saw doctor about diarrhea

[redbird]

I've been suffering recurrent diarrhea for the last few weeks, weirdly without any other noticeable/relevant symptoms: no nausea or vomiting, no fever, no significant pain. There's no pattern to when I have the symptoms, in terms of what I do or don't eat, the time of day, or anything else I've noticed. I've been intermittently miserable, in part from the diarrhea, and in part from sleep deprivation, because that "no pattern" has included being unable to get settled/comfortable enough to go to sleep, and waking up in the night with the runs and needing to sit up until things settle down again.

I saw Carmen this morning, and she listened to my gut, and poked me gently in a few places to see how I reacted. Based on that, she doesn't think there's anything significantly wrong with my kidneys, liver, or pancreas.

Carmen had the tech draw blood for testing, and they sent me home with a stool sample kit (oh joy). If those tests don't produce an answer, the next step is either a GI doctor or a colonoscopy.

Also:

At Adrian's suggestion, I took a covid test a couple of weeks ago, which was negative.

The three of us don't eat all the same things, but the only thing that I eat and that neither she nor Cattitude does is most dairy, particularly ice cream, yogurt, and milk.

I've tried skipping dairy for a day or so, and separately tried a day of just rice, banana, apple sauce, and tea, and neither of those things seemed to make a difference.

ETA 12/20: the blood test showed nothing unusual. I gave them a stool sample two days ago, and there was a MyChart message about a new test result, but it turned out to be an updated version of the blood test results. Meanwhile, I keep having bouts of diarrhea, but at least they haven't kept me up horribly late, or had me out of bed before dawn, in the last couple of days.

Comments

[otter]

I hope it turns out to be nothing serious. Seriously annoying though. When I gave up dairy (mostly) it took quite a while (several weeks at least) for my digestive tract to settle down. I've been able to eat some dairy again after a long break, without too much problem.

[minoanmiss]

sends you happy gut vibes

[sine_nomine]

All of this.

[sraun]

I know I'm somewhere between fairly & significantly lactose intolerant. If I have something with lactose, I can identify the effect anywhere from eight hours to over two days later. Lactose has two effects on my, they show up at about the same time - diarrhea and farts that smell like sour milk.

I know people can have diarrhea from dairy that is not due to lactose, even though lactose is the most common problem.

So, maybe could be dairy? I think you'd have to go longer than a day or so, more like four days to a week, to really rule it out.

[joseph_teller]

Could be other causes.

Antibiotics can mess with your bacteria, for example. When I've had to take them I have to actually `put yogurt into my diet to replace lost balance.

Any meds change with me for other conditions has always included a few days of diarrhea.

The Blood test should pick up if its pancreas, electrolyte imbalance, salt levels, liver, thyroid or other possibilities.

If you had any salads or other raw foods there is the chance of a problem there.

If you have had eggs from Costco's they have had a food recall.

Also it was announced yesterday that Impossible Foods products has a recall affects multiple batches of the company's Impossible Savory Ground Sausage Meat from Plants and Impossible Spicy Ground Sausage Meat from Plants, both distributed nationwide.

Cal Yee has had a national recall on its chocolate, nut, fruit and yogurt covered foods due to undisclosed allergens (they may contain undeclared milk, FD&C #6, soy, wheat, sesame, and almonds). This includes Cal Yee Farm brands and the Boa Vista Orchards brand.

I don't know if any of these items are things that you and your household eat but they could be matters of concern that could cause problems.