I had a classmate once, Daphne, who used to have the most bizarre, vivid, memorable dreams, which she used to roller-coaster through nightly and then regale us with the next morning after class at the university. That she could recall her dreams in such detail was particularly mind-boggling for me, one of those unfortunates whose memories of dreams, even the harder-hitting ones, fade away to nothingness minutes upon waking.
Anyway, once Daphne told us about how, after a particularly heavy seafood dinner, she went to bed with a rumbly tummy, and once in Dreamland, after many bizarre twists and turns, was led by a talking owl (yes, a talking owl) to her bathroom, whereupon her chatty feathered friend pointed an accusatory wing at her toilet bowl and intoned gravely: "Now just look at what you've done!". And peering into the porcelain (I have visions of Daphne in her nightie looking like a sleepy, slightly-alarmed fortune teller, but with a toilet bowl for a crystal ball), she saw... the stir-fried crabs she had had for dinner, but strangely very much whole and very much alive, and sans the chilli-coriander gravy they'd been dressed in just hours before.
Not much connection to the rest of my post but this story always makes me think how the evidence we leave behind in the toilet bowl can tell us so much more than we think.
For us GI sufferers, if you've been longtemps afflicted, you may often see the floaty yellow poo in the bowl. That's probably cos the intestinal villi have been so much damaged by the body's reaction to gluten that they can't digest fat properly anymore, so it goes out the body as part of the waste (thus the characteristic yellowish colour -- a sign of undigested lipids -- and the fact that it floats, as fat does in water).
The reason I think gluten intolerance is really widespread, just not often diagnosed here, is because I see signs of it all the time. It's no secret some of Asia's public loos are absolutely filthy. (Wipe that smug look off your face you non-Asians, it ain't all of us Asians at fault and you know that one bad apple, yadda yadda. It just takes that one guy to mess it up and everyone gets a bad name. I also think that Western toilets aren't necessarily cleaner -- they just have more cleaners.) Well, anyway. Some of the public toilets here are really bad, and I often think it's because of GI sludge. Brown poop in the bowl that just won't flush away. If you're going through the dark brown sticky phase, you'll know that that stuff sticks.
So on to tip number one. To avoid leaving brown evidence that can't be flushed away, toss some toilet paper in the bowl before sitting down. That way, poop hits paper, not porcelain, and won't stick where it's not supposed to. Minimises splashing too. Another thing you can do (I had this brainwave on a recent trip to France, staying in someone's apartment where detergents and other stuff were in easy reach of the toilet bowl) is squirt some detergent around the bowl before doing the deed. That pretty much helps to prevent unwanted adherence too, though this is more a tip for home than outside, where you'd look mighty strange walking into the cubicle with oh just a bottle of Mama Lemon to help things along.
Now, still on the dirty stickiness (thank you Hiroyuki Nishigaki, but I've learnt other ways to good-bye depression)... aside from not being able to wipe yourself fully clean (because there's Klingons backed up all along your pipe work, and ah aint gonna go in that far, thank you), you might use up rolls of loo paper in the process. I know I have. Some nasty things can result. All that paper can block up the toilet (I've had this happen so often it's not funny. Made even worse since the government, championing water-saving, began mandating WCs that use less water for flushing. Less water equals less power flushing things away.) So the next tip -- flush often, mid-way, even if you're not fully done yet. You can always flush again. But there is a problem with this, in that is it's not fun to get splashed if you're still seated, as might happen. And don't delay-- if there's already a pile of paper in the bowl, and you're not done, a weak flush might still block the outlet, and then you have a real situation. Half-done pooping, not wiped clean, a blocked toilet overflowing, pants around your knees. Not a pretty picture.)
Another tip, this time to help with the wiping, and another doff of the hat to the French. The creators of the bidet were on to something-- a bit of water helps a millionfold with wiping yourself clean. Here's what I did (and still do). Wipe as clean as you can. Exit the cubicle with a wad of clean toilet paper. Use it like a sponge to soak up some tap water, then re-enter the cubicle, and using your wet paper sponge, moisten other pieces of toilet paper to help with the wiping. That way you have an ample supply of wet wipes on hand, and not just the one wet piece.
Why all this fuss and bother? Well, if you're GI, you spend a lot of time in the loo. These are just a few ways to make things a bit more pleasant for you (and the next user too).
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
A Brief History of Bowel Habits, or: Windy the Poo (Recognise Any Symptoms Yet?)
It all kind of started about ten years ago. Little by little, I noticed my bowel movements becoming more and more difficult. And the odd thing was, it wasn't always consistently one thing or the other.
