Sensitive Stomach

What’s a sensitive stomach?

The term “sensitive stomach” is a non-medical way to describe a stomach that’s easily upset. People with a sensitive stomach may experience recurring gas, bloating, nausea, vomiting, constipation, or diarrhea.

Someone who has a sensitive stomach might connect their sensitivity to certain foods or situations. Others might experience discomfort or digestive disruptions without being sure of the cause.

At some point, everyone experiences stomach upset. But if you regularly deal with discomfort, indigestion, or changing bowel habits, you may have a sensitive stomach.

What causes a sensitive stomach?

Some people with chronic stomach discomfort are more sensitive to certain foods — like dairy, spicy foods, alcohol, or fried foods. Others may find that they have food intolerances which, unlike food allergies, are not life-threatening sensitivities.

Unlike those with food allergies, people with food intolerances may be able to tolerate small amounts of the foods in question. People with a dairy sensitivity can take enzymes that help them digest lactose.

Irritable bowel syndrome

Sometimes, people who experience frequent stomach issues have something more going on than just sensitivity. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one common culprit behind ongoing stomach trouble.

While its signature symptoms are similar to those of a sensitive stomach, chronic bowel pain is usually involved with IBS. This is due to inflammation in the intestines that tends to be made worse by certain foods.

IBS prevents your stomach and intestines from functioning optimally. Some people with IBS have chronic constipation, while others experience ongoing diarrhea. IBS affects the mobility of the contents of your intestines. This causes:

• changes in bowel habits
• trapped gas
• abdominal pain

Women tend to be diagnosed with IBS more often than men. Women who have had surgeries like C-sections or hysterectomies may be more prone to IBS than others.

Inflammatory bowel disease

If your symptoms are severe, your doctor may perform tests to diagnose you with an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) like ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease, severe conditions that require prescription anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs.

These therapies may also be supplemented with medications to regulate bowel movements, stop diarrhea, prevent infection, and manage pain. Iron supplements might also be prescribed if you have chronic intestinal bleeding.

Further reading: "If Digestion Takes So Long, Why Does Diarrhea Travel So Quickly Through The Body?"

What are the symptoms of a sensitive stomach?

Most symptoms of a sensitive stomach can easily be treated at home. These include:

• intestinal gas
• bloating
• indigestion
• heartburn
• acid reflux
• nausea
• vomiting
• occasional abdominal pain
• constipation
• diarrhea

But if you have the following severe symptoms, contact your doctor immediately:

• chronic or severe abdominal pain that makes it difficult for you to do your normal activities
• blood or pus in your stool
• severe, ongoing diarrhea that lasts for more than two days
• nighttime diarrhea that keeps you from sleeping
• unexplained fever
• allergic reaction (hives, swelling, itching, etc.)

These symptoms may signal a serious condition. Your doctor will perform testing to determine the cause of your symptoms and diagnose the issue.

How to treat a sensitive stomach

Because there are many things that can upset a sensitive stomach, it can take time to pinpoint and solve the problem. Here are some remedies you can try at home to alleviate your discomfort.

Eat smaller portions

• Filling your stomach too much can make you gassy and give you indigestion. Try reducing the amount of food you put on your plate at each meal.

• Eating five or six small meals per day may also be more comfortable for your stomach than eating three large meals.

Eat more slowly

• Eating too quickly can also give you unpleasant trapped gas and indigestion. Make sure your food is well-chewed before you swallow, since digestion starts long before the food reaches your stomach.

Eliminate potentially irritating foods

Foods that can irritate a sensitive stomach include:

• dairy
• spicy foods
• processed foods
• oily or fried foods
• alcohol
• gluten

It might take a little trial and error, but identifying and eliminating foods you’re sensitive to will go a long way. If you already suspect what foods might be triggers for your sensitivity, it can be helpful to find substitute foods or foods that are similar in texture or taste. 

And if your stomach is especially sensitive, you might decide to eliminate all possible triggers to begin with to relieve your symptoms. If you choose to reintroduce these triggers one at a time later, you’ll be able to identify the problematic food.

