digestive issues - considering liquid diet

Hi Everyone

I just got over a virus over a week ago and ever since my digestion seems to be even worse than normal.

Now every time I eat I get heart palpitations every single time and a lot of pain in my chest. I think it could be my oesophagus is moving worse than normal and possibly my hiatal hernia has worsened. I don't know. But whatever it is I am really not enjoying eating anything. Also eating keeps triggering bowel movements on me as well. I think I need to see my doctor about it as it is worrying me now as I've not noticed any improvement. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with my recent med changes to amitriptyline and baclofen.

This is getting ridiculous for me... so I'm considering just doing a liquid diet to see if there is any improvement. I have optifast in my pantry but not keen on it because it has aspartame in it. I'm sitting here with bladder spasms today too (don't have artificial sweeteners usually because of that). But I'm thinking I may have to resort to using that and monitoring. But eating is basically causing me a lot of pain no matter what I eat. It feels like I have too much air trapped in my oesophagus and the food is in competition with it trying to get down (my best description with what is probably happening). I also need to lose weight from the sudden gain I've had from increasing baclofen.

Has anyone had a lot of success with a liquid diet for digestive issues? Eg. have you had really good BGL control on it with insulin?

well I had to call for help as BP won't go lower than 159/98 and been as high as 200/113... heart rate won't go under 100 either and high as 122. So called our health direct people here (a nurse that answers calls) and was told I need to see a GP within 6 hours. Well it's Easter Sunday here so I called our after hours service and they said between 4-7pm they could attend which is still a few hours away for me.

@urbanracer - Thanks for asking. Initially I phoned for an after-hours GP and they came out to me and checked my BP and it was 198/121. After they discussed with me my symptoms and heard my BP had been fluctuating on the high side for most of the day they insisted I had to get to ER right away. I then spent 5 hours at ER and they did tests and a chest x-ray on me. They said I had tachycardia and hypertension but not severe enough for them to give me drugs to treat it (they only do that when systolic is over 200 or something). But they just monitored me. But then the doc was telling my by chest x-ray showed I have a wider or larger heart than normal. I'm not sure what that means... will have to investigate. But she said she strongly recommends I get some heart test to check how it functions. I have to see my GP Tues or Wed she said. She said she could also see my oesophagus looked wider than normal as well so she said she understands what I explained re: trapped air as she said that is what it looked like.

I'm just going to rest up today after getting home after 1 am.

urbanracer said:

Wow, interesting day. Good idea to rest up!!
Let us know how things work out.

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Also forgot to add that they found I had ketones in my urine so I basically had the doc insisting I had to eat as soon as I got home from ER and she wanted to know what I was going to eat and that I would also take the rest of my meds. She commented that I don't want to wind up back in ER in reference to the ketones they found. So I did what she said and considering I'm having trouble eating she recommended I eat soggy weetbix which I did. It took me a while to settle down as my body isn't really liking food too much right now.

Galja said:

Glad to hear you are OK

For the BP, try this form of Yoga breathing

1. Take as much air as you can through your nose as quickly as possible
2. Blow out breath forcefully through your mouth while making vowel sounds after H. ex. one breath uses HA, next breath out uses E, etc.

Do this while sitting back in a comfy chair with your eyes closed for a few minutes. You should notice your oxigenation increasing. You can even test this on an O2 meter if you have one.

Follow this with several minutes of just in through the nose and out through the mouth.

After 10-15 minutes, retest BP

Drink water that is not too cold, not too hot

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Thanks

I can do all but the talking part... need to rest my voice today after all the talking I had to do at ER. My throat is throbbing.

Sounds good though.

thanks ladies .... I already take probiotics and they don't do much for me. I think it's got more to do with my chronic conditions than an easy fix. I will be seeing my GP this week to check what I need to be doing. I just looked up why my heart could be larger and I have 2 of the possible reasons according to what Mayo Clinic says... firstly I had an iron infusion late last year that took my iron level over the max limit you should have (they decided to give me the full 1000mg of iron because I was so low). Then I also have hypertension which I've had since being diagnosed with diabetes... only mild usually but when I get sick with anything it can go quite high which is what is happening to me this weekend. Both of those things apparently can cause an enlarged heart. But then I don't know if this ER doc was looking at things incorrectly... I would prefer to see a report from the radiologist. I have to use gastro stops for the diarrhoea. I do get that with my IBS but not that bad like it has been this weekend.

