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Normal people have digestive systems that propel the food being digested by both gravity and contractions of the gut. The contractions are normally controlled by the nervous system but some substances will cause cramping and violent contractions resulting in diarrhea. Gastric neuropathy leads to a heightened sensitivity to chemical irritants. Normally harmless substances like cabbage, apples or gummi bears can cause such cramping and diarrhea to go on for several days at a time.
I was diagnosed with diabetic gastric neuropathy after a prolonged bout of diarrhea, several weeks in duration, that I eventually learned was due to having consumed broccoli, a member of the cabbage family. At the time, I was already avoiding apples because, I learned, the sorbitol they contain is a mild laxative that, for sufferers like me, becomes a very strong laxative. That is the same substance that makes gummi bears so harmful.
Any green fruit becomes dangerous, although ripe fruits are frequently harmless. But how can we tell if fruit isn't ripe? The people who sell it to us and their suppliers pick many fruits green and treat it to appear ripe. Like green fruit, uncooked vegetable often contain irritants (but cooking doesn't always make them safer).
When I learned of my problem I was eating a high-fiber breakfast almost every day. They say a high-fiber diet is good for you. Food fiber, however, can cause irritation. My formerly healthy diet was a hazard to my health.
Many doctors don't recognize diabetic gastric neuropathy as such but do recognize one of its side effects, the delayed emptying of the stomach. This upsets my control of high blood sugars. If foods are kept in the stomach for long periods before being released for digestion, the high blood sugar spike is delayed and the insulin I take comes too early to prevent it. My blood sugar is out of control. Big meals aggravate the problem.
Neuropathy, the death of nerves, has another problem associated with it, the memory of the nerves that were there. Phantom pain results. Even when I have nothing actively wrong, the ghosts of dead nerves bring me pain.
Like many other chronic conditions, neuropathy gets worse with the passage of time. I'm now up to having diarrhea two or three days each week despite maintaining a diet designed to prevent it. That's roughly a third of my life spent in misery.
- Mood:
distressed
The result of the latest culture the doctor ran on the open ulcer on my left foot shows that the bacteria present are those that would be there on any open wound. It's pointless to kill them off because they'll just come back anyway and aren't the cause of continuing infection. The doctor decided to stop all antibiotic treatments including the ointment I've been applying for the past few months.
Instead, he wants me to apply salt.
He did apply a white cream while I was in his office. It burned for about five hours. Is that a good sign, a sign it's doing something useful?
Anyway, I've been instructed to boil up a small amount of water, an ounce or so, with more salt than will dissolve, let it cool slightly, dip a gauze pad in it and place the pad over the ulcer until it dries or falls off. I'm supposed to torture myself this way twice daily.
It smarts.
The first pad hurt more than the white cream had but the pain started to diminish shortly after I removed the pad. I had managed to keep the pad in place for over two hours but it never dried up. It simply vanished. Subsequent pads bothered me less and less. The wound is drying up and the swelling is diminishing.
Change is good; it tells us that something is happening. For example, the change in the pain produced by this treatment offers hope that the wound will finally heal after half a year.
Still, I can't help thinking it's like rubbing salt in an open wound.
- Mood:
blah
