Help! Really bad diarrhea

[veganman]

I am having severe diarrhea and gross burps and don't know what happened! :eek:

Yesterday, I had the following foods:

1 pint strawberries - no problem.
2 apples (2 hours later) - no problem.
1 quart smoothie (1.5 hours later) - no problem.
1 cup dehydrated sprouted millet soaked in water for 5 hours with 1 scoop Perfect Food added (about 1.5 hours later). A little gross, but no problem.
Juice made of kale, celery, ginger, and a whole lemon - had this almost every day for a week, but felt a little funky afterwards today. I usually rinse off the lemon, but this one was cut in the fridge and I didn't bother. Stomach a little unsettled and burping is a bit off-tasting.
A couple of bowls of salad - still feeling a little off, but no worse.
Some homemade nut/date bars (about 1 hour later) - no worse feeling, but no better.


Went to bed at 11p. Woke up 1.5 hours later with severe diarrhea, and then every hour after that. Burps tasting really gross too.....a taste that I remember having about 20 years ago after eating some different foods in large amounts. Diarrhea had happened then, too.

I have been trying to increase my HCL, so I had taken HCL after both the smoothie and the millet.

I can't figure out what I did wrong, except for maybe not washing the lemon? It was organic.

Also, what is with these burps?

Lastly, after 16 hours, I have had some water and trying some watermelon. Unsettled, but okay so far. In the past, I would eat some brown rice to try to calm things down, but I have been raw now for about 2 months and don't want to do that.

Any thoughts to what I did wrong, what causes that weird taste when I burp (I am sure some of you know what I am talking about), how long this will probably last, and how to fix it?

I am so grateful for this group, especially in lonely-scary times like this!

[Brianna]

I don't know. That happens to me when I overdose on fats, but you didn't eat that much fat. When I eat too much fat, I get really gross-tasting burps and they smell bad too. I also get diarrhea. I think it's from the food putrefying in my system. My digestion does tend to be kind of sluggish. What confuses me is that you didn't eat very much fat.

[veganman]

Thanks Brianna -

yeah, I don't think it is the fat because I have eaten more fat on other days without a problem and I felt like the problem started before I ate the nut/fruit bars.

Yeah - those burps - my god! I have to blow them out of my mouth they are so bad. And god help anyone that comes in the vacinity! :eek:

[Brianna]

I had those burps one day (actually I've had them several times) and people will ask me if I farted. It's really embarrassing! They taste and smell so disgusting!!! Ugh. I hope I never have them again!

[ljannise]

Ppl call them sulphur burps. I dont ever remember having them but they really freak ppl out.

I am envious of your diahreah (sp?, sorry) I remember when I was cleansing that way. I think you are too. If it's not a food combining problem, I think you should just wait it out. Let your body take care of what it's trying to do. BM's are toxins. When I got further down the raw road, I had less toxins & buildup to get rid of so things evened out for me.

Just make sure you stay hydrated.

[veganman]

Brianna and ljannise -

thanks for the replies!

I don't quite know if they are sulfur. There is a slight taste similar to what you would taste when burping after drinking Coke. But, oh so much worse.

I am keeping down the watermelon and water and plan to start some lemon water soon. I hope it is just a cleansing, but I have been raw for 2 months, so it seems kind of weird at this point.

I called the advise nurse and she said to eat something binding like cooked rice. I am thinking maybe trying banana tomorrow. Any other suggestions? I want to feel better, but not eat cooked.

[ljannise]

Just watch how you are combining. Never add fat with fruit & watermelon, cantelope should be eaten alone.

[veganman]

Just watch how you are combining. Never add fat with fruit & watermelon, cantelope should be eaten alone.

Absolutely! I am only doing melon today to see how it goes.

I was just reading about Giardia - a parasite. I got there after reading some links about sulfur burps (thanks!). I did juice the lemon rind yesterday and some watermelon rind last week that wasn't washed. :(

[RawTruth]

Here's my take --

Relax. You just had a cleansing episode. That's all. It didn't last long; I've had up to three days of this. Although, with the burps, I might cut back on the HCL (if memory serves correctly, Victoria Boutenko advises against HCL at all, but that's another matter).

Eat what and when your body feels like it again. Sounds like melon and going light is where it's at.

This is a GOOD thing that's happened to you. It's NOT an indication of you being sick.

A cleansing episode. Yay!! There's some toxins gone. More to come, no doubt, at some unknown time!!

[veganman]

Here's my take --

Relax. You just had a cleansing episode. That's all. It didn't last long; I've had up to three days of this. Although, with the burps, I might cut back on the HCL (if memory serves correctly, Victoria Boutenko advises against HCL at all, but that's another matter).

Eat what and when your body feels like it again. Sounds like melon and going light is where it's at.

This is a GOOD thing that's happened to you. It's NOT an indication of you being sick.

A cleansing episode. Yay!! There's some toxins gone. More to come, no doubt, at some unknown time!!

Hi RT - good to hear from you!

How does one know whether it is a cleansing episode or a parasite like Giardia from unwashed rinds?

[rawpriestess]

just eat light, don't force anything, and what is that perfect food stuff?

