Adventures with Gastroparesis

Do NOT be deceived by the delicious looking green apple above!  It looks so healthy and yummy, which it was.  However, this little gem brought on some of the worst muscle spasms that I have ever experienced.

It all started after the holidays.  THANKFULLY, I was able to enjoy the holidays relative Gastroparesis symptom free.  Of course there was the occasional discomfort, bloating, and all of that fun stuff.  But on a general whole, it wasn’t that bad.  I knew that I was eating things that I shouldn’t and really wanted to get back to a strict gluten-free/refined sugar-free diet.  Researching this type of diet led me to the 21 Day Sugar Detox.

I purchased the book and the cookbook, knowing that I would need more recipes to pick from due to the already known food limitations with Gastroparesis.  I spent an entire Saturday mapping out the Gastroparesis adjusted meal plan for 21 days, the shopping lists for each week, as well as the shopping list for the pantry.  Then my ever so patient and supportive fiance and I made up a spreadsheet and priced out the food and pantry items at all of our local grocery stores.  (Yes, I am a HUGE spreadsheet nerd.)  We knew that completely overhauling our diet was going to be expensive so we wanted to save money everywhere that we could.  We found deals on Amazon for pantry items, got the pantry stocked, and shopped for week 1.

The only allowed fruits during the 21 days are bananas which about send me to the emergency room (if they could actually do anything, then maybe I would go), grapefruit which has sketchy results with me, and those lovely green apples.  I eat red apples all of the time, so these will be fine, RIGHT?

Well…the first week’s worth of recipes called for a total of 20 green apples.  Since I’m splitting half of the food with my fiance then that means 10 green apples for me.  Day 1 came along with the ever so wonderful Polar Vortex and about a 30 degree drop in temperature.  Of course I tanked and was in a lot of pain, it’s the Polar Vortex RIGHT?  Day 2 came along, I force feed myself to keep my nutrition up but the pain is getting significantly worse, it’s the Polar Vortex RIGHT?  Day 3 came along, I started to feel a little bit better and powered my way through work.  Even though at one point I had my head down on my desk clutching my stomach.  Then Day 4 came along, and I felt muscle spasms like I had never felt before.  It was truly awful.  I thought about going to the emergency room, but as all GPers know there isn’t a whole lot they can do for us.  Then on Day 5, I was screaming in pain.  I tried my dear friend the heating pad, I tried hot baths, my dog tried doggie kisses, nothing was working.  The Polar Vortex was long gone by this point so we were knew it had to be something we were eating.  I have had all of the ingredients before.  Everything is all natural, no chemicals, and uber healthy so what the heck could it be.  Then my fiance realized that on Wednesday, the one glimmer of light day, we had very few apples.  He thought it had to be the green apples it was the only thing different.  Which is crazy since red apples go fine.  We started to eliminate the green apples and I slowly started to feel better.  Within a week I was back to lifting kettlebells and going to spin glass.

So now when I look at green apples this is what I see:

But when I eat the apple, I don’t go into a nice slumber while a bunch of woodland creatures clean my house.  I go into a torture pit of the 7 Gastroparesis Elves mining away at my stomach while working overtime.

At least I have my prince charming to wake me up, but I assure you that I do NOT look like Snow White.  (Unless she was blown around in a tornado!)

~Millie