Indigestion hell - what is this?

[PieMinister]

Anyone have problem with their stomach? I am so sick of these weird turns I get, where I am dead tired, have nasty throbby or sharp headaches that can't be shifted, and turns of the runs following slight constipation.

I used to find Pepto Bismol good, but can't get any at the moment and Gaviscon is useless. Doctor tested for beginnings of a stomach ulcer - not that. Nutritionist recommended digestive enzymes, which helped a tiny bit, as did loads of sessions of acupuncture.

It is obviously triggered by stuff, but I find it very, very difficult to work out what - sometimes it seems to be dehydration, other times stress, or lack of sleep, but it is never predictable. Oddly, the only thing that seems to help is very, very salty stodgy food - pie and chips, can you believe?

Sigh. It is such a minor thing, I should be able to live with it. But it totally saps my will to live when I can't shift it for weeks and weeks - I have had it pretty permanently for about three weeks now. Has anyone had similar and got to the bottom of it? I endlessly Google indigestion but never seem to find answers that fit what I am experiencing...

sorry, rant over...

hi nightcat!
At this rate I'm going to end up with a fan club, my last input on a nutritional thread got me a few "fans" as well!

Keratosis pilaris is also linked to vitamin deficiency. My boss used to say it was vitamin C, but checking on the internet now it appears that it is commonly linked with vitamin A deficiency, with a minor link to vitamin B3. Not that clear cut then! However, I would say that since a deficiency of essential fatty acids is also linked to KP, which you are already addressing, that Vitamin A would be a good contender (as it is fat soluble).

Your point about the multisupplements is true up to a point - a good multi will have the various components in an appropriate ratio to prevent competition for absorption - is mostly minerals rather than vitamins that compete for absorption anyway.

So - increase vitamin A (carefully! overdoing this is very dangerous, especially in pregnancy) and see if it has any added benefit. If not, try increasing Bcomplex and C as well - sometimes the same condition has a different cause.

oh thumbwitch, please adopt me :)
yes, we do B complex, not megadoses, just occasionally, the interesting thing is that kp seem to have gone away from thigs/legs and shoulders/top of arms, it's almost as thicker/more muscular parts of the body have improved first, now it's just the areas b/w shoulders and elbows. He also was painfully thin pre-gf, skin and bone, but now he has built up a layer of underskin fat, not in a bad way, just healthy iykwim

where di you learn all this clever stuff?

well I started years ago in my degree, doing the basics of food - then taught on a nutrition degree, teaching the subject Nutrients - did that for 6 years, so it kind of sticks with me! :)

I do have to check up on my memory sometimes, especially with some conditions, but most of it is not too hard to access in the ol' grey cells.

See if you can increase his vitamin A (as retinol) intake via food first; most meats are high in retinol, as is tuna. You can get it via veg but you need 6 times as much (you need 6 units of beta carotene to get 1 unit of retinol) and if his digestive system is still recovering from the gluten (is he coeliac? or otherwise intolerant?) then take the easiest option for maximising absorption.

You can also, apparently, get retinoic acid to use as a topical treatment for some skin conditions - but I don't know where from! I'd go the internal route first but if it proves very refractory, a topical treatment might help.

Adopt you - hmmm - yes, why not? :)

oh, you are a gem , happy :)
well, he is gluten sensitive with mostly neuro presentation, took me years to get my head around that one .
He was self-restricted veggie (I blame gluten/malabsorption) - that just explains it all, doesn't it! He now eats some meat and I use wide variety of foods to stay carb-lite. I also prefer foods to tablets, so you speak directly to my heart :)
As he continues to improve I find it mind-blowingly fascinating.
Thank you muchly :)

I'm afraid I can't measure up to the fabulous Thumbwitch, but just a very obvious thought that I don't think has been mentioned yet? You say you are headache prone. Do you take aspirin, or ibuprofen alot? Because that can really irritate your stomach and give ulcer-like symptoms, especially if you take them on an empty stomach.

Good point! although the GP should have already eliminated that one when they tested for ulcers, really (knowing full well that they might not have)

Well I thought that too, but mentioned it anyway - you never know.

FN, since getting pregnant three years ago I have stuck with paracetamol, don't think I have had aspirin or ibruprofen once... Paracetemol much kinder on the stomach, isn't it? One of the reasons that I posted was that I have taken paracetamol every day for the last four to no avail ( and used it constantly over Xmas) ... Not only do I think that I might end up in a vicious cycle of getting headaches just because I haven't taken it, but I dread to think what that is doing to my body. My dad was a overuser of painkillers, which I thought was scandalous, but now I do wonder if it was a battle on his part to contend with some unaddressed symptoms like this that made him feel constantly rubbish.
ItsOnlyAJob, interesting point - I assumed because it comes and goes is triggered by diet ... Were you in pain - always assumed fiendish pain?

Only thing is, that gallstones would be MOST unlikely to feel better after stodge and fatty foods! Those sorts of foods are more likely to bring on an attack than alleviate it.

But still - no harm in getting that checked as well. :)

If it's any help I went through exactly the same symptoms for about three or four weeks (including a need to eat stodgy bland carbs as the only way of temporarily relieving the pain, but ultimately I think I was over-eating and I made it worse.)

I put off going to the doctors, thinking it would go by itself or there would be an obvious explanation. Eventually, I was just about to go on hols so made up my mind to go to the docs as soon as I got home if it hadn't gone by then. Literally the very day I went on holiday it disappeared. Just disappeared. That was 2 months ago.

Anyway, my point was, I was quite stressed in the run-up to my hols, and I wonder if it wasn't slightly psychosomatic. Ulcers are closely related to people with highly stressful jobs/lives after all.