Sometimes it was diarrhea, with the associated cramping. But with the stools a strange, not fully liquid but definitely not solid, squirty yellow mess that seemed to float on the water. Other times, it was dark, heavy, sludgy and impossible to move. Constipation suggests really hard stools that you can't move. Well mine were not hard at all, but imagine poo like sticky sludge, and well, that doesn't move too well either.
And in either case, you just can't wipe yourself fully clean, no matter how good your paper is. Always had to use a bit of water and even that wasn't 100% effective. So you go through your day hoping fervently that it's only your prayers reaching high heaven, and not any lingering odours.
As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, through it all were the oft-present symptoms of bloated gassiness. At least, that's what it felt like. You see, to add to the embarrassment of leaving the cubicle not fully sure if you got yourself clean enough, you walked around constantly with the urge to poot. But there ain't no quiet, smell-less farting to be had with GI, nosiree. You see, often you were walking around all sludged up down below, so much so that any escaping gas was going to announce its gleeful entry into the wide world with a raspberry worthy of the largest untied balloon with the smallest neck. Hmph.
At least, if it was gas. To add to it all, sometimes you're so plugged up you don't know if the resulting emission is going to be solid, liquid or gaseous. Much like a Chemistry lab test, but with far more embarrassing consequences if you guess the wrong output. Like expecting gas but getting liquid. Get the picture?
Which brings me to my earlier post: sometimes constipation and diarrhea at the same time. You see, often you're so blocked up with the unmoving sludge, and yet, backed up further along the system the body is trying to rid itself of waste. So it sends more water into the gut, trying to flush out the perceived toxins (or so I imagine). And it sends you signals you need to go potty. RIGHT AWAY, AND DON'T DELAY. Hence the cramps. But once you sprint to the loo, and position yourself for action... the sludge still ain't goin nowhere, not till you strain and wash and wipe and repeat (I've used up two rolls of toilet paper in sessions lasting 30 to 45 minutes), and the sludge finally moves its slothful way onward, and then you get to evacuate the diarrhea your body is telling you to move. Not a pleasant experience. You see why we GI sufferers hate it so much?
Sometimes it was diarrhea, with the associated cramping. But with the stools a strange, not fully liquid but definitely not solid, squirty yellow mess that seemed to float on the water. Other times, it was dark, heavy, sludgy and impossible to move. Constipation suggests really hard stools that you can't move. Well mine were not hard at all, but imagine poo like sticky sludge, and well, that doesn't move too well either.
And in either case, you just can't wipe yourself fully clean, no matter how good your paper is. Always had to use a bit of water and even that wasn't 100% effective. So you go through your day hoping fervently that it's only your prayers reaching high heaven, and not any lingering odours.
As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, through it all were the oft-present symptoms of bloated gassiness. At least, that's what it felt like. You see, to add to the embarrassment of leaving the cubicle not fully sure if you got yourself clean enough, you walked around constantly with the urge to poot. But there ain't no quiet, smell-less farting to be had with GI, nosiree. You see, often you were walking around all sludged up down below, so much so that any escaping gas was going to announce its gleeful entry into the wide world with a raspberry worthy of the largest untied balloon with the smallest neck. Hmph.
At least, if it was gas. To add to it all, sometimes you're so plugged up you don't know if the resulting emission is going to be solid, liquid or gaseous. Much like a Chemistry lab test, but with far more embarrassing consequences if you guess the wrong output. Like expecting gas but getting liquid. Get the picture?
Which brings me to my earlier post: sometimes constipation and diarrhea at the same time. You see, often you're so blocked up with the unmoving sludge, and yet, backed up further along the system the body is trying to rid itself of waste. So it sends more water into the gut, trying to flush out the perceived toxins (or so I imagine). And it sends you signals you need to go potty. RIGHT AWAY, AND DON'T DELAY. Hence the cramps. But once you sprint to the loo, and position yourself for action... the sludge still ain't goin nowhere, not till you strain and wash and wipe and repeat (I've used up two rolls of toilet paper in sessions lasting 30 to 45 minutes), and the sludge finally moves its slothful way onward, and then you get to evacuate the diarrhea your body is telling you to move. Not a pleasant experience. You see why we GI sufferers hate it so much?
A New Beginning
Hi to all the folks out there. I've been thinking about setting up this blog for quite some time now, but never got around to doing it for a number of reasons (I'm not exactly tech-savvy, and also have a full-time job in the building industry, being the two chief ones).
But really, I just got tired of reading that gluten intolerance doesn't really affect Asians, when the truth of the matter is that it DOES (I'm living proof) and after having suffered for something like eight years from this insidious affliction, and then going blissfully gluten-free for the past two, I felt that it was time I said something about the matter.
Hence this blog. My hope is that I'll be able to share some of the knowledge I've gained in getting out of the time-stealing, style-cramping, inconvenient, uncomfortable, yucky weirdness that is gluten intolerance, from the point of view of an Asian guy living in an Asian city, with a predominantly Asian diet.