Drink more water

If you don’t drink enough water every day, you might be chronically dehydrated without realizing it. Inadequate water intake can cause problems with digestion and elimination. 

If you don’t have enough water in your body, your colon can’t pull enough water in for proper bowel movements. In other words, if you don’t drink enough, you could end up constipated.

Lower your caffeine intake

Caffeine can be a stomach irritant. If you consume high amounts every day, lowering your caffeine intake could soothe your stomach. 

You might also consider changing the time of day when you drink caffeine to see if that helps. If caffeine is the main culprit, you may want to gradually eliminate it from your diet.

Reduce your stress

Chronic stress can lead to an upset stomach. If you aren’t able to pinpoint irritating foods, it might be that stress is triggering your discomfort. Consider adding a stress-relieving practice to your routine, like meditation or yoga.

Tips and Treatments 

Foods that tend to be soothing to people with sensitive stomachs include:

• cooked fruits and vegetables
• lean protein
• easily digestible grains
• fat-free or low-fat dairy

Your doctor may also recommend a short-term, low-fiber diet to ease your discomfort.

If you’re diagnosed with one or more food intolerances, your doctor will recommend you eliminate the food or foods in question. If you are diagnosed with an autoimmune condition like celiac disease, you’ll have to go on a gluten-free diet to manage your symptoms. 

If your doctor diagnoses you with a food allergy, you may be prescribed an epinephrine auto-injector. You’ll need to strictly avoid your allergens, as even a small exposure could cause you to have a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction. 

Even if you’ve only had small allergic reactions in the past, the next one could be severe or deadly.

What’s the outlook for a sensitive stomach?

Most people with sensitive stomachs can successfully manage their symptoms at home through dietary and lifestyle adjustments.

Sometimes, though, stomach discomfort can indicate a more serious condition like IBS, IBD, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, or ulcerative colitis.

If you are concerned about any of the symptoms you’re experiencing, contact your doctor.

Gluten Sensitivites & Autoimmune Diseases

More and more people are becoming sensitive to gluten in such high numbers that it has reached epidemic proportions. This is supported by the huge variety of foods now on supermarket shelves labeled as "gluten free". As the number of people with autoimmune diseases skyrockets, so does the demand for a less toxic diet shoots up. The gluten-free business is busting from demand and the marketing prices for those products fits the demand, that is, SKY HIGH!!!

Mom on one of her shopping forays noted a huge discrepancy in prices in just one aisle. One side of the aisle was for foreign food and the opposite was catering to the people with gluten senstitives. The gluten-free flour she picked up from the gluten-free shelves was pricey. She needed the item for some dish she was preparing, but wow, didn't want to pay such a huge price ... and then her eye caught sight of the same product, same brand, same packaging, same weight, same everything on the foreign food shelves. Well, it wasn't actually same everything. The price was actually about $2 less!!! Wow!!! Now, about the only things she buys off the gluten-free shelves are the spice cake mix and the chocolate cake mix, each about $7, but what can she do? Those two gluten-free packages are some of the rare mixes that she can actually buy for my younger bro because he has serious cross-contamination problems ... corn starch and potato starch is in almost all gluten-free mixes and breads, but my bro absolutely can't tolerate them.

Dr. Tom O'Bryan, one of the world's leading experts on gluten allergies, discusses some of the problems with just how little gluten a person can eat - as small as an eighth of a thumb nail of gluten - and have a violent reaction.

Watch: Celiac Disease & Gluten Sensitivity with Dr. Tom O'Bryan

He further discusses how people with gluten allergies start searching out replacement foods for the ubiquitous wheat, rye, barley and oats, and if they consume too many of these foods having built up no tolerance to them from childhood, cross-reactive sensitivites/allergies can result.

