Seeing as we're fully acquainted now,
with my first post detailing the good (lovely soft skin) the bad
(dislocating jaw) and the ugly (ahem – gastrointestinal issues), I
thought I'd dive right in and talk about the shit us EDSers have to
deal (pun fully intended, and they're not stopping any time soon!) with in the toilet department. Once we've got this out of the
way we can all breathe a sigh of relief! Prepare yourselves, and stay
tuned for the giveaway at the end of the post!
Put simply, we have a bum deal (see?)
when it comes to issues of the gut. All the symptoms of Irritable
Bowel Syndrome (IBS) are present and correct, but it doesn't stop
there. We're talking issues along the length of the GI tract, from
input to output, as it were. Let's start from the top:
G.E.R.D aka, Gastroesophageal Reflux
Disease
For as long as I can remember, I've had
what I could only ever describe as a 'burny throat' feeling. It's
intermittent, and I've never pinned down the trigger. It seems to be
random, so far as I can tell, and a bout of it can last anywhere
between a few hours and a few days. In essence, it feels like I have
a toxic fireball stuck in my throat, and no amount of swallowing,
drinking, or eating will help the discomfort pass.
Finally, at the appointment I had with
Professor Grahame at the St John St Elizabeth Hospital in London (the
appointment that saw my diagnosis of EDS finally made official, which
I'll tell you about in an upcoming post!), I was able to describe the
burny throat feeling to him. He instantly said “Yes – that's
Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease – perfectly common with EDS”.
Essentially in EDSers it's caused by
laxity in the oesophageal sphincter, meaning the strong acidity in
the stomach isn't kept in its place. So now you know!
Early Satiety
This is, I assume, because of the GI
dysmotility issue (see below) that we have, and it appears to be par
for the course. Like most EDS issues, I had no idea it was a symptom
until I started researching the seemingly never ending list of crap
(there I go again) that we put up with in our daily lives. It's
always the small things that surprise me the most, and usually things
I thought were completely normal. Let me tell you, finding out that
half your body functions are far from completely normal is a trip.
Anyway – early satiety, or feeling
full after eating very little, is a symptom, it turns out. My mum, my
sister and I have all been this way our entire lives, much to the
disdain of my father who seemingly has the opposite issue. Family
meals usually involved the three of us eating half of what was on our
plates, while my father happily polished our plates off for us after
wolfing his own down.
Gastrointestinal (GI) Dysmotility and
IBS
GI Dysmotility, for EDSers at least, is
a clear cut case of faulty collagen, as collagen is instrumental in
the biomechanical properties of the GI tract. Our intestines simply
don't move the production line along as they should. This can also
lead to bloating, which is unfortunate. Nobody likes feeling bloated,
but it really is the least of our problems! Then there's the
irregularities of our bowel movements (we're well and truly in
too-much-information territory here... sorry guys) which is closely
linked to the IBS symptoms we present with, including inconsistencies in 'output', swinging like a pendulum between constipation and diarrhoea, and intolerance of food groups - in my case dairy. Which sucks, because I love cheese.
The GI problems are also linked to dysautonomia, which I'll talk about in another dedicated post. There is a lot to say on the subject of EDS and FGID (Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders), and I'll happily let the pros tell you all about it here.
The GI problems are also linked to dysautonomia, which I'll talk about in another dedicated post. There is a lot to say on the subject of EDS and FGID (Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders), and I'll happily let the pros tell you all about it here.
I've never taken prescription
medication for my IBS symptoms. This is in part due to my personal
brand of stubbornness... some kind of attempt to be super human and
rely only on home remedies and lifestyle changes to combat most
ailments. I didn't even get myself antibiotics for the strep throat I
suffered before Christmas, a decision that came back to haunt me when
the bacteria ended up hitting my chest pretty hard on New Year's Day.
Miserably, I sloped off to the doctor, who sounded my chest, slapped
me on the wrist for not going in earlier, and packed me off to the
pharmacy with a prescription for Clarithromycin.
Those antibiotics led me to a
discovery, though. After my round of Clarithromycin was over, I
started a round of probiotics. My tummy-woes were bad enough without
the antibiotics killing off all the good bacteria in my stomach!
