Note: This is a response to various responses on the J-Pouch group refering to the concern about increased fiber and constipation etc. Truthfully, the responses were very appreciative. However, there exists a tendency towards disconfidence related towards non-pharmaceutical solutions... although most J-Pouchers, especially those with IBS and Crohns, are extremely dependent upon the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry, although without receiving adequate relief... I think of those with Ulcerative Colitis and IBD who suffered horribly, extremely dependent upon anything the medical community would suggest, who in the end (usually in their 20s) were left to no other resort but to have their colons and rectums removed and replaced with a J-Pouch. What if the remedy for THEM (I don't mention Crohns or FAP/Gardners, because the causes of the inflamations etc may be a bit different), was a dramatic change in diet away from what EVERYONE around them was eating... a vote of confidence and strength that they would endure not being socially "correct" and avoiding the commercially popular "pass times" everyone suddenly and increasingly put in their mouths? Inconvenience... But, suffering what they suffered all these years is a bit less convenient... having the colon and rectum removed is a hell of an inconvenience... Your body is socially accepted in your circles, when you are with your friends and family as they expect of you... But, when you are alone, you are hating your body... living with your body. And those who socially accepted you don't know anything about your body and what it experiences... what it does to you... how it affects your psychology, your work, your sleep, your concentration, your ability to focus upon things a little less personal and, in ways, in the long run a bit more important. How it affects your sexual relationships... how it makes you "a miserable bitch"... All the energy consumed by the suffering, the performing with lack of sleep, with vitamin-mineral deficiencies, trying to focus on what you MUST focus upon and the energy consumed trying to get back or keep "on target"... Only you understand this... Martin Luther King Jr repeated how many times "I have a dream" in his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial terminating the first massive civil rights march on Washington in 1965 if I'm correct and, even if we didn't hear more than 3+ words of that speech, we know the name... And I find myself beginning a speech to myself repeatedly with the words "I wish..." And that sentence can be terminated in so many ways, such as "I wish I could have used all of that energy wasted upon responding to the suffering caused by... and dedicating it to something a bit less personal and a bit more productive or constructive..." I elected against writing "valuable", "important" etc... because responding to discomforts, worries etc is valuable and important. However, maybe if I understood profoundly how many aspects of our modern diet affect us physically, epigenetically, mentally etc., maybe I could have avoided much wasted time and energy and been able to have become more... constructed more... pursued more... more what? Interests that generate... Generate what? Running to the bathroom every so many minutes in the night... or waiting for the urge to pass in order to continue doing what ever it is I am doing at the moment, is distracting, disconcentrating... Not eating healthfully because eating healthfully means abdominal discomforts and much sleep lost, time spent in the bathroom... Not being able to travel or be in public spaces or participate in eco-sports or eco-tourism or staying over night in someone else's house without worrying horribly about bathroom related risks... consumes energy and attention that could have been directed towards more "useful" ends...
But, then again, I wouldn't have stumbled across what I've stumbled across that may help many people. I don't offer a service. I'm not creating a movement. I'm just sharing very useful information.
Ironic... Ironic is the idea that eating healthfully is a risk, causes problems, causes lack of health... Ironic. Avoiding foods high in nutrients that help concentration, mental energy, sleep, stamina, production of energy, improve mood or create stable moods, tissue health, strengthen the immune system, create circulatory health etc... helps you progress healthfully into the future because it helps prevent mishaps, bad decisions, future diseases etc because they immediately make you miserable... Is ironic. After a day of happily and enthusiastically eating healthfully, I found myself forced to eat unhealthfully... things that did not cause blockage or caused slight-diarrhea (J-Pouch diarrhea is much more comfortable than J-Pouch constipation...) You know that you will succeed rapidly with what you went to the bathroom to do. You flush the toilet and you're back within the project upon which you were focussing... and not worrying about not having succeeded in the bathroom, irritated, uncomfortable; at any moment your lower abdomine will tell you you must urgently run to the bathroom and struggle there for a while, usually to not sufficient avail and continue the process... With the exception of night, when it is not convenient awakening every 2 or 3 hours to go to the bathroom, although successfully; those sleep disturbances cause other serious health problems. And if you manage to sleep through the night with J-Pouch "Diarrhea", you awaken with the bed stained, to put it lightly...
But, it's really not only about the J-Pouch. It's also about the small intestine... Eating healthfully MUST NOT be considered the cause of lack of health...
Constipation... that's why I hardly ever ate fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds... for years, never apples... I also hated the skin. However...
Removing the wheat products, most industrial vegetable oils (in industrial I mean industrially fabricated, such as Mazola, Canola... non-virgin olive oils... and the such. Udo Erasmus explains extremely clearly the issue in his book "Fats that Heal; Fats that kill"), and most other refined carbs along with potatoes and most corn products I removed the inflamation that causes the blockage.
