Lately the feeling of being drugged when I eat has gotten worse. The intensity of it varies but it's always there.
I have tried cutting certain foods out but it seems that almost everything I ingest causes this. For several days last week all I could tolerate was crackers and unsweetened applesauce. This even happens with salad.
Eating has been hard for me for quite a while with trouble swallowing, chewing and just generally finding it exhausting. I'm not well enough to cook for myself but I manage a pretty healthy diet anyways.
This is one of my worst symptoms. When it's at its worst immediately upon eating I start having trouble breathing and feel like I am going to fall into a coma. Sensory overload gets really bad and I have to go to bed. Sometimes I have to crawl up the stairs to get there.
If it's a food intolerance then part of why I can't figure it out is that one day a particular food won't bother me much, and a few days later the exact same meal puts me in bed for a few hours feeling like I'm going to die.
Any ideas?
Hello there, here are some answers and areas to look at that
might help.
1)
Autonomic Dysfunction. If you haven't been tested, try and see an autonomic nervous system specialist in an allied clinic that has lots of specialist equipment and technicians to help you out. Failing that, try an get a cardiologist or neurologist to order you a TILT TABLE TEST.
I say this because feeling weird or drunk (many with ME say this), including
shortness of breath and vertigo/dizzyness/weakness is actually a sign of Autonomic Nevous System Dysfunction
(including when eating), which is basically part of having ME (not CFS).
NB: If you can prove you have Dysautonomia then you don't have CFS, because you then have an explained reason for 'Chronic Fatigue'. (CFS diagnostic criteria is unexplained Chronic Fatigue). The advantage of this, is you would then have a
proven neurological disorder, unlike CFS, or CFS/ME. If you managed to go to see a specialist they could test you with a little blood test (they throw the blood away after, to see what your BP does when standing up, this might show you have vaso-vagal-syncope. If you've got ME or POTS, then your vagus nerve is going to be sending odd messages to your heart and circulation, especially when you eat, stand up, walk, go to the toilet, get stressed, have a bath etc. Vagus nerve dysfunction, is one of the main reasons PWME get such erratic symptoms to do with circulation and then this can fire off sympathetic nerves to create anxiety/panic/chest pain the works. It can also make you collapse in bed when peeing, and get horrible vertigo yes I've done that many a time.(I've got POTS and ME).
Sensory dysfunction, such as odd feelings in your hands (such as holding knife an fork) or stomach pains could easily be due to
lack of blood flow in your brain - known to occur in POTS especially and POTS is found a lot in people misdiagnosed with CFS. You might also be getting some seizure like episodes, possibly caused by some hypoperfusion in your brain. Proving this is hard with conventional tests, such as an EEG for 'true' epilepsy. Thus you might want to see if you can source a
QEEG brain map. If you have severe ME, I am reasonably sure this will be abnormal and show your brain is half asleep when awake (Delta waves) and has some erratic voltage changes associated to partial seizures.
2) If you think your symptoms could be allergies (allergies play havoc with blood flow in Dysautonomia). Try and source an
IgE blood test. Better than that, try and get multiple results, over time (weeks or months). Then factor in how high the result is vs normal.
You say
This even happens with salad
, that could still be allergies. People can be sensitive to lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots anything people tend to munch as snacks.
Also raw vs cooked can make a difference. E.g. some people report a 'burning mouth' eating raw carrots, but cooked they are fine.
If you think you are simply food intolerant get an
IgG blood test. To be honest, I'm not a fan of these, although they are sold all over the internet to unsuspecting customers. Note, that IgG reactions tend to go down the route of headaches and IBS, and aren't considered dangerous like 'true' allergic reactions. It is interesting, however, to see if you're still launching an immune response against certain foods.
3)
See if you're dropping your blood pressure. Short of actually fainting (syncope) or nearly fainting (pre-syncope) it might be somewhat impractical for you personally to do this. One way is to get a good quality blood pressure monitor (not one worn on the wrist), and leave it in the dining room/kitchen and if you feel a bit 'odd' during a meal time, get someone to pop the cuff on your arm and take a reading. Note that anxiety/stress puts your blood pressure up, so if it's 'normal' when you take it, but you were anxious, this may not be a true reflection on the reading before you took it.
Post prandial hypotension, is another
feature of autonomic dysfunction, it's possible (not necessarily probable) this may be happening to you, and so you feel 'drunk' or weak after a meal, especially a larger meal (such as an evening meal vs breakfast). A simple way to reduce this happening is to eat smaller portions, but eating more frequently (what POTS patients are told to do, for example).
Depending on any test results you have, you can try some countermeasures. I rarely can sit upright to eat due to 'blood pooling', so eat laying on my side (if you eat laying flat, you'll mess up your digestion and might also get a bit out of breath, depending on your level of health and other conditions you have). So see if you feel less weak, sitting on the floor (as an experiment), or sitting on a chair that is much lower to the ground (computer chair on lowest height setting). The logic here, is trying to get your heart as close to your head (brain) as possible, to see if it makes any difference to your weakness symptoms when eating,
So to recap:
* See if you can contact a neurologist/cardiologist to have a TILT test to rule in/out Autonomic Dysfunction, aka Dysautonomia. If you do have this problem, most of your 'weird' sensory and cardiac symptoms can be explained by changes in circulation in your brain/body become dysfunctional due to your CNS being challenged (such as when eating, going to the toilet, bending down, getting stressed getting an infection/allergies, exertion, standing up etc). NB: This is why CBT/GE for ME fails, because exercise and upright posture will exacerbate true chronic autonomic dysfunction, it will however help you if you're simply de conditioned.
*See if you can buy online some IgE blood test kits if your doctor won't help (you'll have to source your own phlebotomist and/or buy a finger prick test, when you do the test yourself and send it off in the post in a tiny little vial. (Don't do a blood 'spot' test, I mean an actual mini tube of blood that is accurate and reliable).
Personally, if you have a doctor, I'd tell them first and ask people on the internet like us last. Still, it was worth it as now you have some ideas.