New Perspective from Painful Lesson

A week ago I celebrated my husband's birthday in a local restaurant, which is a rare event, because I have celiac disease and 6 other food allergies. However, I had determined I would enjoy an allergen safe meal and treat him to a special dinner. I hate sitting in a restaurant with nothing except cold water on a winter night while waiting for the meal. So I ordered a glass of wine. Actually I sampled 2 different kinds of wine before I chose the sweeter wine. Alcohol relaxes my lower esophageal valve, which causes reflux. I seldom drink because I take betaine hydrochloride to enable me to digest proteins. I have very low stomach acid, possibly due to age, more likely due to misdiagnosis (of CD) and mis-treatment with acid blockers for too many years. I also become more sensitive to alcohol the longer I abstain. I rationalized that I would drink only one glass with food. So I didn't think I would react so badly. (I forgot that I reacted very badly to one glass with food about 6 weeks ago.) Unfortunately, I sampled the 2 wines WITHOUT food before the meal. My husband drank part of my ordered glass. So I probably consumed only one total glass. After the meal I felt a little tipsy, but very tired. So I went to bed early.

The next morning I felt a little nauseous, very tired and headachey. So I ate a bland breakfast, took Tylenol and finished a pot of decaf coffee (which is a lot for me). Mid morning I felt VERY nauseous and eventually threw up. I thought that was that, but I threw up later in the day. A few hours later I ate what I thought was a bland dinner, but as the evening progressed I felt more nauseous and extreme acid reflux. Over 2 hours later I could resist no longer and threw up again. Even after drinking lots of cool water, my throat burned with acid reflux off and on all night. I slept very little. I felt very scared about what was happening to my body.

During one of my sleepless moments I decided to get up and turn on my computer. Something led me to look at the ThinWithin website, although I had been inactive for several years after my celiac and food allergy diagnoses. Perhaps I realized I felt totally out of control. No matter what I had previously done to stay healthy, I made a few wrong choices during the past 24 hours and now suffered the consequences of those choices. I felt guilty about those choices and ashamed because I believed I should have known better. Although I had forgotten how much ThinWithin had taught me about God's grace, I desperately needed His presence, power and provision during those scarey moments.

The next morning I continued to reflux after eating very little. However I was determined to resist throwing up. I also skimmed my copy of "Why Stomach Acid is Good for You" to review which foods relaxed the lower esophageal valve and allowed stomach acid to reflux. I took much less betaine hydrochloride with meals that day, but I feared completely abstaining would cause even more malabsorption problems. I also attempted to register for the ThinWithin community message board. After I couldn't successfully register online, I later called their customer service number and spoke at length to a very caring director who updated me about all the great improvements at ThinWithin.

After 2 days of chronic reflux, sipping lots of cool water to control reflux, eating small, bland meals, while constantly fearing reflux and/or uncontrollable vomiting, and much prayer, I decided to abstain from HCl but take a digestive enzyme with lunch. I had almost no reflux after that meal and my throat began to heal. By dinnertime I could take a little HCL and digest some protein without much reflux. I felt soooo grateful that I could finally digest some food without refluxing or vomiting.

That experience changed my thoughts from wondering whether I should cut back my consumption before Thanksgiving to avoid weight gain during the holiday cooking and feasting to wondering whether I could eat anything without reflux or extreme nausea to finally feeling grateful for normal (for me, anyway) digestion. I did suffer some malabsorption symptoms (like mouth ulcers, fatigue, irregularity) during the next few days, because I had severely limited or even abstained from HCl which I need to properly digest proteins, absorb iron, magnesium and process fats. However, I knew that resuming proper amounts of HCl would eventually resolve those symptoms. Above all, I anticipated and enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with a healthier digestive system. I also learned to avoid foods and/or beverages which relax the lower esophageal valve and irritate the esophagus. Most importantly, I understood that I need God's guidance and grace to relearn how to maintain a comfortable, healthy body, the temple of His Holy Spirit.

I'm uncertain at this point how active (if at all) I want to become with ThinWithin. My situation is very different from most posting members. I did notice some confusion about food allergies, which I could help resolve. However, I don't need or want to lose weight. I only want to review ThinWithin principles which taught me to honor my body with how, when and what I ate. I recently scanned my old TW workbooks. I also reread some of the TW book, which I taught as a TW support group leader 4 years ago. However, I'm in a different place now, emotionally and physically, from where I was 4 years ago. Since then, I healed considerably emotionally and physically, but I now need even more spiritual healing.