Hi Folks, I've just made a discovery that I think is worth sharing. It sure surprised me. A bit of history; I have a history of constipation that finally resulted in a perforated bowel and emergency colostomy. Constipation continued to be a problem so six months ago they gave me an ileostomy hoping that would solve the problem. I continued to have problems with slow output, so the hospital and ostomy nurses suggested I drink fruit juice, or any sugary drink really, and mix up a big bottle of water with some sugar and a bit of salt added. I was drinking that throughout the day, along with the fruit juice. This is way more sugar than I was used to consuming and although it did solve my bowel problems, I really felt terrible, sluggish, irritable. I was sleeping poorly and gaining weight. I decided to stop the sugar and just resign myself to taking PEG, which is a laxative I had depended on for decades. My doctor was on board and decided to run some blood tests as he said excess sugar can cause problems. It turns out my liver enzymes were quite elevated. My GGT was twice what is considered "high normal" and my bilirubin was also elevated. This is just from sugar! I was shocked. I've done some research and it turns out sugar in our diets is the main culprit in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. My doctor sent me for an ultrasound and my liver is normal thankfully. I stopped the sugar before any real damage was done. I know we always hear that sugar is bad for you, the whole "white death" thing. Well, I've just discovered how true that is. The weird but wonderful part of this is that I am now functioning well bowel-wise without the sugar and without any laxative. It's been suggested that it just took a while for my system to adjust after the surgery. I did start taking a supplement that is supposed to be a pre, pro and post-biotic, so maybe that is making a difference. Whatever it is, I am having normal unassisted bowel function for the first time in many decades. The ileostomy has improved my quality of life and I am so thankful. I always have had a bit of a sweet tooth though, so I need to work on curbing that. I hope I can still get away with a little dark chocolate! Terry Wow! That's pretty interesting all around! I'm glad to hear you finally got the results you *needed with your ileostomy. Long term constipation over long periods of time is just awful to deal with. I found it very interesting that your liver reacted badly to the extra sugar. Scarey really. I was diagnosed with fatty liver years ago & figured it was from packing around so much....stool, lol, for as long as I did before my surgery. I find it encouraging that it was reversed. Maybe it's time for a recheck since I managed to successfully reverse a type 2 Diabetic diagnoses by diet. Thank you for posting this! Linda That is eye-opening indeed. Thank you for sharing that. I've never been a fan of sugar myself, in fact, all of the non-dairy milk we have in the house is unsweetened and none of the cereals that we get have added sugar. I also tend to use a non-sugar sweetener in things like coffee. I think the problem that most people have with sugar is that they treated as the main ingredient rather than a condiment. If we treated sugar the same way we treated salt, a dash here and a sprinkle there, there wouldn't be as many problems as there are currently. But some of the high sugar snacks and drinks that I've seen have a ludicrous amount of sugar, like the amount that I might have an entire year. It makes me wonder just how much damage people are doing to themselves without even realizing it. I hope your health returns to normal soon oh, this is certainly a lesson learned and I think it's good for everyone to hear. Just your friendly neighborhood ostomate. I hope I can still get away with a little dark chocolate! Terry I find a couple of squares of dark 74% chocolate with a lower sugar content (Lidl fin carre - fairtrade) seems to help my stoma release gas and relax a little! Higher sugar content and or lower cocoa mass does work the same? Don't ask how or why, so far no one can come up with a suitable explanations other that its seems to work?? bit of luck on my part LOL Colostomy Jan 2020 @veganostomyHi Eric, Yes, I thought this was important to share. We always hear about the evils of sugar, but I, like many I'm sure, never took it that seriously. I remember I used to worry way more about the fat in my diet than the sugar. Now I know that "good" fat is fine, and sugar is every bit as bad as they say it is. The problem is it's pretty difficult to stay away from it. If you start reading labels, you realize they put sugar in almost everything these days. It drives me nuts! You really have to look hard to find things without added sugar. My doctor says my liver enzymes will probably return to normal within a month, so I'll be fine. I sure feel better since stopping the sugar. Sometimes we need to learn things the hard way right? Terry
~ Crohn's Disease ¦ Ileostomy ~
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