Tag: digestive issues | A Banana Peeled

Time to bite the bullet

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

It’s time. I need to go to a doctor and figure out what the fuck is wrong with my digestive system before I devolve in a puddle of indignant goo. A few days ago, I had the worst reaction I’ve had in months, and it was from something I’ve eaten many times before.

Side Note: There is one upside to whatever this hell I’m experiencing. It happens as I’m eating or within ten minutes of consuming the ‘bad’ ingredient. Twenty minutes at the most. So I’m pretty sure what it is each time it happens.

This time, I’m sure it was the skin of the roasted chicken. I’ve had mild issues with it before, and there’s no list of the ingredients. I’m pretty sure there was more of whatever they roasted it in than before, and it ended up with me spending two hours in the bathroom on and off. I figured if I didn’t eat the skin and washed the chicken, it should be fine. Was it? Yes…and no. It didn’t cause me to shit my brains out, but it did cause some uncomfortable bloating in my stomach. so, yeah, it’s off the menu for me from now on.

Have started the reintroduction phase of the FODMAP diet. I’ve been having a hard time with it because I’m afraid to cause more explosions. It’s been nice to not have to run to the bathroom every night and to not feel bloated and queasy. Now, I feel as if I’m deliberately poisoning myself. It’s like when I used to get the allergy test (and no one ever explained it to me. Or allergy shots, come to think of it. I would just sit in the doctor’s lobby every week, feeling miserable because my arm was swollen, and I was hot and feverish) and my entire thigh would swell up. I hated having it done, and I would avoid it for as long as possible.

It’s the same with my diet. I’ve been dragging my feet on adding things back to my diet because why would I do that to myself? I mean, I know why theoretically. It will open up my diet in the long run, blah, blah, blah. But in the short term, it’s going to fucking suck.

Is this my life now?

Posted on November 20, 2019 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Yesterday, I was feeling exhausted for no particular reason. I can’t blame travel as I had been home for a week, and I only crossed one timezone. I had my normal amount of sleep, so it wasn’t that, either. This happens to me from time to time, I have to say. There are days when I inexplicably just want to sleep. Sometimes, it’s because I haven’t slept well in the past few days. Sometimes, it’s because I’m getting sick. In this case, I fear it’s the latter. I was feeling pretty punk all day, and around nine at night, my eyes were closing against my will. Around one in the morning, I was watching the YouTubes, and my eyes were feeling very heavy. Instead of getting up and getting ready for bed, I simply put my laptop on the coffee table, turned on my side, and watched videos into oblivion.

Side note: I have this weird thing when I’m falling asleep as I’m watching videos to go back to the place I was in the video when I fell asleep. I mean, that’s not weird in and of itself, but it’s weird that I do it several times in a row. The kicker is that I don’t remember anything in the video past the first time I fell asleep, It doesn’t matter how many times I rewind (yes, I’m old) so I might as well not do it at all. And yet, I still do it. Why? Who knows?

So. Last night, I conked out while watching the YouTubes. I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, but I couldn’t be assed to get up and properly put myself to bed. Part of the issue is that I actually sleep on the couch instead of my bed, so it’s not as if I was in a different location. But, I didn’t put on my eye mask (which still won’t stay on) or my ear plugs, so it was a weird night of sleep. The biggest actual physical effect was that Shadow seemed extra loud as he was meowing at me this morning.

Side note II: Shadow has been really funny these past few days as I’ve practiced my weapons. He’s been walking alongside of me or in front of me and meowing crossly. I don’t know why as it’s not been an issue in the past. Today, as I was practicing the Cane Form, he started walking next to me. Then, after I was finished and returned to my starting position to try again, he sat down where I had been and started meowing. We had a little conversation as I finished the row. Then, he fucked off for a minute only to return as I practiced the Sabre Form. He sat a safe distance away and trained his eyes on me. I have no idea why he’s so fascinated with me doing my weapons these days. Is he telling me to be careful? Is he worried I’ll hurt myself? Does he see it as a rival? Who knows?

I woke up this morning disconcerted because I didn’t have my usual sleeping gear on. I also didn’t want to get up, and my head was…tense. It’s hard to explain. It’s not pounding or throbbing. It’s just as if there was a band that restricted the blood flow to my brain. And a thumping in my brain that isn’t really thumping. Again, it’s hard to explain, but it’s very distracting, and I knew exactly what it might portend. I’ve been trying not to eat my migraine meds every morning, but I knew if I didn’t today, I would be laid out for the rest of the day. There are days when I can say, “Yeah, it might not be a migraine this time”, and there are days when I know it’s going to be a migraine kind of day.

