This means my small intestines only go to work once I lie down and go to sleep.
4,5 hours later they've done their job and moved everything on to the next part: the colon. (this is my assumption, that it takes about 4,5 hours to travel food through the small intestines. I've read it somewhere but can't re-find it)
Same here. I am so glad I see people with similar issues, so far it was always only my odd problem no doctor could help with.
in my case,the "small intestines go to work only when I lie down" problem looks like this:
- I am convinced that where the food actually stays until then is simply the stomach. so, its concretely a gastric emptying issue. what evidence do I have?
- - In fact, my gastric emptying has been investigated and it is delayed. more interestingly, I asked the technician to show me the video of the gastric scintigraphy. it showed clearly how the stomach does substantial movements to empty itself, but nothing or little comes out. -> closed pyloric valve. the measurement results also reported some diminuation of gastric contraction amplitude and frequency.
- - adding to the scintigraphy argument, I do yoga since so many years, which increases body feeling of whats going on ("interoceptive sensitivity"). it is like a "builtin ultrasound" where you know very well whats happenimg. listen into myself and feel things others dont feel. this tells me: I feel the same when my stomach empties after meal and when digestion starts at night.
- - if you want to test if your nightly waking up and digesting is also because of foodremaining in the stomach, here is a simple test: before going to bed, go for a round of jogging. can be very light if you dont like jogging. if there is food in the stomach, you likely feel a mild or moderate crampiness / tugging / weight / hardness in the area where the stomach is. dont overdo, it can bring your trouble. actually, in me a very light round of jogging is a good method to help the problem because after the jogging I lay down and then the gastric motility starts!
- In me the problem is so severe that often I cannot sleep already right from the beginning when the stomach empties after lying down and then the small intestines start working.
- If my stomach empties fully during the day (fortunately most days), then I sleep perfectly, but still may wake up later during the night, as described. When not waking up, my snoreclock or sleep phases (android apps) show me that exactly that same time is where I snore. No, I dont think that this is when the food arrives in the large intestine (cause most of the days I have no issues of food remaining in stomach) but still have the snoring phase / wake up after x hours of sleep. But I like the argument that it is related to blood flow. blood foow is poor in me and in addition I have a low spo2. so the heart starts pumping and the owner of that heart wakes up.
My guess is that it has to do with cronobiology: there is a time at night when the liver is more active and I recall it is just this time when I have the issue. so it detoxes or whatever and needs blood flow. and here come in the bad bacteria: they produce a host of toxins into the portal vein. for example LPS from gut bacteria ar filtered by the liver. dont know however if that happens immediately or at night or at last there is sthg left to do at night.
- i have difficulties believing air bubble theories. billions of people have lots of air in the belly and do not have these problems.
- All these waking up probs at night I could substantially improve by not eating supper
- when I got sicker even that was not enough. just a few weeks ago, I found out b6 helps. both with the gastric emptying during the day as well as with the sleeping in case things go wrong and I start digesting at night. I can give details what I do exactly and what I know why it helps and what the reason is why one may stay awake at night because of digestion (in brief: serotonin makes motility, serotonin antagonizes with melatonin -> no sleep. b6 improves both -> sleep and digestion)
- I guess melatonin antagonizes not only serotonin but also dopamine and noradrenaline and any other thing that pushes. now, guess what, many motility enhancer drugs do what? block dopamine.
- self-acupressure of several TCM points helps
- laying in bed after meals is a necessity for me
I had my noradrenaline measured: laying its normal, standing its excessive. I can bring it down by meditation, but no use: I went so far that I almost fainted and my temperature dropped more than 1°C. it helps with digestion but is no solution.
- I know the reason why my intestinal blood flow is poor and I have such xcessive norepinephrine standing: too much blood flow s directed to skin (I have unusually warm skin, very well perfused, receiving most of blood flow. science says it can take up to 60% of blood flow of the heart!). I wish I would know people with the same problem! essentially, it is that my body behaves as if it would be 40°C. many people getborthostatic issues, high noradrenaline or have issues with food at such temperatures.
does anyone know
- what to do for a more relaxed pyloric valve / resp. better steering of opening at the right time?
- further ways of increasing gastric motility?
- diminishing dopamine somewhat, naturally?
- natural ways to increase low blood pressure? (salt helps me but is not enough. increasing methylation helps too, but makes even more aktivating neurotransmitters. glycine is good, but can take only <1g because it suppresses immune system)
- how to correct thermoregulation?
if anyone want research papers proving the above or my lab values for comparison, just ask, I am glad to send.