Saturday, January 15, 2011

Two steps forward…

It’s been more than a month since our fructose malabsorption diagnosis – and while we’ve had some success, we’ve also had some recent difficulty. Our initial wonderful turnaround has been followed by a couple of weeks of questions and more questions. Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing, because during this time it did seem like the foods I had bought contained sugar though I didn’t think they did, while really it’s more likely that her system was backing up and that was causing our issues.

Needless to say, right now she’s asleep next to me on the couch. Her stomach is a little better, she’s a bit more comfortable, but we’re back to a completely basic diet and have eliminated gluten for now. If she’s not better by Monday, the doctor wants to take a look – she may have again developed a bacterial growth and antibiotics may be in order.

I’m just so concerned that she’s losing more weight, but haven’t brought out the scale because I don’t want to alarm her. Our last visit showed she had dropped below 80 pounds, she’s just under 5 foot, and had lost about eight pounds total, so close to ten percent of her body weight really. While we have found a couple of foods that eased her sugar/snack/dessert cravings (diet Jello pudding  and Pirate’s Booty!), neither one of them will fatten her up. Sad smile

If anyone has any ideas for gluten/sugarfree (including HCFS, etc.) desserts or high-calorie meals, I’d love to hear them! Our nutritionist is helpful with what not to eat, but doesn’t have a lot of information in this regard. I’m off now to research “fructose malabsorption” support groups. Wish me luck!!!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jen,

    I have FM too, and had a few months of trial and error getting my diet sorted. Cravings for sweet things were an issue for me too. I can tolerate small amounts of cane sugar
    (which is half glucose/half fructose), so I used to make myself gluten free biscuits/slices with small amounts of cane sugar. You can also cook with dextrose (glucose) powder instead of sugar (I made a batch of gf banana muffins yesterday with dextrose instead of sugar and they caused no probs to my tummy). I find it safer to fill up on higher fat calories however, as I get a little addicted and end up eating too much sugar. Omelette's are good, as are meat dishes like homemade burgers (look at the ingredients in processed meats). Maybe she'll eat some oven baked gluten free hot chips as a snack? I'd just be careful with the diet Jello pudding as many artificial sugars can also cause probs with FM.

    The best (online) support group I've found is Fructose Malabsorbtion Australia (you don't have to be an Aussie to join/participate) - http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/fructose_malabsorption_australia/

    Hope this helps and good luck!!


    Bern

    ReplyDelete