I recently agreed to be part of a study of
patients who had undergone laparascopic gastric banding, ie Lap-banding, for
the treatment of obesity. I had the band in 2006 and lost 30kg (read previous
post) but had review surgery in August this year
because I was having terrible trouble with reflux. So now the reflux is cured,
praise the Lord, but I have yet to lose any more weight, so I am having serial
adjustments until we hit the ‘sweet spot’ where there is the balance between
hunger and satiety, between food slipping down too easily and some sort of
restriction which acts as a behaviour-modifier. Interestingly, the experience
is quite different the second time around, partly I guess because I know more
what to expect. But an odd thing has happened to me; I have developed what
looks (and sounds) like IBS. Sure, in the past I might have had a bit of a wind
problem, but nothing painful, no bloating etc. Now, OMG, some days I can’t be
in the same room with anybody. I now understand those women who have babies
without knowing they are pregnant, because they think that the baby’s kicking
is ‘wind’. Well, I have that sort of wind now. If I didn’t know I wasn’t
pregnant, I would wonder.
It’s as if I have suddenly become intolerant of
fructose or lactose or everything with an –ose at the end, or who knows. Whonose. G-dnose. (But no reflux, so I
can sleep at night even though we have to keep the windows open.) Plus all
sorts of shenanigans with bowels which I won’t bore you with.
Apparently, according to the GP who looks after me
in the Centre for Bariatric Surgery in Glen Iris, this is not rare and should
settle. But nobody seems to understand why this happens. We agreed that I
should keep a food diary and maybe we can pinpoint the cause. She suggested
MyFitnessPal app. This just looks at calories really, so not quite what I need,
but I downloaded the app and have rediscovered that I am crap at food diaries,
no matter how they are presented. And it’s easier with pencil and paper. Duh.
But all food diaries, provided one fills them in
honestly, and that is a BIG if, are pretty confronting.
Before I had the band I had a whole training diary
which I got from my personal trainer, and I was so stringent with everything I
ate, drank and exercised, and I thought I was pretty good. I looked at the
pages recently and I was shocked at how much I was eating. I eat a fraction of
that now. Really, no wonder I’m such a fatty, without the restriction of the
band and the fact that it does take away your hunger, I could eat infinitely.
So I am eating a lot less than I used to, but it’s far from ideal. FAR, FAR from
ideal. I do tend to eat –not to put too fine a point on it- crap. And now the
question is, am I really intolerant of FODMAPS, or is
this just a transient phase and will I just wait it out? I’m flying out in a
few days so that will sure be a testing time. Is there anything worse for
everybody concerned, than excessive gas on an airplane?
Meanwhile, I received a questionnaire in the mail
from a researcher in the Bariatric Centre and it went on for pages and pages of
multiple choice questions about physical and mental well-being. And they
actually did ask about excessive wind, so maybe this really is a common problem
after surgery.
The mental stuff was interesting because it was
like ‘I have felt sad for no reason- never, hardly ever, sometimes, all the
time’ in the last 2 weeks/4 weeks whatever, or ‘I have felt panicky and
anxious’ or ‘I have felt like killing myself’ etc and the way they phrased it
all, I just ticked never/never/never etc until I could see at the end that I
scored zero. Which, in my experience, usually means that the client filling
these forms out is in denial. So I went over it and I really didn’t change
anything. I must be the happiest person around, which surprises me. But then, they
weren’t asking have you EVER been sad etc for no reason, they were asking about
the last 2 weeks. So I am delighted to say that, at least for the last 2 weeks,
I have indeed been the happiest person around.
Oh yes, the ‘for no reason’ bit. Well, I have been
completely pissed off FOR VERY GOOD REASON, several times in the past 2 weeks.
For example, I was in despair when Julia Gillard bowed to the Greens and lost all
moral authority, allowing Australia’s abstention vote on Nov 29 on upgrading
‘Palestine’ to observer status in the UN. And I was enraged to the point of
ignition when Bob Carr called the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, for a dressing-down
concerning Israel’s decision to build more homes in the E1 ‘settlement’ area
(12km square, I believe, adjacent to Ma’alei Adumim, and anyone who calls that
a ‘settlement’ hasn’t seen it). I didn’t see Carr call in the Syrian ambassador
to express concerns about Assad mobilizing chemical weaponry to be used, I’m
only guessing here, against his own citizens. Nor did I see any mention of
calling the Egyptian ambassador to ask hard questions about Morsi’s
self–empowerment and complete destruction of any nascent democratic process in
Egypt. And no sirree, Carr had no desire to quiz the Iranian ambassador about
obvious lies to the world about nuclear aspirations, threatening genocide and
Holocaust denial. But give a Jew a hammer and a fistful of nails, and World
Peace is threatened.
So that all made me pretty unhappy. But apart from
the feeling that Armageddon is getting closer, I am officially a happy person.
Maybe there are worse things than a rogue fart.
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