Hi,
I firmly believe in pushing the envelope, not sitting back and trusting everyone else to fix my problems. Proactive and not reactive as far as I'm concerned. I have a vested interest to do better.
My typical day starts at 6 am with a cup of tea, a splash of slim milk ( looks like shoe whitening!) and a few grains of stevia, feed my cat with more than I can eat! Take my prescription multivitamin.
10am a cup of tea.
around midday either 2 boiled eggs or 2 slices of wholemeal bread plastic butter and a slice of wafer thin ham and maybe a gingernut biscuit, find they help settle the stomach
4pm a cup of tea and the gingernut again.
5;30 pm time for the gut meds and at 6pm there is a choice. The ham sandwich or a chicken tender on bread or in the weekend grilled chicken with very small portion of peas, carrots and a spoon full of sweet potato, no gravy but a dollop or real butter. or as the potato is small potato on my butter! If I'm adventuresome it could be half a chicken kiev. Usually followed up with the good old cup of tea.
9;30 pm a cup of tea and gingernut.
As the hunger pangs are always present I can have two slices of wholegrain low cal bread toasted with plastic butter anytime during the day but no usual. It takes me 3 weeks to finish a loaf.
I have to balance the amount I ingest incase I decide to have something cooked for evening meal. Last night I made salmond fritters with a small amount of leftover potato and veg in it. 5 2.5 inch patties with salt on and 2 slices of wholemeal bread and the plastic stuff on. Wham the mouth started getting, sticky the forerunner to acid spilling into the mouth and stripping the lips. Downed a spoon of Acidex, same as gaviscon but free on script. Doesn't usually work but it did this time as I got on to it immediately. I will have to reduce the amount of patties I eat in future.
Finally creeping into bed around midnight.
I'm starting to notice the amount of food I'm able to eat is slowly reducing, I hope it is not permanent.
If I vary the amount of food then I have to reduce something so the total amount for the day is doable.
If I ignore the restrictions and push caution to the wind I can push myself into a state of SIBO which has become a recurring problem as hunger can out weights my reality reality. I keep antibiotics on hand for such event now. I take meds for the stomach and laxative but the stomach meds do nothing for the stomach but they do help in emptying the bladder. Two months ago I discontinued my insulin and BP meds for the sake of feeling better and I do generally. One thing I have learnt is I can tolerate a lot and always manage to rebound regardless. Died once as a child and came close again with campylobacter which has highlighted my symptoms 13 years ago. I have always had sugar hits knowing it was likely diabetes, family history and from time to time had stomach problems. Extreme cholesterol and blood pressure but it left me alone so I left it alone. In hindsight what a fool I was to believe the Dr's back then that it was OK. Now I pay the price for stupidity.
The curious problem I have it matters not what time I go to bed I will always be up on average 5 hour later.
I understand Dysautonomia can do this but I have a lifetime of this pre-existing. When I lived in Detroit I used to go to work around 3am and shut up shop at 6pm, on occasions working around the clock. The power of commision work!
I have spent 13 years wondering what is wrong with me, finally getting to the point of almost believing everyone else, it is psychological, only to find this is what dysautonomia can do to you, anxiety, depression and brain freeze. The big problem I have is I don't look my age , look good on the outside and am reasonable fit able to out work anyone my age, therefore I must be good to those seeing me. Little do they know or understand the reality of my life and I find it is easier to leave it that way than go through all the ins and outs, over and over again. It's bad enough having to go through this with every Dr I run up against, educating them on Dysautonomia.
Despite my problems there are people worse off than me, so that tells me I can do this if they can, so why not try.
Cheers