a day in the life...

hey lovlies,

i hope everybody's feeling good. i know i sure am NOT. yesterday was a great day. i was over at my boyfriends house and i felt fine. until i was in the car on the way home i got super sick, and once i was home i threw up everything i had eaten that day. so much fun!

so today i feel especially like crap. i've been on the computer all morning. i got down my erythromycin with my instant breakfast, and a couple of strawberries too. but that was about four hours ago and i still cant eat anything. so i'm drinking a lot of Gatorade.

Gatorade is another great drink to keep you hydrated when you cant eat. we have so many bottles for me to drink daily so we dont have to go to the hospital. hooray. hahaha.

i hope i am really helping some people, and ive been talking already to so many of you who have read my blog or seem my facebook! please continue to ask me questions, and email me. i really love to talk to people going through this horrible time like i am.

have a great, feel good day everybody!

xoxoxoxx

FOOD! how to get nutrients you need!

hey lovlies!

so we've been trying so hard to find good food that follows all of my diets, but give me the nutrients and protein i need without making me want to puke. i know this is sooo difficult for most people with GP or IBS and Acid Reflux, because if you have more than one the diets overlap and contradict one another. so here are a couple of foods i've found that really help me.

1. Carnation Instant Breakfast Essentials. These are actually good, i did NOT like Ensure or any other nutrient drink, caus they were just gross! But these instant breakfasts taste great and have so many nutrients that i need. They are excellent sources of Protein, Calcium, and have 21 vitamins and minerals in each drink. They come in packs with a whole bunch of different flavors like CHOCOLATE! i cant eat chocolate for my acid reflux diet, but i can with these drinks. theyre really good and i drink them every morning with my dose of erythromycin.

2. Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich. The funny thing about this is that i hate peanut butter and i hate bananas, but together theyre quite good. I was watching Paula Deen and she made a similar recipe that looked sooo good, but i changed it just a bit. This is my recipe: Take a english muffin and toast it in the toaster. Them take peanut butter, honey, and ground cinnamon and mix them together. No real measurements just put as much as you like until they taste is good. Them slather that mixture on your english muffins. Put the peanut butter on both sides of the muffin so that the bananas sick. Then cut piece of banana in the middle of the sandwich. And thats it! you get the protein from the peanuts, and great nutrition from the banana.

3. Kashi Go Lean Cinnamon Harvest Cereal. I just eat this plain since i cant drink milk. i know GP people are not supposed to eat fiber because its bad for digestion but it conflicts with my other stomach diets for acid relux and gerd and since i can keep it down i still try ot eat it. Its a really good snack if youre starving but dont want anything heavy or make a full meal. You can get a huge pack of two bags at Sams Club.

Alright i know its only three but its soo hard to find food.

i'll keep posting when i find more!

Tips to help that tummy feel good!

hey my lovelies,

i wanted to share some tips that i've learned over the years to help me get through my nausea and feel better. so here they are!

1. Keep busy && distracted. Always have something to do. Don't just lay around and fee sorry for yourself. I don't mean run around and go to the gym, do something like get on the computer, play a game, or create something. Get involved with something other than your stomach.

2. Surround yourself with positive thoughts. Don't sit around and feel sorry for yourself. Think about good things that have happened, and plans in the future. Think about the good points of your day and not the bad.

3. Be with the people you love. Love is a wonderful medicine. Don't be by yourself. Its great to be surrounded by people who care about you and that you can share your frustration and hurt. People are great distractions.

4. Get a pet. This is a tip that has seriously helped me so much. I got my puppy Gemma this summer and she has been my angel. She is always by my side. She keeps me company and loves me no matter what. She sleeps with me so i always have someone there. Dogs are great stress relievers and amazing companions. so get yourself a nice fluffy animal to cuddle up with.

5. Keep warm. Snuggle up with a blanket and put a heating pad on your tum. It feels really nice and helps your tummy muscles relax.

6. Drink fluids if you cant eat. you wont get dehydrated as easily with nothing in your stomach. they go down easier and wont make you as sick as big solid food.

7. Always believe in yourself. Keep strong and remind yourself that you can get through this. Tell yourself it could be worse and that you are beautiful. Your mind a such a powerful tool and you can make yourself believe anything.

8. Just relax. Everything is going to be ok. God has his plan for you, so just life your life the best you can.

Hope these can help you guys.