My bro has developed cross-reactive allergies:

(1) Potatoes & Peppers! - Potatoes are in the nightshade family as are tomatoes, eggplants, and the worst for him, peppers! Potatoes, tomatoes and eggplants are in the solanum sub-species of the family while peppers are in the capsicum sub-species. Peppers of any kind evoke anaphalactic shock, and since peppers are disguised in most packagings, there's cross-contamination from produce belts in factories, and even peppers are used for colorings in canned tomatoes (but since the amount is so minute, the law does not require the company to make labels) that my bro absolutely does NOT DARE eat canned vegetables of any kind, does NOT DARE eat in a restaurant with possible cross-contamination on silverware or cutting boards or even does NOT DARE eat in friends' kitchens because of possibly pepper residue in pots and pans.

(2) Lentils - When he first came out of the lifestyle center that helped him deal with his allergies, he ate tons and tons of lentils, and almost every day. After a time, he started getting a lot of reflux from eating lentils, and now is afraid to try them again as he has reflux anyway from having low hydrochloric acid, a problem with long-term candida.

(3) Buckwheat - Buckwheat gives my bro acid reflux much like lentils, but I don't know if he overindulged on them when learning how to eat for his health problems.

(4) Many other cross-reactive allergies, and one is the common latex allergy. And since his job requires him to wear gloves, latex-free gloves are kept in stock specifically for him at his work place. But people with latex sensitivities should also avoid foods that share latex proteins. Here is a list I found - and a few of them my bro assiduously avoids because of the close relationship in the genus:
banana, potato, kiwi, avocado, fig, papaya, pineapple, peach, cherry, plum, strawberry, melon, nectarine, grapes, tomato, celery, wheat, rye, hazelnut and chestnut.

Anyway, cross-reaction sensitivities can be very serious for some people!

Dr. Tom O'Bryan said that he has identified 24 common cross-reactive sensitivities. I couldn't find a complete list but following is a list of 18. Hmmm, lentils is not on the list, but I wonder if it's on the list of 24.

3 Guru Role Models

In regard to my candida, there are three people who have been guru models in shaping my decisions about how eagerly to pursue full recovery. One is my younger bro (Bro), another is a church member with Multiple Sclerosis (JB), and the last is a close family friend with Rheumatoid Arthritis (SC).

BRO

Bro got very sick many years ago in his early 20s. I wasn't around at the time so didn't see his bouts with anaphylactic shock when eating peppers of any kind, difficulties breathing when eating other things, difficulty with reflux and I really have no idea of his problems. He was having so many severe reactions to food that of course he would eliminate from his diet all those foods he had eaten in the meal. Pretty soon, he had only about a list of 20 items: apples, oats, a few green leafies and not much else. He had even eliminated garlic and onions because they were in a meal he had a severe reaction to. He was so sick and could hardly perform his job, so took some time off and went to a lifestyle center in Battle Creek, MI that unfortunately is no longer open, and got amazing help.

His body was choked with mercury and toxins because he couldn't sweat, and he went through intensive regimens of therapies throughout the day and even wore charcoal packs around his waist at night to rid his body of pollutants trapped in the skin, intestines, lymph system, everywhere. The kitchen workers cooked special meals for him - fresh ground grains that had no time to mold (wheat was included without reaction) and made many dishes using specially cleaned cutting boards and kitchen equipment because of his huge issues with cross-contamination. He came out of that lifestyle center two weeks later able to eat quite a lot! The docs even convinced him to eat a small slice of pepper, which instead of giving him anaphylactic shock only gave him a mild skin rash. No sugar of any kind, freshly ground grains, tons of fresh fruits and even more tons of fresh vegies, a careful selection of herbs and spices, and only specific oils were the backbone of his no-deviation vegan diet. What a comeback!

Maintaining such a strict diet would keep a person in the kitchen all day, so he's back to having anaphylactic shock with peppers, reflux and other problems ... but no where nearly as bad as before. After 15 years he started eating pure chocolate (absolutely without dairy contaminants), imagine the cravings, and other sweets. But he's been on a gluten-free vegan diet (except last 3-4 years he added some free-range eggs) that is carefully regimented to avoid all those hidden food allergens other people tolerate quite well but which crash his system. BTW, he hasn't been able to eat in a restaurant for most of those 20 years, so when I go home, I try to plan "exotic" meals that he just doesn't have time to fix. I blend herbs and spices I know he can have to create recipes I've experienced in foreign countries or seen online.

