Dumping Syndrome!

Sep 15, 2009


Dumping Syndrome pre AND post op

"Here is a trick to improve your digestion 
and help you eat less food, 
if you tend to overeat. 
Chew your food until it is liquid
in your mouth before swallowing. 
Digestion starts with the enzymes in the mouth, 
so the more you mix the food with saliva, 
and the more you break down the food 
with your teeth, 
the less work your stomach 
and digestive tract has to do...

...If you have 
any digestion issues, 
this can make 
a big difference.
...This will also slow down your meals, 
giving you the opportunity 
to enjoy the taste of the food, 
and may help you eat less, 
because you will feel satisfied 
before you have gulped down 
huge amounts of food... 
 
...It takes a while for the satiety center 
to send out the message 
that you have eaten enough, 
so if you eat quickly it is easy to eat too much 
before you get the signal. 
Then you suffer by feeling stuffed." - from Paul Chek's   "How to Eat Move and Be Healthy" 
Gastric Bypass patients can suffer from something called "dumping syndrome" if we eat too much or too fast or eat something we cannot tolerate (click here) but I remember suffering from dumping syndrome
BEFORE THE SURGERY.
Yep.
My binge eating was that bad.

Usually the symptoms of dumping syndrome are nausea, vomitting or pain.
A lesser discussed symptom is a racing heart beat.
I suffered all three BEFORE I ever had surgery.

The amount of food I ate before I had surgery was obscene.
I'd eat
whole pizzas washed down with diet soda,
boxes of Entemann's cakes,
tubs of onion dip with two bags of chips,
multiple value meals from the drive thru,
just an inhuman amount of food.

The aftermath was awful.
Pain, nausea,
dizzyness and the all too familiar rapid heart beat.

My heart would be so hard and so fast I thought I'd have a heart attack.
The over stuffed sensation was paralyzing.
There were times when I felt so sick I would pray to die.
I'd tell myself: Never again.
I'd pray to God that I'd never do it to myself again if only he'd get me out of the pain and slow down my heart.

This would happen one or more times per day.
That's why I looked for a drastic solution: weight loss surgery.

Getting the bypass bought me enough time to get on the path to wellness.
I'm very close to being completely well
but an old symptom still remains.

The oh-my-God-I-want-to-die feeling and rapid heart rate that comes with post-op dumping syndrome.
It doesn't necessarily take a lot of food to make it happen.
I dumped yesterday when I ate two tablespoons of peanut butter.

That's what happens if I wait too long to eat.
Hey, sometimes I'm just not hungry.
I'll go about my business with an empty stomach.
Then suddenly the ravenous hunger hits.
I panic.
I eat too much too fast and whammo!
I'm down on the sofa feeling like my heart will beat itself to death.

The peanut butter was lovely, made by hand crank on an Amish farm, as organic as can be, and fresh!
But peanut butter is a very dense food.
It takes a lot to break it down during digestion.
I SHOULD have eaten it very slowly and chew chew chewed it!
I didn't.
Instead I gulped it down, chasing it with cold milk.

Holy crap.
I thought I would die.
My heart was hammering at a shocking rate.
I could feel it beating in my ears.
I uttered the familiar words: Never again.
Never ever ever again.

When I eat I have to tell myself to slow down and chew!

That's not just a recommendation for bypassed folks.
We all need to chew our food.

Many of the digestive disorders people suffer from come from improperly chewed food entering our guts too fast.
Ever watch the average person at lunch time?
Gulp gulp then wash it down with something.
We're a nation of dumpers!

We gulp down big bites of food on the run and wash it down with soda or Snapple or some other drink.

That's what I used to do.
I paid the price in many ways for my hasty eating.
Now I know better but sometimes I still need to remind myself that digestion begins in the mouth.

If we want to get well we need to stop gulping and slurping and become a nation of chewers!

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Paul Chek tells us to chew our food down to a liquid.
Digestion begins in the mouth.
AND chewing our food lets our bodies imprint the food with our chi.
He's an expert and he's in phenomenal shape.
I believe him!
click here or click below

0 Comments

About Me
Clifton, NJ
Location
44.2
BMI
RNY
Surgery
08/16/2006
Surgery Date
Oct 21, 2002
Member Since

Friends 20

Latest Blog 7
Compulsive OverEater
Eating Like a Queen
The Skinny - the Blog

×