Monday, January 4, 2010

Fructose Malabsorption

After the traditional nausea symptoms of the first trimester of pregnancy began to diminish, I experienced a different kind of stomach upset. Instead of feeling awful prior to eating, I started to feel sick AFTER eating. This lasted for weeks and weeks. Other than discovering that my digestive system is not tolerating lactose, I had been at a loss for what to look at as the culprit next.

Much of what I read about pregnancy and digestion simply normalize feeling like crap. While I'm sure that changes are to be expected, not looking into the effects of diet just didn't sit right with me. So, I did some research. First, I looked into symptoms of producing a low amount of HCL. I had read about this in The Yeast Connection & Women's Health a while ago. Upon revisiting the info, I put it in the "maybe" category - nothing stood out that made me think "THIS IS IT!" ...at least not right now anyway.


The next issue I looked into was fructose malabsorbtion. The inability to properly digest the sugar in fruit is actually quite common, especially among folks with celiac disease. Dr. Tracy discussed this topic at our Going Gluten Free Workshop back in the Fall. I didn't find a ton of correlation between fructose malabsorption and pregnancy, but I could not ignore the symptom list. I tracked my eating habits for a couple of days and noticed that an increase in unpleasant symptoms occurred shortly after consuming fruit. So, I stopped fruit. After about 2 meals, I noticed that I no longer felt horrendous immediately following eating. It's been 4 days, and my symptoms have decreased by about 85%. My energy level has been creeping up as well - I cooked for the first time in months and vacuumed! It's such a feeling of relief! ...though I do hope not being able to eat fruit is only temporary!


For more information about fructose malabsorption, visit the food intolerant consumer website. It provides a helpful overview in an easy-to-read format.
photo courtesy of freefoto.com.

3 comments:

  1. You have really discovered a great thing i would say,whenever one is facing some problems like stomach upsets or some problems liked frequent headaches should find out the way and the root cause for it with out fail in order to find a way out of it.

    cartucho r4i

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  2. Interesting. I'm 6 weeks preggo and so far haven't had too many problems with food at least. Other than eating way too much. I get the naseau if I don't eat. Thanks for the info.

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  3. I'm a new allergy blogger at http://allergictositting.blogspot.com. Thanks for the food for thought about food problems and pregnancy. My husband and I are thinking about having kinds in the next couple of years and I have several food allergies that are a little bit of a concern.

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