So when I got sick almost three years ago, adjusting to a carefully monitored diet wasn't that difficult. We packed lunches for Bro's working days, and carry snack or energy foods with us when going somewhere. So for me to pack and carry a lunch is kind of normal. Bro loves going into restaurants with people (provided there's not a lot of pepper cooking) and he "eats with his eyes", then goes home and tries to replicate. Over the years he role modeled "eating with his eyes" and since I've gotten sick too, my taste buds and senses to mixing foods with herbs and spices has gotten much keener. Bro is absolutely INCREDIBLE! He doesn't whine about his food limitations and cramped lifestyle because of it. He works with it, and leads a pretty active life. He is so AMAZING, and he's one of my biggest role models in life!!!

JB

JB was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when she was about 60 years old. I also wasn't around at the time but heard that she was fighting for her health and sanity. Before she could get treatment, help and maybe even diagnosis, the disease blinded her in one eye and really compromised one side of her body. Her MRI of her spinal cord showed heavy plaque and prognosis was to be soon confined in a wheelchair.

Our Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches a lifestyle that we often refer to as "the health message". Longevity reports come out of Loma Linda, California attesting to this healthy lifestyle. Therefore, believing that nutrition and healing go hand-in-hand, she decided to go to the Black Hills Health and Education Center located in South Dakota, and for some reason, she and her husband ended up staying and working there for the next six years.

At first her system was so run-down that she told me years later, she only could eat lightly boiled spinach to nourish her body as raw vegies were just too hard for her body to deal with. We didn't hear much from she or her husband for about six years when they moved back and again were attending our church. She was ecstatic! Her most recent MRI had shown absolutely no plaque anywhere on the spinal cord, and she had been symptom free for quite a while. They attended our church regularly, joining us in our vegetarian potlucks that did have cheese and other dairy, wheat, unknown cooking oils and sugars. I'm not sure if she maintained the gluten-free, vegan lifestyle of the Black Hills Center at home but after eight months she was experiencing the by-now familiar symptoms of ... Multiple Sclerosis.

She went back to her strict diet and the symptoms were well managed. She had heard that once a person has an auto-immune disease that it is for life. Hers evidently is. So now we're both watching how my health problems are going to ultimately work out. Will I be able to lick the candida problem? Or has it already rewritten my DNA and I will fight this for life? I'm still hoping for the complete cure ... and no, I don't plan to go back to my former diet, not that I wouldn't like to indulge upon occasion in some foods not permitted at the moment. But if I ever recover, knowing what she taught me through experience will be big incentive to keep on enjoying the great foods I'm eating now!

BTW, I have a colleague, about age 50, who had systemic candida so badly as a child that she hardly had an elementary school education for spending so much time at home sick or in the hospital. In her mid-twenties she did the candida diet - months and months of it. She doesn't have much recall of what she did but she does remember having to slug down 4 ounces of some kind of nasty oil at one time in order to coat her GI track to fight the bad bacteria. She's been fine ever since .... so there is hope of full recovery! I'm still clinging to that hope.

SC

The last person who is my role model is very unfortunate. He was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis about 25 years ago, and has been in such pain from serious connective tissues damage that it is evident in the way he walks, from mangled ears and droopy eyes, and from the twisting of his fingers which now are almost perpendicular to their original joints. For a few years he staunchly refused to take any meds, although he occasionally broke down and took some NSAIDS, but finally the pain was too great, and to stay out of a wheelchair he started steroids. He now heavily relies on steroids, refuses any kind of verbal or other help - claiming he's as tough as he always was - disallows that diet can help, and eats out every day and then goes home to eat ice cream, "a treat" for his old age. He's now in his early 80s.