I'll be posting more tips as i discover them.

hope you are all feeling good!

xoxox.

gotta love the doc.

hey everybody,

today i had a doctors appointment with my family practitioner, who i now go to to fix my gastro problems. we had an awful GI doc so my AAHMAZING gynecologist said just to try your general doctor. so we did and its worked way better than an actual GI doc. soafter the gastroparesis diagnosis he still believes IBS may be causing some of the symptoms. he suggested getting an MRI of my brain just to rule out the fact that there maybe a a malfunction of signals from my brain to the stomach. So i actually go tomorrow for the MRI. oh another test, wonderful. and i;m somewhat claustrophobic so that should be a joy.

hope everyone is doing well.

remember you can always comment on my blog or ask me any questions.

xoxoxo.

another day.

hey everybody.

just wanted to write about my day. last night my parents bought me a Wii. very exciting. its awesome especially because i'm going back to homebound so i'll have something else exciting to do. and i got sweet games like harry potter where you don't have to stand the whole time, which can get exhausting for me. i did almost puke today though, i think i was boxing a little to hard. hhahah. but no vomiting which is definitely a plus!

i've been on the antibiotic erythromycin, and it has caused some unpleasant symptoms. If you all don't know there are only two medicines to treat gastroparesis. one being erythromycin, and the other reglan. well i had an awful reaction to reglan where my face//jaw got locked on the right side of my face and i couldn't move it back. it was so scary and my parents though i had a stroke. so i have to stick it through the erythromycin because its my only choice. but i've had awful cramps, which i never get, even on my period, and diaherra which i also never get. its been kind of sucky but hopefully itll get better.

how what everyone's day?

hope you all are having a good day!

xoxoxoxo.

Johns Hopkins.

hey everybody!

so recently after my gastroparesis diagnosis, and my scope my doctor suggested that our next step was to go to the big leagues, so somewhere like Cleveland Clinic or Johns Hopkins.

so my mom has been doing A LOT of research and phone calls, and thinks Johns Hopkins is the best place to look. so we found an M.D. there, Dr. Linda Lee, who we've made an appointment with April 2nd. Ironically good friday.

Dr. Lee is the director of the John Hopkins Integrative Medicine & Digestive Center. She is also (and exactly what we need) the clinical director of gastroenterology and hepatology. She led a clinical practice on complex cancer patients who had liver or gastrointestinal issues.

I cannot wait to go and to meet her and to see what she can do for us. This is very exciting and she looks so cute!

hope you all are feelin good! :)

xoxox.

Endoscopy...

Hello all,
So this morning I had to get an endoscopy on the upper GI track.

-Upper GI endoscopy is a procedure that uses a lighted, flexible endoscope to see inside the upper GI tract. The upper GI tract includes the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum—the first part of the small intestine.

It was super quick and easy. I've had one before last March when my symptoms were getting to severe to handle. They found back then that i had erosions in my stomach, esophagus, and intestines. I've been on Protonix ever since. Today they still are finding the erosions.

They wanted to scope me, especially after diagnosing me with gastroparesis, to see what is causing it. Like a blockage. They also tested me for a bacteria called H. pylori.

-Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a type of bacteria. Researchers believe that H. pylori is responsible for the majority of peptic ulcers.

So we will hopefully get results soon on what is going on...

hope you al have a great

nausea free day!

xxoxoxo.

contents from: The National Digestive Diseases Information Clearing House

-Upper GI Info.

-H. pylori Info.

Gastoparesis.

So what the heck is gastroparesis?

Gastroparesis is a condition in which the muscles in your stomach don't function normally.

Ordinarily, strong muscular contractions propel food through your digestive tract. But in gastroparesis, the muscles in the wall of your stomach work poorly or not at all. This prevents your stomach from emptying properly. Gastroparesis can interfere with digestion, cause nausea and vomiting, and play havoc with blood sugar levels and nutrition.

There is no cure for gastroparesis. Making changes to your diet may help you cope with gastroparesis signs and symptoms, but that's not always enough. Gastroparesis medications may offer some relief, but some can cause serious side effects.

contents from: MayoClinic.com

Living Life With Gastroparesis.

Hello everybody, My name is Julianne, i'm 17 years old and have been living with chronic stomach nausea for over a year. It has been quite the struggle, but we have just figured out a diagnosis for my constant nausea and vomitting, gastroparesis.

I've had acid reflux, GERD, and a hiatal hernia in my stomach all of my life. It hasn't bothered me much since my first few years of life until now. For the past year i have struggled to be a normal teen with these chronic illnesses. No one could simply figure out what was the cause of this awful nausea. I first had erosions on my stomach, and intestines, that I took medicine to treat. But it did not fix the problem. We went from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what the problem was. Through many tests nothing seemed to be unusual or an answer to my problem, except the condition IBS, (irritable bowel syndrome), though i did not have typical signs of it.

So after over a year, I just took a stomach emptying test which came out positive. Within two hours only 20% of my food went through my stomach to be digested, when a 100% of the food should have been gone. So finally after a year and about 2 months, we have a diagnosis; gastroparesis.

Within the past several days we have learned of this gastroparesis, and we are finally starting to see some light at the end of this very dark tunnel.

I wanted to create this blog for other people, especially teens, who are stuggling with a chronic stomach disorders like, acid reflux, GERD, chronic nausea, and gastroparesis. I will be blogging about new information, tests, doctor visits, and my personal feelings about coping with this disease.

I hope many people can get a lot from my blog and everyone can work to get through this tough time!

xoxoxox.