leftovers #4 – the 2018 april newsletter (digestive health)

The biggest immediate problem I had when I returned to work was how my stomach seemed to hurt. This would happen only at work and the pain usually started sometime around the early afternoon. It’s hard for me to put the pain into context because I never had regular stomachaches during the first three decades of my life. On a good day I would merely feel bloated while on a bad day I would actually have a hard time sitting down because of the way it put pressure on my stomach. Let’s say, overall, it wasn’t quite as bad as the flu but that there would have been dire consequences for anyone who had hit me in the gut.

Anyway, I did what a responsible adult does in this situation and visited Professor Google over at Internet University. Google immediately consulted his longtime associate, Web MD, and we were off and running on a wild goose chase to figure out what was going on. There were a number of good early candidates that seemed to fit about 75% of my situation – IBS, appendicitis, maybe an allergy (peanut, soy, gluten, full-time employment). Each new possibility I looked into was a good reminder of what diagnostic medicine is like on the Good Ol’ Interwebs – a moment of pattern recognition followed by some surface similarities before a series of specific symptoms that don’t really apply to you rule out the condition. It was like the internet was testing my willingness to suspend disbelief – you think you’re gluten intolerant even though you have a slice of pizza every week at Haymarket?

The breakthrough moment came one morning after I’d drank a few too many beers the night before. I realized during the day that my stomach hurt the same way it did while I was at work. The only thing I knew about hangovers was that they indicated dehydration so I decided the next time my stomach hurt I would try to set a world record for water consumption and pay attention to what ensued. Sure enough, the water did the trick, and I’ve generally felt pretty good about my gut health since that day.

It’s hard to look back on this time today and think I learned anything significant. I obviously learned that I should drink more water but that hardly qualifies as a lesson – I’ve been applying that solution to problems for my entire life. I suppose maybe the important result to focus on here is that anytime I have a problem related to food or consumption I should make sure to rule out more water as a solution before trying anything else.

Footnotes / endnote / prediction?

0. Coming up...

I wrote most of this post last summer and it shows - I think I actually figured out the cause of all this and I intend to share it (eventually) in an upcoming proper admin post.