Every once in a while he and his wife (with brittle diabetes) will stop in and eat with us, gorging themselves silly. We're so happy to give them a good meal because they obviously have little other happiness in their lives from their few moments at the same restaurant every day before they go back to their lonely house with overly loud TV.

One day we planned a massive vegetable quiche meal with tons of vegies on the side. I did the cooking - gluten-free, vegan except for the eggs, lots of greens for toxin removal. I wanted them to feel good when they went home ... and wow did they dive into that food! They ate so much, and then dad and SC started talking about the ice cream at home in SC's freezer and how that was his treat almost every day. I was a bit horrified as I know the effects of dairy plus sugar (the devil's mixture) on Rheumatoid Arthritis, or for anyone's system for that matter. Well, mom piped up that we had some nutty buddy chocolate cones in the basement and went down and brought one up for everyone except Bro and myself.

And then I watched the transformation, and it was horrible! SC became louder, perhaps it could be said aggressively so. Ah, speech changes! Behavior changes! His eyes became even more inflamed and very watery. He was constantly blinking them which reminded me of when mine were so inflamed to the point of being dry-painful. I looked over at dad enjoying his cone and his hands were trembling more from his Parkinson's. And, rude though I might appear, I just couldn't help myself. I started asking SC how he felt - a question he hates! I asked him if his eyes were stinging. Well, a bit. I wanted to know if he felt better before he ate that ice cream. He admitted to feeling better. Then I asked him if he thought the ice cream was making him feel badly, and if he always felt this way after he ate his ice cream every day. Well, hem, haw, well, yeah, I guess it does bother me a bit.

I didn't press it, but I wanted mom to see the results of dairy on the system. Bro has an immediate reaction of what feels like sharp nails piercing his stomach and intestines. From milk, I've had mild but gross reflux most of my life and just refused to drink it as a child, much to her frustration because at the time, milk was "known", and oh so falsely advertised, to be healthy. Most people have subtle reactions but obvious if a person knows how to spot them. Anyway, I asked mom afterwards, "WHY did you give SC ice cream when you know that people with Rheumatoid Arthritis shouldn't have it?!" And then I more clearly pointed out the speech changes, behavior changes, the obvious inflammation which she hadn't noticed at all till I pointed the reactions out ... and dad's out.

Well, I know that SC will probably enjoy ice cream and probably every day until he dies. But success was made that day because mom no longer keeps a stock of ice cream cones in the freezer for dad to prevent him from losing weight.

SC is my sad guru. In his miserable old age he's just looking for something to make part of his day better, but even though now he's aware that "that something" is toxic to his system, it's his crutch. Everybody has crutches. Me too, but I’m trying to be like my brother who has learned to “eat with his eyes” and to think of my friend JB who is eating to maintain long-term health while leading an active life. And then when I think of my brother eating oh-so-strictly for over 15 years and JB who must in order to have that pain-free life, the one to two years more of super strict eating seem rather insignificant.

Grose Mold in the Pots

Two days ago I said I was experiencing weird neuropathies again, well, I think I figured out why! Ugh! I went to make some garbanzo beans in my crock pot and noticed a beautiful, filigree mold growing from the bottom of the crock pot. I was HORRIFIED! After every use, I let it soak a few hours and scruuuub it, but the stains have accumulated over time. Well, it's terracotta so somewhat porous ... I just figured with all my scrubbing that it would be OK. Not! I grabbed that baby up, poured bleach into it and let it soak in bleach-water for 2 days, and what a beautiful pot emerged, one without any stains! I had linked my neuropathy to when I ate the previous batch of beans made 3 days before, but didn't link the pot to the problem. In the next few days, I'm going to soak ALL my plastic container lunch boxes, even the glass ones, all of my silverware and cooking ware ... allll of my cooking stuff in bleach water.

At my parents' home, we always put a couple of squirts of bleach in the dishwater to minimize on bacteria because my younger brother has had severe dietary sensitivites for about 17 years. For years no one has been able to understand any kind of diagnosis for him, and we have all been inclined to believe it's one of the multiple new kinds of autoimmune diseases popping up so fast that doctors can't make diagnosis.