But more than simply replacing the
good-gut-flora lost after taking the antibiotics, the probiotics seemed to help with everything, particularly the bloating and . The IBS symptoms appeared to subside, with the probiotics
even helping with the ill-effect of eating dairy cheese (my dietary
nemesis).
In the past week, I've been trying a
new brand of probiotics called Microbiome Plus+ GI. I've tried all
manner of probiotics, including BioKult, Biotic Balance, and
straight-up Acidophilus.
I'm a week in, and so far I'm fairly impressed. When they arrived, I was a little alarmed at the size of the one-month-supply package. There are four boxes, each containing a week's supply, and each of those boxes is larger than the entire one-month supply box of my previous probiotics. Part of the reason for this is that the dose is twice-daily, and it's not just a probiotic you're taking - they also give you a prebiotic caplet to take at the same time. Each box contains two blister packs, one for AM and one for PM.
The amount of good bacteria in Microbiome Plus is lower than some other brands I've tried, at 3.5 billion cfu of Lactobacillus Reuteri. For comparison, the last brand I used (Biotic Balance) has 5.8 billion cfu of Lactobacillus Acidophilus, 5.8 billion cfu of Lactobacillus Rhamnosus, 5.8 billion cfu of Bifidobacterium Longum, and 2.6 billion cfu of Saccharomyces Boulardii. Whether that brand is simply overkill, or if Microbiome Plus is not quite up to the mark, I'm not sure - it's a different strain in Microbiome, and I'm not up on my bacteria knowledge enough to know what the different strains represent!
What I do know is that Microbiome is up to the challenge of eliminating the post-meal (especially post-dairy) bloat, which has caused severe pain in the past. It doesn't seem quite so robust in terms of regulating output, but that's only when comparing it to the previous super-charged probiotic. On Microbiome, I'm still leaps ahead of where my body would be if I were on no probiotics at all.
Another pro is that unlike some probiotics, you don't need to keep it refrigerated, which is good for travelling. I decided to label each day's tablets, just to keep track of the twice daily dose, which has to be taken with a meal. The size of the tablets doesn't bother me, but I know we're all different when it comes to that - my Mum would probably try and chop the prebiotic tablet in half!
I'm a week in, and so far I'm fairly impressed. When they arrived, I was a little alarmed at the size of the one-month-supply package. There are four boxes, each containing a week's supply, and each of those boxes is larger than the entire one-month supply box of my previous probiotics. Part of the reason for this is that the dose is twice-daily, and it's not just a probiotic you're taking - they also give you a prebiotic caplet to take at the same time. Each box contains two blister packs, one for AM and one for PM.
The amount of good bacteria in Microbiome Plus is lower than some other brands I've tried, at 3.5 billion cfu of Lactobacillus Reuteri. For comparison, the last brand I used (Biotic Balance) has 5.8 billion cfu of Lactobacillus Acidophilus, 5.8 billion cfu of Lactobacillus Rhamnosus, 5.8 billion cfu of Bifidobacterium Longum, and 2.6 billion cfu of Saccharomyces Boulardii. Whether that brand is simply overkill, or if Microbiome Plus is not quite up to the mark, I'm not sure - it's a different strain in Microbiome, and I'm not up on my bacteria knowledge enough to know what the different strains represent!
What I do know is that Microbiome is up to the challenge of eliminating the post-meal (especially post-dairy) bloat, which has caused severe pain in the past. It doesn't seem quite so robust in terms of regulating output, but that's only when comparing it to the previous super-charged probiotic. On Microbiome, I'm still leaps ahead of where my body would be if I were on no probiotics at all.
Another pro is that unlike some probiotics, you don't need to keep it refrigerated, which is good for travelling. I decided to label each day's tablets, just to keep track of the twice daily dose, which has to be taken with a meal. The size of the tablets doesn't bother me, but I know we're all different when it comes to that - my Mum would probably try and chop the prebiotic tablet in half!
I have three one-month supplies of
Microbiome's probiotic to give away this week. If you want to give
these probiotics a go, email jessie.estella@gmail.com
and tell me the three awful puns I dropped in to this post. This one's for US-based readers only, I'm afraid, as the coupon-codes I've been given are valid only for contiguous US amazon.com accounts.