When you remove the skin of an apple, you remove most of the nutrients. So, if you don't want to eat the apple straight, blending it makes a lot of sense... if you don't have problems with those textures...
We are "special" people with extremely unique experiences, and the J-Pouch specialists and the Colitis, IBS, Crohns and FAP/Gardners "experts" don't live with these experiences, and being hard working human beings pressed for time, they don't have the time, energy or money for truly understanding what happens with the patient who had their colon and rectum removed etc. It is up to each of us to try and think "out of the box" or backwards and forwards, turning what we were told to believe or what we were told is normal or healthy on its head and start looking at things from a different perspective. Sometimes easy responses or easy fixes (represented greatly by the Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Occidental Medicine) create much less recovery or much slower understanding of the situation.
If most of the problem with modern 20th/21st century chronic illness is related to inflamation, then maybe we should consider best what causes inflamation and what the inflamation causes.
"Itis". Do you know what that signifies? Inflamation. Pouchitis, Colitis, Duodenitis, Gastritis, Esophagitis... The inflamation of the brain is... Meningitis; "an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges."
So, imagine the J-Pouch or the Small Intestine inflamed and then imagine ruffage or large inflexible particles, such as nuts or seeds or broccoli etc passing through narrowed inflamed passageways, especially if those passageways have billions of folds or tentacles (cilia) that jut out towards the center of the passageway (if you don't suffer from Celiac Disease)... Now, imagine those passageways uninflamed...
Think about it. Why would we have problems with blockage when healthy people with colons and rectums don't? Where is the blockage occurring? In the J-Pouch? or in the Small Intestine? They have Small Intestines too... And, the J-Pouch is an increased reservoir replacing the rectum... our colectomies removed transit time and distance or space for creating risks for blockage or constipation... We don't have that reservoir (colon) for slowing things down and removing excess water. We shouldn't be the constipated ones...
or maybe we should turn the issue on its head and ask what it is about our illnesses/syndromes that causes the blockage in the first place... It isn't the natural and healthy produce we place in our mouths... Absolutely illogical. Although I imagine most of us have spent years blaming suffering on Lettuce, Spinach, Cabbage, Mushrooms, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrots, Beets, Kale, Swiss Chard, sweet potatoes, potatoes, winter squash, nopales (cactus paddles; which is ironic, since they are the #1 vegetable in the world for decreasing inflamation), Nuts, Seeds, Pineapple, Bananas, Papaya, non-squeezed oranges/Grapefruits, guavas, (I just named most of what caused me horrible bathroom problems for the past 11 years... which includes horribly embarassing night-time "incontinence"; when you actually manage to enter REM sleep after spending how much time in the bathroom straining, wishing you could pull out with a hook what is there telling you you must run to the bathroom every 5-10 minutes and then seemingly laughing in your face..., and either the liquid passing around the blockage and staining the sheets and irritating your skin... or maybe something "relaxed" and you awaken "in the process..." your "significant other" sleeping unperturbed alongside your "mess", your momentary sleep destroyed at 4am...)
This is NOT a joke. I'm NOT an outsider preaching to you.
No one truly shares their horrible experience with others (in order for others to know that they are not the only ones living these VERY PERSONAL difficulties. Afterall that is what these groups are for; support, increased understanding...), not even on the J-Pouch communities... (only surgeries and setbacks; it's difficult to mention constipation--we hear the snickering towards the back of the 4th grade classroom if you know what I mean)...
We've lived our lives as outsiders with our experiences... although it is not our fault, we suffer horrible taboos... What men talk about J-Pouch-caused sexual dysfunctions? Incontinence? What is worse to share with the ONLY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO COULD POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND US and what we are experiencing...? But we don't go there. We can talk to doctors about this. Women don't remove their blouses and brazieres in public. But, if the person who will do the mamograph suddenly appears to be a "strange" man, they can become topless... I run shirtless in the city park (for Vitamin D) and people look at me strange. The children yell to their parents, "LOOK there's a man running naked in the park!" although I'm running with shorts... And I feel bad. And I feel bad when those shorts slip down a little bit and show a bit of my hip or upper buttocks... But, in the radiology room I quickly learn to not worry about the fact that the hospital gown is slightly open in back showing off almost everything, especially since they made me lay down on my stomach... We can tell these things to the doctors, since we believe they understand and because we believe they've heard and seen it all. But they are humans who have NOT experienced what we experience. And, until one truly experiences what we experience profoundly and possibly on a constant basis and truly what worries and irritates us, "they don't know NOTHIN'"...
But, I have stumbled across something... And I am sleeping through the night NO MATTER WHAT TIME I ATE (and I eat a lot and I often eat an hour or maximally 2 hours before I go to sleep)... And, I've stopped defocating in the bed... And I can eat almost all fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, cooked or raw etc without suffering as I had... And I don't take anti-inflamatories or metamucil or milk of magnesia or or or...
Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.
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