it’ll occur to me that I said I was going to do all those things and I’ll start trying all over again.

This year’s resolution: Take my medicine consistantly.

Medicine is one of those things that I’m not great at.  Three ways that throw me off taking my medicine:

1. Forgetting- What can I say?
2. Getting out of the Habit- Forgetting, then forgetting I forgot, then forgetting I forgot again, and pretty soon I’m asking, “How many of these darn things was I supposed to take again?”
3. Taking too much- When you forgot that you took it you’re in trouble.  Then what do you do?  You say “Ohh shoot!  I’ve taken six of these today when I’m supposed to take three!”  Luckily, I don’t get really sick but I figure I’ll stop taking it for a couple days, you know, let it get out of my system.  Then, enter step 2.

It probably happens to you too doesn’t it.  Taking my medicine is really important.  I actually had gotten really good at it since November when my health got bad so I’m just trying to keep it up.  These where the ways I remembered to take it.

1. I needed to take it three times a day, so I desided to make it pretty basic times when I couldn’t forget.  I needed to take it morning, noon, and night.  That breaks down to breakfast, biology class, and dinner.
2. I kept the medicine where I couldn’t forget it, my backpack and the kitchen. 
3. I kept backup pills.  If I forgot to take it in the morning at home, I took it at school in my first hour class. I had lots of extras so I could forget to resock and still have more.
4. I asked people to help me remember.  My mom helped me out at home.  My friends did at school.

If you don’t always remember to take your medicine keep this in mind.  Sometimes medicines can be damaging if you only take them sometimes.  It takes two weeks of taking them consistantly for most drugs to begin to work.   Even if the pills don’t work, keep taking them  so you can tell the doctor.  When you tell him that the drugs don’t work, his first question is if you take them.

So all of you, like me, who need to get in the habit of taking their meds, let’s make this resolution last.  Check in on me okay?  Don’t do so right away.  I know I’ll be doing fine until about January 17.  After that, I’m a little worried.

You know just as much as me the dissapointment of waking up on a special morning sick.  Check out my lists and think about yours.  What do you lose?  More importantly, what do you gain? 

Here are a list of dissapointing affects of GERD and IBS for the holidays:

1. None of your grandparents’ cooking.  In my family I always look forward to the specially prepared meals unique to the holiday season.  The rich gravy, creamy mashed patatoes, and juicy roast beef sit there tempting me, but I can’t reach out to grab them.
2. Baking holiday cookies.  My family always gets together one day to bake buttery sugar cookies smoothered in sprinkles and chocolate chip cookies that are more chocolate chip than cookie.  My mom and I always make special cookies before hand, but not being able to lick the bowl with the rest of the cousins is a real bummer.
3. Standing out.  I hate being different from everyone else.  I don’t like bringing a turkey sandwich to a special holiday dinner.  I don’t like sitting at the long table with the amazing decorations while everyone eats a delicious meal chewing on old leftovers.

However, more importantly than the three disapointments I actully gave thanks this holiday season for having GERD and IBS for several reasons.

1. I am more sympathetic.  I watch other people suffering and I know what it’s like to under go pain.  My pain may be more or less severe than someone elses’ but I can try to begin to understand.  Everyone deals with pain differently at different times so I am more tolerant.
2. I am stronger.  By having to always push myself through pain to continue functioning, and to follow my diet even when it is very difficult, I have become more disciplined.  I can challenge myself in greater matters because I overcame obstacles in smaller ones.
3. I am grateful.  Any day I step out of bed, I am glad.  Going through my diagnoses process was frightening (even at my young age) and it impacted me forever.  Also, I have been in some very aweful spots and I think my condition has improved.  I am also grateful that my family was able to support me, I was able to get the health care I needed, and that I have been able to cope.
4. Finally, I am want to change something.  People all over the world die of our problems because they do not have a supportive family and cannot get proper health care.  My condition has inspired me to make a change.  I started by working with my sisters to write Yummies for Sensitive Tummies Cookbook.  I plan to continue to make changes for the rest of my life. 