Mike D said:

If you spent 5 hours in ER, why could they not do those tests then and there?

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I'm not sure? I'd imagine it is because they don't have that test available at the hospital I went to. It wasn't a test I've heard of before. It sounded like a test that a cardiologist would do. I think we only have a couple of hospitals here with cardiology units and I'm not sure the one I went to had one as it's a brand new hospital. I could be wrong, but that's my best guess. I'm sure if they could do the test they would've done it rather than tell me they strongly recommend I get the test done.

Snapsy said:

Hi @Mep , glad to have read your update - sorry for what you're going through.

Suggestion re throat - I don't know if you're okay with artificial sweeteners, but a teaspoon of sugar free jelly crystals (open up a sachet and just use a spoonful each time) made up into a hot drink in a mug with boiling water then left to cool a little is incredibly soothing.

If you're not good with sweetener and flavourings there's always plain gelatine - but it's likely to not taste all that nice!

I have 'hot jelly' whenever I get a sore throat. I have a chest infection at the moment (took my last antibiotic today of a 7 day course this morning - it would be lovely if I felt even one shade better yet but I don't) and my throat has got very sore with all the coughing!

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Thanks

I have 2 voice disorders so not just a sore throat that goes away I'm afraid. One of the conditions is reflux laryngitis which means I live with an inflamed throat all the time. They can't fix it because they can't figure out how to fix all my other chronic digestive problems which affect my throat. Also I can't have artificial sweeteners as they they upset my bladder condition.

I'm glad this works for your sore throats though.

Snapsy said:

No worries - just a thought, @Mep - as I was writing the post I suddenly remembered that I'd read that you couldn't have artificial sweetener. I'm sorry about that!

It's just that when you'd said how all the talking at the hospital had made your throat throb that I thought 'aha!' For the record there's a downside to jelly treatment - I'm getting rather sick of the raspberry flavour now........! (I use that one as medicine but the strawberry one as actual food.)

Hope you have a good day and a decent rest after all the to-ing and fro-ing yesterday.

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Thanks @Snapsy - yes resting up today. The only thing I've done really is make my bed and do a little bit of crochet. I'm currently watching some Downton Abbey. I've work tomorrow, so hopefully will have rested enough.

I like how I go to ER and they ask me it seems too many times who my GP is and they repeat his name back to me several times, then I get told I have to see your GP within days and why. The only problem with that is they seem to have lost my GP name on their system and haven't bothered to send him the results of the tests they did on me. They tried to give me the run-around today by saying I had to ask my doc to send through a request for information on fax... and I said no, you haven't done the job you're supposed to do in the first place so here's my doc's fax number and send him the results yourself thanks. At least I know how to stand up for myself. lol. They probably expected me to do as I was told. Just as well I made an appointment for later than they told me too... what a waste of time that would've been sitting there trying to discuss medical stuff my doc knows nothing about because he doesn't have the results. Just as well I thought to check on this too... goodness being sick means you have to be a secretary as well.

well the latest is I've just seen my GP today in regard to my easter ER visit. My GP said my chest x-ray showed an enlarged heart and oesophagus. He already knows about the oesophagus as do I, so the heart was new. My GP explained it depends how deeply I breathed in the x-ray as to how true the x-ray is about my heart size. He said a lot of them he sees are false alarms, but he is taking it seriously though and I need to get an echocardiogram done to rule out heart disease. My urine test result from the ER showed very high mixed bacterial growth which my doctor was not happy to see at all. My doc explained that my symptoms resembled that I'm bordering getting a kidney infection as high BP is a sign the kidneys aren't coping too well. So he wants me to start cephalexin immediately and see if I feel any better in a few days. I had another nasty episode of this thing this morning where my heart rate and BP were elevated and I was running to the toilet with diarrhoea. I had to wind up coming home from work as just couldn't even concentrate and felt not well at all. Just as well I already had a doc appointment to get a med cert. So I will see where to next after this echocardiogram is done I suppose. I'm hoping also my GP is right about the UTI and I start feeling better than I have been for the past couple of weeks.