Both my brother's and my symptoms have been oddly similar [soy sauces messed both of us from the beginning, then peppers - bell peppers for him causing near anaphalactic shock and hot peppers for me with the skin in the tooth ridges sloughing off after pepper contact] yet uniquely different [I've been much more sensitive to sugars and foods on the higher glycemic index]. I don't know much about his early months with the problem because, as I lived here in Korea, no one wanted me to worry, but I do know that we both experienced a steady increasing of foods that bothered us and that we have just had to subsequently eliminate from our diets in order to feel somewhat decent. I don't have the acute food allergies or anaphalactic shock that he has, but when I got sick I immediately hit the internet and went to doctors to find the problem so that I could address it in its early stages and prevent the acuteness of my brother's "disease". Last year about Thanksgiving time I finally knew I had systemic candida because I decided to eat what I wanted one weekend. Ohhh, I was sooo sick afterwards, but that just clenched it: it was directly food related and nothing else! And the ultra strict candida diet made the pain and symptoms go away!

From that weekend, I could identify my problem and so how to eat accordingly. Since then, it's been uphill. I went to my parents' place for an extended winter break and told my brother that I had finally figured out his problem, too. He didn't believe me because why could I figure it out when doctors couldn't? After two weeks of cooking for me and telling him he could eat that food I prepared (he is ULTRA careful because of anaphalactic shock), he started to believe me. He was afraid of cumin, turmeric, cardamom and fennel, but I checked them out on the internet - they are anti-inflammatories and are NOT in the pepper family. He's allergic to pumpkin too, the pumpkin family and perhaps a few squash. I introduced spaghetti squash, a very low-starch squash so I can eat it, and we confirmed it is not any cousin of the pumpkin family so he cautiously tried it. What a tasty and versatile squash! It has since become one of his favorites! Wow, so my getting systemic candida has helped him better deal with a very restrictive diet, and also, now if he has a question on a certain food, he can search out whether or not that food is acceptable for the candida diet, of course also considering his acute allergies to certain plants.

But once I figured out that I had systemic candida, I knew that that was what my brother had too. Everyone experiences some differences in their candida symptoms and, from my readings, over time if left unchecked the bacteria wrecks havoc on the body and somehow DNA gets rewritten so that cells start attacking the host body, thus, an autoimmune disease. This is why I'm so fanatical about following the strict candida diet. I don't want to be forever compromised in some way like my brother who has not entered a restaurant for dining for over 10 years [and that last experience ended in an anaphalactic shock episode cementing the reason for never eating out.]

A-n-y-w-a-y, I didn't want to use bleach in my dishwater like my parents and brother because bleach is harmful to the environment ... but what are my choices now, because mold is harmful to my body?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Written several days later:

I filled the terracotta pot with strong bleach soak water and let it sit for 2 days, then scrubbed it out and let it dry. 2 days later, I noticed mold spots like sporadic raindrops on the bottom surface of the pot. I immediately started the bleach soak process again, but mold that is so aggressive and which withstands so much bleach is scary! What has that done to the inside of my body, especially since I can't take bleach to get rid of the internal fungi?! Absolutely I'm tossing the pot, but first I'm going to keep experimenting on how many times I have to soak it before the mold stops growing. But no way am I going to eat out of that porous thing again!

And then God answers unspoken prayers. Yesterday at Costco I just felt the urge to look, something I rarely do. And wah-lah! Costco had a small sized crock pot that had a glazed insert pot. While glazes can also be harmful on the body, especially when used in heat and for extended periods, I figured it's a whole heap better than the porous terracotta that traps and stores bacteria ... so I bought a new crock pot. It's oval and slightly larger than the infected one, but I'm quite happy with it because Korea only has 2 crockpots - the terracotta one I bought and one that can cook a whole stuffed chicken along with a mess of vegie trimmings, so my find at Costco is gold :)