This is still a journey, and there is still much to learn, but just knowing what was wrong -- what was causing my digestive system to go haywire the way it did -- is half the battle won, in my opinion.
In case you didn't know it (although if you've stumbled upon this blog from a web search you probably already have some inkling), gluten intolerance is the inability of the body to digest gluten, which is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye and some other related cereals (such as kamut, spelt, and triticale). This digestive inability results in some pretty nasty stuff happening to you, as what you've eaten trundles through its rumbly journey to emerge out the other end. The tough bit about suffering from gluten intolerance is that wheat is such an important grain, and it's in so many things we take for granted as safe to eat: bread, cake, pizza, cookies, biscuits, breakfast cereals, and many types of noodles, both Asian noodles as well as Italian pasta. And did you know it's in soy sauce? And that wheat-based starches are a common thickener in many foods? Oh and it's in some beverages too, like beer and malted drinks? (No more refreshing Tiger beer sorbet! No more comforting Horlicks ice-cream...*sob*. I really do weep for this last one. I love Horlicks ice-cream.)
(Actually, at a molecular level, it's supposedly the component proteins of gluten, not gluten itself, that may be the offending agent, which is why different cereals can affect the digestive system. But for ease of explanation -- and discussion -- I'm going to be using the G word as shorthand.)
Not all grains are bad for us GI folk. Corn and rice (thank heaven) are perfectly acceptable (take note please, people -- I can't believe how many times I've been asked "Oh, this has rice/corn in it -- can you eat it?"). Oats may be on or off the taboo list, depending on who you listen to. Me, I listen to my body, and oats are a no-no for me.
Symptoms of gluten intolerance (GI) are manifold, and my favourite way of describing it to curious non-sufferers is this: "Well, just imagine every possible symptom of gastro-intestinal distress you've ever had -- like cramping, bloatedness, gas, diarrhea and constipation -- and then imagine very often having them ALL AT THE SAME TIME."
I can hear you now, dear reader: diarrhea and constipation at the same time? Well, yes, in a weird way. I'll post more about it later. If you've suffered gluten intolerance, you'll know what I mean.
And if you don't know it already, this blog is paradoxically going to be about two things we don't normally like to discuss together in polite company: food and poo. Although I may post recipes in a separate blog; somehow that just seems more decent (or maybe it's just me at this time). Yeah, well, I make no apologies for anything. I'm naturally a polite person, but there's no going into GI territory without having to do the nasty and talking about bowel habits. So get ready. A lot of GI is not diagnosed because people don't know the symptoms to look out for. Or if you as a sufferer, do realise something's wrong, your doctor may not recognise the symptoms. It's my intention to go where few have gone before, and describe what goes on in all its unpleasant detail. But if you're already a GI sufferer, just reading about it cannot compare in any way with the grossness of the actual experience, so I trust you will be able to handle it.
A few short notes about this blog. English is my first language, but I wasn't raised in a Western country, so you may find certain turns of phrase, or bits of slang and spelling unfamiliar (yeah, I'm talking 'bout you, ya Webster-wieldin Yanks). It's a big wide varied world out there, all brought together by the magic of the Internet, so as long as you can understand the gist of what I'm saying, deal with it, people. And yes, I do hope to post tips and recipes and bits of experience in navigating, nay creating (for myself at least) a wheatless world, in a country where I've yet to meet someone else who has the same problem: Singapore. I know you GI Joes and Janes are out there, maybe you just don't know it yet. I'm hoping this blog will help you find your diagnosis and end your suffering on the porcelain throne. We don't have to trudge through the sludge no more.
Oh and I haven't mentioned that word yet: celiac, as in celiac disease. (Or coeliac for them folks across the pond. On this one I side with the Yanks; you don't pronounce the O so it does seem a bit unnecessary. And it's harder to type.) Mention "celiac" and people automatically think, oh childhood disease, extreme intestinal problems, etc. etc. I've never had the official test done, so I don't have the black and white diagnosis. Though it seems clear to me, from observing what a huge change avoiding gluten has done for my system, that I may have a mild form of the disease. So no, it's not necessarily an affliction that only white kids may be affected by. But I'm not going to call myself a celiac. My symptoms seem relatively milder compared to celiac sufferers I've read about on the Internet, and for now I think gluten intolerance is the term I will use.
I have my own theory about what gluten does to the system. But more about that in a later post. Right now I'm hungry for my gluten-free dinner.
But really, I just got tired of reading that gluten intolerance doesn't really affect Asians, when the truth of the matter is that it DOES (I'm living proof) and after having suffered for something like eight years from this insidious affliction, and then going blissfully gluten-free for the past two, I felt that it was time I said something about the matter.
