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Difficult Foods

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 LK
(@dlkfiretruck)
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1450
 

Wow...how did I miss this thread? I was told to drink plenty of fluids with my meals and between. Regardless of what I eat I get blockages. However, there is a method to the madness and a reason we have teeth. I was so careful in the beginning and would end up in the back of an ambulance with major blockages anyways.  I usually drink a big glass of milk and two glasses of water. I will even do a little wiggle and swish the foods in my stomach to make sure they all mingle and play nicely. This is a new thing I have been doing since my last hosp. stay and have not been in since May I think it was. We do need the fluids to AID digestion. When we eat fibers, they need the fluid so they can absorb it to aid in the process of digestion. The small intestine uses the fluids to soften and break down the foods we eat. The large intestine, which many of us do not have anymore removes the fluids, tightens up the stool and poops out a log. Sorry for the graphic images in your heads. Constipation usually in a normal body happens in the large bowel and the rectum. We with the ileostomy, have a normally runny output. This is normal for us. When we get a blockage it is most often caused by a food that was not broken down enough or made soft enough to not block us up. This is where chewing comes in. We have our molars and our front teeth and some help in between. If a food does not chew down to a small enough piece, it can act as a damn. It will still get into our small intestine, but it can cause troubles a plenty. Since my last blockage, It was found that I have another issue with my gut. It is called pseudo blockages. Basically, my gut just point blank stopped working. It acted like a blockage, felt like a blockage, but there was not one thing in it to block the gut. The pain is just as bad. I searched the internet like you would not believe trying to find how to work with this cranky thing I have to cart around inside of me. I can still get regular blockages with material in it. However, I' m doing my best to avoid that. I always chew my food extremely well, but I pay even more attention to it now.  Now I take longer for every single thing that passes these lovely fake pearly whites! I remember watching my brother down a loaded to the limits hamburger and fries and milkshake in five min. time. I am not sure he chewed every bite that went in his pie hole. I know at one time I thought those hamburgers came out whole on the other side! For our new people questioning what you can eat and what you can not...Welcome to Eric site. He has done a lovely job and I suggest you read and watch anything you can. It may not all stick, but you will know in the future that you can find it here,  please, always make sure your doctor has said you can return to a normal diet before you keep adding foods. When it is time, take it slowly, keep a food journal of everything you eat and aprox. how much. Like...a bowl of soup, 6 soda cracker, a turkey sandwich with lettuce,a pickle slice or five, one or two slices of cheese, and also what you drank with the meal. It will make sense very quickly when you digest these foods and they come into the world all on there own in another form. If you can identify the foods by the size, you need to chew them better. My mom used to tell us kids to chew each bite 20 times. Try it. Count it out. Check out the texture before you swallow. If your front teeth can break it down more let them do it. They like to help and are willing. I eat a lot more foods now that I now about this pseudo thing. I love a whole large dinner plate of salad. Tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers and red or green onions, the long thin ones. The more to the party the better. BUT...I chew them like you would not believe. I also stop eating when Ifeel satisfied. I eat variety of nuts and seeds too. I chew them down to a powder, only identifiable thru smell. I always try to eat a large serving of vegetables. When raising my family we often had two veggies with our meal. If you love corn on or off the cob, maybe try cream corn with a mashed potatoes, corn is unfortunately a very hard veggie to break down and even in  the normal gut, they are visible as corn. Dona said to loose what you have in your mouth if you cannot break it down. This is good advice. When you write down what you have eaten, pay attention to more or less gas in the bag and bloating also. I cook veggies a lot softer then I use to, not to the mush or too soft stage tho. Chewing is an mercerize for the brain too. It lets you know you have eaten something and enjoyed it. I have a few tricks for foods that are hard to break down like the tomatoes skins. Before I cut the tomatoes, I score the skin with a serrated knife in small pieces without cutting too much into the fruit, almost like a spider web look. This is less work to chew but at the same time allowing the flavors to get thru to you tongue and brain.  So, when you prep your foods, think size that you like to eat them in and cut that down and then think size you can break them down to, and give them the help if need be. It takes twenty min. for the brain to tell the stomach it is full. so if you take too long you may need to speed up a bit. Too slow, pick it up. I know I go thru times where i do not now what to eat or make. Watch the TV cooking sows when that happens, the sight of food sometimes makes people hungry. Lots of ideas too. Sorry for the length, blow it up a bit to read it, it is not as hard on the eyes. 

Linda

Linda


   
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