Chronic Illness and its Affects on Daily Life
What is the Gastric Bypass? There are multiple types of bariatric surgery, but the most common is the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. It has been performed longer than other forms of weight-loss surgery. It involves creating a new small pouch from the stomach and rerouting the small intestine to this pouch. This pouch is separate from the stomach so food bypasses most of the stomach and the first portion of the small intestine. Being the most...
Years ago my wife introduced me to Cuban food. One of our favorites is Fricase de Pollo. I have been making this for years and I have not needed to change the recipe following my gastric bypass. I eat this with farro instead of white rice now though. I typically use a whole cut-up fryer chicken and save the back and wings to use in different meals. The chicken breasts are cut in half to...
Fibromyalgia is often misunderstood, and to many, a made-up disorder. Luckily there seems to be more acceptance of it out in the world. Unfortunately, that also means that there are a lot of us out there that have already been diagnosed. According to the National Fibromyalgia Association, fibromyalgia affects around 10 million people in the U.S. and 3-6% of the world population. More than 75% of those diagnosed are women, but there is no single...
The nerve pain in my hands was my first symptom in this journey of mine. I struggled a lot at first to get my pain under control. After different doctors and tests were unable to shed light on my situation I would fall back to my Ibuprofen when my hands were acting up. The Ibuprofen helped take the edge off, but it obviously didn’t touch the weakness in hands. I spent a lot of time...
I grew up eating a variety of food with my family’s Central European and Sicilian background. With my recent lifestyle change I decided to work on some familiar recipes and hopefully be able to continue enjoy them. I was reminded of Chicken Paprikash not too long ago and immediately remembered that it has been far too long since I’ve had it. There were necessary changes to make this bariatric friendly. First, I needed to remove...
I was reminded again today how important it is to be careful eating after bariatric surgery. I cook almost all of our meals so I rarely need to worry about the unknown in restaurant food. I occasionally stop at a local Thai place for curry, no rice of course. For the longest time Sunday’s have been our day to go out for breakfast. Between work, school, and my wife’s business it’s hard to get everybody...
Living with a chronic illness is not an easy road. For the first couple of years, I didn’t really understand what was happening; even after I received my Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue diagnoses. I attended a three-day class on Fibromyalgia at the Mayo Clinic, and they used tubes of varying levels of colored water to explain the impact on our energy levels. It didn’t make the most sense though I got the gist. The Spoon...