Sliding doors and my digestive system

Posted on November 18, 2019 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I was reading advice to a woman getting married (on the open weekend thread on Ask A Manager) on how she could keep the costs of the wedding down. Putting aside the fact that I don’t get weddings, no, wait. Let me briefly explain what I mean. I understand the desire to bond and to declare that bond to the world (in theory. I actually don’t understand that, either, but that’s just me. I know it’s me), but I do not understand the stressing over it for a year ahead of time. Well, I understand from a psychological standpoint. It’s what the wedding represents, the start of a new life together, yadda yadda. It’s also the Wedding Industry Complex that has a vested interest in making sure brides (and let’s be clear, it’s aimed at the women) feel inadequate unless they buy all the latest and the greatest useless wedding shit.

Anyway, one gem of advice was, “Booze, food, and music. That’s all guests care about.” While this may be true for most people, it’s not for me. Or rather, let’s break it down word by word. Music is nice, but it’s background for me. Food is important, but it’s difficult to find something to feed me. Dairy free is easy to find. Gluten free, also easy to find. gluten free, dairy free? Yeah, no. As for booze, I don’t drink. At all. It was just a throwaway line on the thread, but it really struck me because I’m tired of being a freak.

I feel weird for mentioning to people that I have dietary restrictions, like I need to apologize for being so difficult. I don’t make a fuss when there’s no food I can eat, and I make sure to bring Kind bars when I’m going to be stuck somewhere that may not be able to feed me.

Side note: I am incredibly lucky for two reasons. One, I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. I can pay for meal delivery if I want or get takeout every day if I so choose. I know this is a privilege, and I don’t take it for granted. The second thing is that there are so many tasty substitutes these days that didn’t exist when I first tried going gluten free, dairy free, sugar free two decades ago. Back then, all the substitutes are made of tapioca and arrowroot. Now, they can be made of anything and everything. There’s a hamburger bun substitute made by Canyon Bakehouse that is fucking fantastic and is my current obsession.

Side note to the side note: Went out with my brother and my nephews for Chinese buffet last night (of course), and I like to joke that when I go out to eat I look like half-vegetarian and half-keto/Atkins. The two things I know I can eat without much problem–veggies and meat. I did eat some octopus that had some kind of breading on it, though. That was a mistake. Since I’ve come home from Philly, my digestive system has been even shittier than usual–no pun intended. I had a gluten-free/dairy-free burrito that I’ve had before, and I spent the next hour in the bathroom. Then on and off for the rest of the night. Was it the burrito? Hell if I know.

My body hates me–and the feeling is mutual

Posted on March 20, 2019 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I hate my body right now. This is not unusual for me as I’ve hated it for most of my life. I was a chubby kid starting when I was seven for many reasons, and my mother put me on my first diet. One of the things I remember her saying from that time was, “You have such a beautiful face if only you weren’t so chubby.” She was a big believer in vegetables and fruits, and she didn’t allow much junk in the house. All of this started me down the road of body shame to the point of body dysmorphia, It also gave me a food hoarder mentality, and I still don’t like to share my food.

Side Note: My mother has had body issues my whole life as well (yes, my life. I don’t know about life before me, obviously, but I suspect it was there from the start). She’s tiny–roughly 5’3″ and petite. She’s been heavier in the past, and she’s always obsessed with losing five pounds. It doesn’t help that she comes from a culture that is even more oppressive about women being fat (Taiwan) than America’s, so it’s something she unthinkingly handed down to me.

It shows up in small ways as well as big ones. Such as her talking about her diet whenever she was on one (which was basically thirty years). It was her policing my food to the point that I didn’t eat fruits and/or vegetables for years in my thirties because I was so pissed off about it. It was tricksy as her adopting the tone of ‘I’m only concerned about your health’ when I confronted her about it. Fortunately, I knew that was bullshit because she never said a word when I was anorexic/bulimic other than to comment jealously how my waist was smaller than hers.

It got so bad, I had to explicitly tell her that she couldn’t talk about my weight (this was when I was at my heaviest). Predictably, that’s when she wanted to make it about my health. Hell, she probably even believed it, but as I noted, she never had a problem with me being dangerously skinny other than to envy me, so it’s never been about my health. It’s been about how she hates having a big fat galoot of a woman for a daughter–except, she can’t handle having a too-small woman as her daughter, either. I don’t know what ‘just right’ would have been, but I suspect she didn’t know, either. It wasn’t about me, you see–it was about her.

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