Be grateful for all the things I am grateful for.  They are very simple.  Any problem with your heath leads to these four things, sympathy, discipline, gratitude, and finally and most importantly, inspirtation to make a change.  Be inspired.  Make a difference.

Happy Holidays All!

            People in the medical world are afraid that medications to treat Reflux are being overprescibed especially in babies.   I can understand the fears and hesitancy of the medical professionals concerned with over prescriptions, but I am also glad to hear the increase of children treated for these problems.  I have been on both ends of the spectrum.  I am 14 years old and have suffered from the symptoms of GERD, IBS, and lactose intolerance all my life.  I was not diagnosed with GERD until I was 8 and IBS until I was 11.  

          The diagnoses process took a very long time.  My mother expressed her concerns over my excessive regurgitation and very bad breath to the pediatrician but he dismissed it.  I complained of these problems since I could talk.  Then the diagnoses problems began.  The doctor’s all had very different explanations for my problems.  One doctor thought I had brain tumors.  Another thought I only needed glasses.  A doctor said that it was all in my head.  The last diagnosed me with hypoglycemia. 

            Still concerned about my worsening health, my parents switched to a different doctor.  He referred us to a pediatric gastroenterologist.  He diagnosed me after around 9 months.   However, common to the GERD way, we tampered with medications that made me dizzy, unable to sleep, hyper, and led to rheumatoid arthritis.  Some medications only worsened my symptoms.  After being on a medication for a long period of time, its effectiveness stopped.  (This is why I understand their concern regarding over prescribing.) Still my symptoms spiraled out of control and I was unsuccessfully hospitalized for pain.  It took three years after that to discover my IBS.  This entire time the factor that has helped control my symptoms most was my diet.  This was a more natural way to regulate my life that lacked side effects and risks.  Slowly my sisters and I collected recipes that we eventually compiled into a cookbook that follows these restrictions.  

 To get more information visit, www.sensitivetummies.com!

Everyone has heard Halloween horror stories, but none so scarry to my third grade mind as my pork and bean Halloween.  It was the first Halloween; I was diagnosed with GERD and IBS. And I was having a hard time. 

The GERD and IBS diet on regular occasions is very challenging. However, the temptation to “cave in” and eat those delectable goodies is overwhelming when people are dropping candies you have craved for a long time into your Halloween bag. Think about it. Delicious Hershey’s, tantalizing Milky Ways - just dropping into your bag like candies from Heaven.  There is no way to avoid the desire to peel open a rapper and throw an Fun Size in your mouth.  To a third grader this is a giant self-restraint exercise.  In short, at eight years old I had taken the “no chocolate hit” pretty hard.

I pride myself in being an honest kid, so I listened to my mother and didn’t touch the candy.  All night long I watched licorice, Milky Ways, War Heads, and Recess drop into my bag where I knew they would have to stay.  It was pretty much torture.  As we walked away from each stoop my friends and sisters would reach into the pillowcases and pop candy into their mouths. I drooled with desire as their mouths puckered from sour candy or they laughed exposing their chocolate brown teeth.   

I was losing it.  More and More I hated Halloween and Trick or Treating.  I thought about waiting at the end of the sidewalk.  I couldn’t eat the candy anyway. Why bother? I was convinced that I was miserable. 

There may have been one person in the neighborhood who was having a worse night than me.  Our neighbor had always been one of those people who gets very nervous over little things.  She had run clean out of candy but did not want to close down her house.  She searche her cubboard frantically something to give the rmasses of little kids with extended bags and smiling faces. As we approached her front walk, I remember watching the expressions of the faces of children leaving her stoop. Shocked. Confused. Incredulous.

And what was she dropping in the bags of the little ghosters?  Cans of pork and beans. Yep, that’s right. Cans of Pork and Beans. Our neighbor sat in a folding chair under her porch light with a carton of Pork and Beans. With her treat each child’s bag dropped and clanked on the porch. My sisters laughed.  When they laughed, I laughed, and my mood lightened up.  We tried to calm down our neighbor, reassure her that her Halloween treats were ”perfect . . . unique. . . untouchable”. Things worked out.  I learned something very important.  I can still go trick or treating with my problems, and yeah I’m probably not going to be able to eat most of the candies I get, but that won’t make it any less fun!  Besides you never know when there’ll be a great memory made and if your lucky, maybe you’ll get pork and beans too.

