You win stomach, you win.

I've been doing pretty well on my Lenten resolutions. Haven't looked at the scale since Wednesday, and even though I visited Robbie in North Carolina over the weekend, I kept fairly active. Besides running through the airports with a 30 lbs bag on my shoulder, we went hiking on Sunday and painted on Friday and select other vigorous activities that I'm sure I got my 30 minutes in each day.

I didn't log calories or pay attention to what I ate while I was there, and maybe last night was punishment for that, but my stomach problems came back in a whirlwind last night. Sometimes I think it's dairy. Sometimes I think it's acidic foods. Sometimes I think it's gluten. So all in all, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS CAUSING MY PROBLEM. After last night, I decided to call the GI specialist this morning and set up an appointment. While I'm scared to go and I don't want to pay for it, I'm really hoping they will just be able to run some tests and tell me what the issue is. I would like things to go back to normal.

Hopefully after Thursday, I'll either have an answer or have an appointment to find the answer. Wish me luck!

Healthy Makes You Sick?

As I've mentioned before, I had serious stomach issues over Winter break. I went to two doctors back home in Indiana, and both told me it was probably gastritis or IBS. The second doctor, my parent's physician, prescribed taking Prilosec every day to keep the acid at bay, but there was really nothing he could do about. I'm not one to take pills every day to dull the problem, but when I don't take the pills, it's literally hell.

Basically, my parent's doctor told me to try Prilosec for two weeks and if the symptoms came back, to call him. Well, I did and they did. I called him again, and since I am in Denver now, he told me to start a 2 month regimen of Prilosec, but if things didn't get completely better in a week or so, to go see a doctor here.

Well, again, they didn't, so I made an appointment to see the Wellness Center doctor here at DU. Basically, she said the same things the other two doctors did. She did take more time to explain things to me and printed me off sheets to explain both diseases. She listed some foods that I should avoid because they can cause more acid to build up in the stomach, and here is where my title comes from. She told me to not drink alcohol (psh!), eat chocolate (uhm...), raw vegetables particularly tomatoes, green peppers and onions, go easy on the dairy and the caffeine and the spicy foods, and perhaps try avoiding gluten. WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT!? I am a goddamn vegetarian--you just took out my whole diet there princess. This started making me wonder if becoming a vegetarian is what caused this problem in the first place; eating healthy foods causes too much acid and apparently my stomach can't handle that. EFF.

The doctor at the Wellness Center did give me a referral to a GI specialist if I decided to actually have things checked out. She said since the Prilosec helps, it probably means it is nothing too serious, but just in case. I am going to give it a few weeks, TRYING to avoid the problem foods (even though Valentines was filled with wine, chocolate and tomatos...) and then decide if I want to go to a doctor and have them stick a camera tube down my throat. Ugh. It's just annoying that there isn't a solution and I just have to deal with this--I'm 23; that's a lot of years of Prilosec in my future.

Good news is that the Wellness Center can get me Prilosec FOR FREE instead of $50 for a 2 month supply. That's a good thing to know.

Anyways, send good thoughts to my stomach.