Through the Medical Looking Glass...

Generally speaking, Google is NOT your friend when it comes to health problems. Within 4 clicks you'll be convinced you've got Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma with less than a week to live! But every once in a while, you'll find something that doesn't make your hair instantly burst into flames. That's where I am right now.

After having tummy problems in '96-'97, I was finally properly diagnosed with gallstones and had surgery to remove my gallbladder in Dec. '98. Within a few years, I began to experience some pretty nasty problems that became progressively worse. Abdominal cramping, bloating, excess gas and chronic diarrhea had become a part of my every day life.

I voiced my concerns to my Dr. who took me through a round of IBS meds, ultrasounds, an Upper GI with small bowel follow through all wrapping up with a lovely colonoscopy. Each and every test came back with normal results. At the peak of my symptoms I dropped from a size 18 to a size 4 and had anywhere from 12-24 bouts of diarrhea PER DAY. Tired of banging my head on the wall and paying $30 a pop only to hear "Everything's normal"... I gave up on the Dr.

I was talking about this with a friend on a message board a few days ago and I typed the word "malabsorption", as malnutrition was brought up. The word was underlined in red as if it were either misspelled or not a word. I decided to quickly run to Google just to make sure I wasn't a dumb ass. Little did I know, this was the entrance to my rabbit hole.

The malabsorption link led to a steatorrhea (excessive amounts of fat in the stool) link. The first 2 sentences describing steatorrhea were all too familiar. Further down the page under the heading Possible Biological Causes was having the gallbladder removed in a cholecystectomy. BINGO! We have a winner!!

I finally had a name... and a cause! The next question was obvious "Now what do I do about it?" I couldn't click fast enough. Tumbling further and further down the rabbit hole, each query unearthing more and more piles of information, some relevant and worthy of bookmarking, some not. I read with hungry eyes about things I had never heard of like digestive enzymes and a pill to help the digestive system run more smoothly designed specifically for those who have had gallbladder surgery.

I found that 80% of gallbladder patients will go on to live normal lives without incident. My dad is one of those. The other 20%... that's a different story. Those patients will experience chronic diarrhea most cases will resolve themselves within a few weeks. Then there's a smaller group yet... those rare cases will persist for many years and CAN BE TREATED.

While it may sound nice to have all the fat you eat rush out of your body without being processing, it's really not good for you. There are certain things associated with fat that you need. Fat soluble vitamins like A, D & E not to mention Omega-3's. I learn I'm not getting any of it... no matter how much of it I eat, my body can't digest the fat, so I can't get the good stuff. And the weight loss? Oh yeah. This is good. Weight loss isn't even evident until it gets pretty bad.

This was when my blood began to boil. After all the Dr's appointments, all the tests... They had my medical history right in front of them in black and white! Not a single one of them had connected the dots. For the first time in almost 10 years... I had answers and possible solutions.

I was told about the 80% of patients, I should have been told about the other 20%. I should have been told what to do if I happened to become one of those 20%. I should have been told about that pill. It's only been in existence since 1956 for God sake!

I had my answers. My mind turned to our struggle with trying for a baby and I felt like a light had been flipped on for the first time. If my system is struggling to get enough nutrients just to keep me going, and doing a crap job at that if I do say so myself... there's gotta be NO WAY it would allow another person to ride along for 9 months. How would I sustain it when I can barely sustain myself?

I spent the weekend drinking tons of water, eating an extremely low fat diet and plenty of fruit. My digestive enzymes have arrived and I'm looking forward to taking them. I'm still anxiously waiting for the other bottle of pills to arrive... they've been reviewed as "miracle pills" that other sufferers swear they'll take for the rest of their lives.

So today is the first day. I'm looking forward to being able to say "Everything's normal" and have it finally be true...