Healing is a lot like picking a lock. Or sometimes it is even as complicated as hacking into the computer of a bank... the variables are many, and you have to hang in with each option long enough to see if it might be taking you to someplace.
I've been sick from the moment I was born. Stomach ache, belly ache, nausea, bloating, pain to the touch, disgust with food, overweight, underweight, these were obviously digestion related.
Depression, light-headedness, fogginess, anger, temper-tantrums, dyslexia, being disturbed, being an outsider, being different... these don't seem to have anything to do with digestion.
I was treated with harsh medications for duodenal ulcers for 25 years. Obviously the treatment didn't work. I had no pylori bacteria, I was just in pain and miserable. No matter what I ate, I had pain from eating. At one point I was 96 lbs, considered anorexic. I just didn't eat: when I didn't eat it didn't hurt.
It never got much better. Following a diet for hypo-glycemia helped a lot. Not totally. Following a diet for chronic yeast infection helped a lot. Not totally. Following the GAPS diet has helped a lot. Not totally.
Yesterday I found an unopened box of prunes and ate a few. After the first I already felt the pain. But they were moist and soft, and together with soaked walnuts they were just heaven... leaving me in stomach-ache hell.
I went to google and asked the question: burning pain after eating fruit...
Now, I have asked questions relating to this condition before, but I never found anything that would fit.
This time it was different.
This is what I found out:
It's estimated that a whopping 30% of humans suffer from an inability to digest fructose, or an intolerance to it.
What has fructose in it? Most everything.
Some of that 30% has it as a genetic disposition: they lack the enzyme that digests fructose.
Those are the colicky babies that grow up to be sickly adults with irritable bowel syndrome, stomach aches, and depression. Like me...
The rest of the 30% became intolerant to fructose due to the high fructose corn syrup in everything you buy in a store or eat in a restaurant.
Bloating, pain after eating, foggy mind, craving of sweets... all could be symptoms of this intolerance.
Is there a cure? Not that we know it. Serious and disciplined dieting eases the symptoms, but don't eliminate them. Fructose is in everything. Even vegetables are loaded with them.
Animals fed with manufactured feed are storing it in their flesh, passing it onto their milk.
Manufactured fertilizers promote the production of fructose in every plant.
After talking to many of my friends, in my circle 30% may be a low number. Or it could be that we attract each other? lol, not funny.
I am going to develop a workable diet, through trial and error. I am able, and I am willing.
It seems that it is more a proportions issue between glucose and fructose than anything.
I can do well with certain chocolates (gasp! lol) that seemingly have the same sugar contents than other chocolates. My guess is that the "other chocolates" use corn derived sugar in the chocolate.
I do better with Lindt chocolate than with fruits... gasp again! 2-3 cherries cause a stomach ache that will linger for a day. No stomach ache from Lindt.
I even get stomach ache from almonds: you probably don't know that they are quite sweet. Walnuts aren't.
Onions are loaded with fructose. Cabbage is loaded with fructose. Sourkraut: the fermentation digests the sugar: I can eat that.
I have been making and eating a lot of fermented cauliflower: no fructose in it.
If you, or someone you know, have these symptoms, stay tuned. I'll publish here a lot of stuff about this fructose intolerance issue.
Useful links:
This article is so true true true. My whole family is very intolerant of fructose all sweeteners and white sugar, actually all white foods like white bread white rice ect. The 30% your talking about I have discovered are people that is sensitive or over sensitive as a child. We are sensitive in all areas. If I had a row as a child I felt as If I was abused, not at the time, but it is the result of an awful lot of research about myself and my family. The problem is we are all addicted to all the things that’s making us ill. I am eating chocolate while I am writing this I am ashamed to say. Shame on the governments for allowing all the additives and sugar and sweeteners and all the crap it has allowed to be put into our foods etc. Love you and your work Sophie xxx
Thank you. I have found that expensive chocolate doesn’t bother me as much as a dried plum or a dried apricot.