gastroparesis

Hi Sarah,

I don't know much about gastroparesis, but there's this product called Oxy-Powder that really clears out the stomach well and it's an all natural products.

It's ozonated magnesium which means that the magnesium oxides are ozonated, it's paired with citric acid to "react" in your stomach and clear everything out.

It always helps me empty my stomach when I feel things are stuck. Hope it helps you too.

Hi, Sarah. Yes, I also suffered from gastroparesis. It's awful. I looked skeletal and could keep down fewer than 300 calories per day for over a year. Ingesting anything, even drinking water, felt like jagged glass moving through every inch of my GI tract. I never felt hungry, and got weaker and weaker. Later (once it was somewhat better) it also caused me laryngopharangeal reflux, which irritated my lungs. Tick-borne diseases have triggered gastroparesis in a lot of people, earning it the nickname "Bell's palsy of the gut," so you and I are far from alone in experiencing this condition as part of our tick-borne disease constellation!

For me the solution was neurological (since it's a fundamentally neurological disorder). Do you have other forms of dysautonomia as well, like POTS? Is there a dysautonomia specialist near you that you could see? Unfortunately, dysautonomia specialists are few and far between, and tend to have very long waiting lists.

Antimicrobial treatment is enough to fix dysautonomia for some people, when their condition is triggered solely by infections, but for me I needed to address my neurological symptoms directly. I worked to stimulate my vagus nerve (lots of lists of ways to do this can be found online) and reset my hyper-reactive nervous system that was keeping my body out of a parasympathetic ("rest and digest") state. Tending to my nervous system involved supplements (magnesium, B complex), treatments (acupuncture, craniosacral therapy), and practices (abdominal massage, EFT/tapping, meditation, etc.). Acupuncture (with one practitioner in particular) would leave my belly growling and I would be hungry for about two hours after my weekly treatment; I say in all seriousness that being able to eat well for those two hours per week was what saved my life that year. I don't know what that acupuncturist did in particular, but I know she use about a dozen points on the ears.

I assume that to reach the diagnosis of gastroparesis you've probably been tested for other GI issues, like SIBO and irritable bowel diseases? I treated gut dysbiosis very early on, and paid close attention to my gut microbes, with no impact on the gastroparesis. (Again, this is just my experience.) Some people do notice improvement when they have cleared out pathogenic microbial overgrowth in their intestines. It's also important to rule out IBDs because they are autoimmune and should be managed in order to avoid long-term damage (e.g. the majority of Crohn's patients will need at least one bowel resection surgery), but if you're not having any bleeding, then it's probably not IBD (or if it is, then it's very early IBD).

Once gastroparesis had mostly cleared, I realized I was still dealing with widespread nervous system dysfunction and mast cell activation syndrome (which is also tied into the nervous system). I noticed rapid improvement in my GI symptoms and all other symptoms when I began addressing those issues with supplements (curcumin, quercetin), diet (strict low-histamine diet and low-histamine supplements), and practices (limbic system retraining program, Curable app, guided visualizations, tapping, etc.). I think that if I had done those things earlier, then I might have resolved my gastroparesis sooner.

Again, this is just my experience. Doctors offered me appetite stimulants, asked me if I had a history of eating disorders, and recommended the usual things they recommend for gut issues (probiotics, parasite cleanses, candida cleanses, etc.). I was diagnosed with IBS and told that it was common and harmless. It was depressing how little anyone understood about gastroparesis!

I"m so sorry you're going through this. You're in good company here. Many, many Lymies go through this. <points to self>

Because "gastroparesis" seems to be used many way these days, even among us Lymies, it would be good if you could be a little more specific. That being said...

If you're constipated, have you tried just supplementing with magnesium, such as magnesium oxide or magnesium malate, such as Natural Calm. Magnesium helps the body bring water to the intestines, which then softens stools and relaxes gut muscles so they can move. You'd take the magnesium with plenty of water, and away from food, as you don't want to neutralize your stomach acid near when you're eating.

Are you drinking plenty? Have you tried the common remedy of drinking two large mugs of water in the morning when you first get up (and at least an hour before mealtime)? If drinking water gives you nausea, trying add a little freshly squeezed lemon juice to it. That will help reduce nausea and has many other health benefits.

The corollary to this is to make sure you drink next to nothing with meals. Lymies often have damage to the proton pumps in their stomachs. Those pumps produce stomach acid. Less stomach acid means you're not digesting your food properly. That leads to my next suggestion: Have you tried high quality, multi-ingredient digestive enzyme complexes, such as Ultrazyme from Douglas Labs? Ultrazyme contains multliple enzymes, plus betaine hydrochloride to boost your stomach acid.

What's your diet like? Have you tried going off all sugar and carbs? Both feed yeast and bacteria and can make for very nasty GI symptoms.

As a last resort (only because it's not as pleasant), have you considered trying a colonic? Those were critical for me at one time, before I learned how to manage my GI issues better.

You might also want to buy some peppermint oil that's pure enough to be ingested. It is a natural soother that is so gentle that it's given to babies. Peppermint oil calms nause/gas/indigestion by killing bad bacteria and soothing the GI tissue. It's so gentle that they give it to babies for gas, bloating, etc.

It's often helpful to try to check for triggers. Other common triggers to make things worse include caffeine (coffee, tea, chocolate), and drinks that are cold or carbonated.

There are many other things you can do. I know a lot about this subject, largely due to Razzle, here on the forum. She helped me enormously. She is very kind that way.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more info. we can give you, but the more you learn, the better you'll be with this disease/set of diseases.

Post Edited (Hogwild) : 2/13/2023 9:30:08 AM (GMT-8)

My gut feeling (sorry) from my knowledge of tick-borne is that thiamine deficiency is not the main cause, though it could be one cause.

If you want to go the thiamine route, a quick search turned up this
(look for the post by onamission for some links to articles
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/where-to-turn/[url]

I haven't read that myself, but I'll take your word for it. I'm not arguing that...just that I'm not sure it's the main cause of the OP's problems. Do you have a citation of any kind?

A good article for beginners has always been "Bells Palsy of the Gut" by Dr. Virginia Sher. It might have been the first and seminal article directed at patients (as opposed to to doctors).

https://www.lymebasics.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/gi02-bells-palsy-of-the-gut-sherr.pdf

Post Edited (Hogwild) : 2/13/2023 2:52:46 PM (GMT-8)

Fixed that, thanks for the heads up. Hmmm..the URL button didn't properly encase my URL in the right HTML codes to create proper link. I had to insert them manually. Is that a bug people have seen before here?

Post Edited (Hogwild) : 2/13/2023 2:58:28 PM (GMT-8)

I didn’t have thiamine deficiency.
When you first start seeing Dr J, he tests for almost everything.

what meds?

Hogwild said...
Macrophages.

Do you mind sharing where you got those?

saraeli said...
I worked to stimulate my vagus nerve (lots of lists of ways to do this can be found online) and reset my hyper-reactive nervous system that was keeping my body out of a parasympathetic ("rest and digest") state.

Is the stimulation of the vagus nerve a "forever" thing or were you able to do it, get the desired results and stop?

Trkane, I did those things (vague nerve toning and DNRS limbic system retraining) for a while and then stopped. I had larger potatoes to fry for a while! These days, I do those things proactively when I know I'm under stress because I know that stress affects my nervous system. I make sure to do things every day that regulate my nervous system, which keeps most of my symptoms at bay.