As a young kid diagnosed with IBS and attending gradeschool, the bathroom jokes that fueled recess and lunchtime conversations were anything but innocent.  From my own troubles on the toilet seat, I discovered that joking about someone else is never funny.  I was hoping after graduating grade school that more mature high school students would move on to more sophisticated topics.  No such luck.  If you’ve ever been to high school, the maturity level is not much better than grade school.  I was honestly disappointed.

So you must be wondering where I’m going with this.  After all, I’m not blogging so that I can cry my heart and soul to some unseen audience.  No, not at all.  The moral of my little sob story is that scatological humor can actually hurt. 

What happens in the bathroom should stay in the bathroom.  I know everyone out there has experianced the discomfort of some symptoms better left unmentioned.  Whether you’ve been diagnosed with IBS or just had too many chilli dogs on Super Bowl Sunday, you’ve been in that position.  You know how humiliating it can be to leave behind a wafting smell consuming the bathroom.  Trying to escape being caught in “the act”, you rush out of the bathroom as a stranger (or worse, not a stranger) walks in.  They stagger backwards asking that infamous question with the obvious answer, “What is that smell?”  Of course, we all know what it is.  You’re in the bathroom for Pete’s sake, but they don’t spare you the embarressment.  As you half speed-walk / half sprint, with a red face down the hallway away from the evidence, they enter the bathroom making crude comments and laughing at your reaction.  We’ve all been there.  Just thinking about it makes me shudder.

So now, what can we as IBS allies do to confront this growing epidemic of scatalogical jokes that resides in work places, schools, and public restrooms?  After all, the only army we have is probably taking fiber supplements and being forced to drink pear juice.  Seems pretty tough doesn’t it?  Don’t worry, there’s nothing we can’t handle with a little grit and confidence.  Besides I have the perfect plan to combat crudness: 

Step 1: We need to stop laughing at those dumb jokes, especially when they are intended to hurt someone.  We all know how humiliting it can be at one end of the joke.  However, it may  worse to be the insensitive jerk cracking the jokes. 

Step 2: We need to be less hesitant and self conscious.  If you left a smell in the bathroom, don’t feel bad about it.  Why do you think we don’t just “go” in the halls?  That was why they made bathrooms! They are there for an obvisous reason.

Step 3:  You don’t need to claim your stall if someone asks.  Which bathroom you go in is a little personal and you don’t have to give out that information to anybody. I don’t consider that lying, its your ”business”, not theirs.

Step 4: Don’t throw someone else under the bus!  Even if you’re not planning on claiming your stall, don’t lie and blame someone else.  That’s just not fair. 

Keep in mind, what goes around comes around.  We can’t make fun of anybody else. We risk a lot. Because those of us with IBS are usually stuck on the toliet bowl, instead of being in the position to talk,  

Welcome to my blog! When I was in third grade, I was diagnosed with GERD, IBS, and Lacotse Intolerance, but I have had these problems all my life. I am on a very special diet that limits what I eat. My problems affect my life every day. When I was first diagnosed my family ate soup for monthes. Six years ago, my older sister started cooking for me following my restictions. Slowly we figured out how to make my bland diet taste better. We thought it would be good for other kids with these problems to try our recipes.  Then they would not have to go through all of the problems we did. 

My big sister, little sister, and I have collected over one hundred recipes, distributed free samplers, and are in the process of printing the cookbook. This blog is about me and my life, but it is also about you and yours. It is for any kid or adult suffering from any digestive problem. My goal is to help people except their problems and have a good sense of humor about it. I also want people not suffering from these problems to understand them and the problems they go through every day better. I’ve learned a lot from suffering from Gastro problems all my life. It’s made me an expert. If you’re new to the world of vomit and bowl, take a few tips from me. I’m the Gastro Mastro!