Sunday, September 19, 2010

Day 216- This Medicine is Kicking My Butt

First- Weekend schedule change. Most of you (and almost all of me) probably sleep a bit later on weekends, or don't plan things as closely, or just kinda relax your schedules on the weekend. I'm doing that here. I'll try and get Saturday and Sunday up by 10am, but may sometimes push back all the way to noon.

Right, food.

I do not like the medicine I started taking. It's making me pukey and actively unhungry. Yesterday I managed to choke down the two rolls over about an hour, but it was really late at night before I even thought about food again.

Now, normally, if I go a bit too long between meals, I'll get a little pukey, and that's a really good sign that it's time to scarf down the nearest eatable anything. This stuff isn't leaving me that option. I feel worse *after* I eat than before.

So, this is a problem, obviously. It *may* go away in a couple weeks. It also may stick around for however long I'm on the stuff (and if I can't eat, it won't be that long...). For an idea of how bad this is, I bought a bag of chips last night. I managed to eat about 10 before I had to stop.

I'm going to hunt down a scale today and get an idea of where I'm at there. If I'm not *really* eating again by Wednesday, though, this experiment might have to take a short break. High calorie/ low bulk, not-dairy veggie food is tough to find and kinda spendy.

Normally, if I haven't eaten and I'm either pukey or just *not hungry* feeling because of it a couple bites of *something* will kick the hungry back on. Not with this stuff, though. I get one good shot, probably 1/2 to 1 cup of food before I can't get anything near my face. I don't even want to eat spring rolls. I love spring rolls.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?

6 comments:

  1. Well, I don't know what you're taking, if it is OTC or Rx, but this is the classic 'talk to your doc' situation. No way a doctor, if this is Rx, would suggest you just ignore this. It is either a known side effect and there are options, or it is rare and there are options. And if it is OTC, talk to a pharmacist (which is free). Same story. They can either say, 'oh, that's because you need to take it WITH food, or milk, etc' or 'oh, take this instead then'.

    Not eating is bad for you, and no medicine should acceptably make you sicker than you were before you took it.

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  2. It's an Rx, and it's pretty common in the first week or two, it turns out, to lose appetite, but most people get it back. If I can remember to eat when I take it, that's supposed to help with the nausea. Problem is, this is the option with the *least* side effects, so anything else is probably going to be worse. And they just about *all* cause loss of appetite.

    Also, as I learned last winter, for some reason stuff that kills appetite (like mucinex-D) *really* kills mine.

    I'll call the Doc and ask Monday, but I get the feeling most people just chug nutritional shakes or something until their appetites come back.

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  3. It's a bit pricey but I've been drinking Silk: Almond Milk (haven't tried making it homemade) and I've noticed it helps me when I'm taking medication to settle my stomach a bit. I get nauseous (on a scale of 1-10 I'm always at a constant 5 for feeling under the weather). Crackers, which always seem to be an old wives tale about settling the stomach, always makes me feel worse. Can't munch on them without wanting to gag more.

    Feel better soon!

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  4. The ginger (and/ or sweetened ginger tea) works really well for me. At this point the nausea isn't rolling stomach anymore, it's backed off to that "my throat's closed up, if I eat that I'm gonna choke" feeling.

    I've seen the Silk Almond milk, but haven't bought it. It's the same price here as soy, I just don't use enough milk to feel right buying it.

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  5. I'm not sure if your medicine is still making you sick, but what they told me to do when mine was making me sick was to eat 2-4 bites of food, then lay down. Then I was supposed to give it 10-15 minutes, and if I didn't feel like puking, eat 2-4 more bites. And so on, until my plate was empty. If the food DID make me sick then I was supposed to lay down until I stopped feeling sick then eat more bites. Wasn't pleasant, but it did work.

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  6. I'm off it for now, probably trying something new in Nov.

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