Hence this blog. My hope is that I'll be able to share some of the knowledge I've gained in getting out of the time-stealing, style-cramping, inconvenient, uncomfortable, yucky weirdness that is gluten intolerance, from the point of view of an Asian guy living in an Asian city, with a predominantly Asian diet.
This is still a journey, and there is still much to learn, but just knowing what was wrong -- what was causing my digestive system to go haywire the way it did -- is half the battle won, in my opinion.
In case you didn't know it (although if you've stumbled upon this blog from a web search you probably already have some inkling), gluten intolerance is the inability of the body to digest gluten, which is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye and some other related cereals (such as kamut, spelt, and triticale). This digestive inability results in some pretty nasty stuff happening to you, as what you've eaten trundles through its rumbly journey to emerge out the other end. The tough bit about suffering from gluten intolerance is that wheat is such an important grain, and it's in so many things we take for granted as safe to eat: bread, cake, pizza, cookies, biscuits, breakfast cereals, and many types of noodles, both Asian noodles as well as Italian pasta. And did you know it's in soy sauce? And that wheat-based starches are a common thickener in many foods? Oh and it's in some beverages too, like beer and malted drinks? (No more refreshing Tiger beer sorbet! No more comforting Horlicks ice-cream...*sob*. I really do weep for this last one. I love Horlicks ice-cream.)
(Actually, at a molecular level, it's supposedly the component proteins of gluten, not gluten itself, that may be the offending agent, which is why different cereals can affect the digestive system. But for ease of explanation -- and discussion -- I'm going to be using the G word as shorthand.)
Not all grains are bad for us GI folk. Corn and rice (thank heaven) are perfectly acceptable (take note please, people -- I can't believe how many times I've been asked "Oh, this has rice/corn in it -- can you eat it?"). Oats may be on or off the taboo list, depending on who you listen to. Me, I listen to my body, and oats are a no-no for me.
Symptoms of gluten intolerance (GI) are manifold, and my favourite way of describing it to curious non-sufferers is this: "Well, just imagine every possible symptom of gastro-intestinal distress you've ever had -- like cramping, bloatedness, gas, diarrhea and constipation -- and then imagine very often having them ALL AT THE SAME TIME."
I can hear you now, dear reader: diarrhea and constipation at the same time? Well, yes, in a weird way. I'll post more about it later. If you've suffered gluten intolerance, you'll know what I mean.
And if you don't know it already, this blog is paradoxically going to be about two things we don't normally like to discuss together in polite company: food and poo. Although I may post recipes in a separate blog; somehow that just seems more decent (or maybe it's just me at this time). Yeah, well, I make no apologies for anything. I'm naturally a polite person, but there's no going into GI territory without having to do the nasty and talking about bowel habits. So get ready. A lot of GI is not diagnosed because people don't know the symptoms to look out for. Or if you as a sufferer, do realise something's wrong, your doctor may not recognise the symptoms. It's my intention to go where few have gone before, and describe what goes on in all its unpleasant detail. But if you're already a GI sufferer, just reading about it cannot compare in any way with the grossness of the actual experience, so I trust you will be able to handle it.
A few short notes about this blog. English is my first language, but I wasn't raised in a Western country, so you may find certain turns of phrase, or bits of slang and spelling unfamiliar (yeah, I'm talking 'bout you, ya Webster-wieldin Yanks). It's a big wide varied world out there, all brought together by the magic of the Internet, so as long as you can understand the gist of what I'm saying, deal with it, people. And yes, I do hope to post tips and recipes and bits of experience in navigating, nay creating (for myself at least) a wheatless world, in a country where I've yet to meet someone else who has the same problem: Singapore. I know you GI Joes and Janes are out there, maybe you just don't know it yet. I'm hoping this blog will help you find your diagnosis and end your suffering on the porcelain throne. We don't have to trudge through the sludge no more.
Oh and I haven't mentioned that word yet: celiac, as in celiac disease. (Or coeliac for them folks across the pond. On this one I side with the Yanks; you don't pronounce the O so it does seem a bit unnecessary. And it's harder to type.) Mention "celiac" and people automatically think, oh childhood disease, extreme intestinal problems, etc. etc. I've never had the official test done, so I don't have the black and white diagnosis. Though it seems clear to me, from observing what a huge change avoiding gluten has done for my system, that I may have a mild form of the disease. So no, it's not necessarily an affliction that only white kids may be affected by. But I'm not going to call myself a celiac. My symptoms seem relatively milder compared to celiac sufferers I've read about on the Internet, and for now I think gluten intolerance is the term I will use.
I have my own theory about what gluten does to the system. But more about that in a later post. Right now I'm hungry for my gluten-free dinner.
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