I'd say it doesn't sound raw to me.

Seems you felt okay, until you had that after the Millet, then went back to juice, I'd say the millet may have been too heavy, or the perfect food wasn't right, then back to juice, could be bad food combining.

I personally dont eat too much grains, I use some in my recipes, then I have just a bit, so maybe 1 T a day or so, but that is me.

When I do eat grains, I find myself not feeling as good or as light as when I don't eat grains, so I pretty much stay away from them.

Like I will eat one cinnamon roll in a day, it has oat groats in it, but not every day. I might eat one, once every two or three days, and in my burger patties, I do use some wheat berries, or spelt, and I make 8 to 16 burgers out of 1/2 cup of berries, so my grain consumption is very low.

you may choose to sub nuts or coconut for the grains and see how you feel, also check out what is in that perfect food stuff, I higly doube that it is raw, even if it is all organic and all fruits or veggies, it is probably processed.

[veganman]

Hi RP -

thank you for the reply. I haven't had any problem with the Perfect Food before (it is a green powder by Garden of Life). However, there may be an issue with combining that with the millet. I think you are right on the millet. I don't have a problem with Buckwheat, but millet, quinoa, an amaranth don't get as soft as buckwheat, wheat, kamut, etc, after soaking.

Right now, I am drinking some fresh apple juice I just made in my juicer. It tastes good. I had some canteloupe earlier.

My issue is that I am already underweight and not eating much for a few days always causes me to lose 4 or 5 pounds and feel very weak. I will try to just hang with this.

Thanks!

[SparklePlenty]

hi veganman, intuitively i think it was the millet. maybe too heavy, maybe moldy, don't know, but everything else you ate sounded ok.

also i have precipitated cleansings by doing a lot of lemon juice. my guess is that as we get more alkaline, the body starts throwing off stuff. that's a good thing!

listen to your body, maybe do some muscle testing etc to know what to eat for a while.

hth
jan

[rawnora]

Hi Veganman,

What you experienced was a 'cleansing' episode, but it was not the kind that we are rewarded with when we are good, it was the kind that your body must institute when you force too much work upon it! If you want to get to the bottom of the problem, you could look at any of the following possibilities:

1) Grains are difficult for the body to break down, so they are very slow to digest. When you add other foods, food flavorings and 'non foods' (perfect food?) to them, things can become significantly more complicated. This means that anything eaten on top of those foods will not be digested, but will remain in the stomach to putrefy or ferment. Since these processes produce poisons, the body moves to hastily eliminate them via diarrhea or vomiting.

2) Did you juice an entire lemon, including the peeling? Citrus peelings are extremely acidic and bitter, and have toxic compounds (as most people can recognize by tasting them).

3) Juices are actually not easy for the body to digest. Since they require no mastication, their sudden arrival in the stomach doesn't allow the body time to produce the gastric fluids necessary to make full use of it. Therefore, they can stay in the digestive system quite a long time while the body tries to play catch up. Additionally, I found after a certain period of being raw that I could no longer tolerate juices made from dense greens like kale. I made them religiously for about the first 9 months or so, and then they just started making me feel nauseous no matter what combination I tried or what time I drank them.

4) You don't say what was in your salad but even if it was very simple (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers), you may have eaten it too soon after the juice. Salad wouldn't be incompatible with green juice but if it included dressings or was not simple, this would create a complex mess in your tummy.

5) If you were experiencing some gastric distress after the juice it would have been a good idea to abstain from eating altogether so your tummy could sort itself out. Eating when the body is already having difficulty is a recipe for the kind of problems you experienced.

6) I don't know what HCL is but it doesn't sound like food to me :). If it's a supplement of some kind, it will only further encumber your hard working digestive system.

These are only the things that come to mind from looking at your list of foods. There may be other things that you didn't list like salad dressings, salt, and other flavorings that would cause problems as well. The best thing to do when digestive problems occur is stop eating. Drink only water until all your symptoms subside. While your body recovers from this episode, it would be a good idea to eat only easily digested foods like juicy fruits and tender greens like iceberg lettuce and celery. It's hard to say how long it will take for you to feel better, but not eating will make it happen soonest.

Hope this is useful. Best of luck.
Regards,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[veganman]

Hello everyone and thank you for the thoughts and advice. I think I am coming out of the woods. I am actually seeing some stool-formation rather than constant diarrhea. I have had some cateloupe, apples, bananas, and cherries (all a few hours apart). Nothing else sounds appealing right now.

Nora - thanks for taking the time to write so much info. I have a few questions for you.


Perfect Food is a Supergreen powder by Garden of Life LINK (http://gardenoflife.com/detail_perfect.shtml) and I believe it is raw and it has never caused me problems before. Granted, I have only previously added it to water or a smoothie. On the millet - I don't plan on doing that again anytime soon. Those small grains (millet, amaranth, and quinoa) are so unappetizing to me right now and are difficult to eat. Buckwheat is pretty much the only one I have found consistantly tolerable as sprouted or dehydrated.
Yes, I juiced the entire lemon. I had been doing that for about a week with no problem. I forgot to wash the rind this time, though! :o
Interesting....I didn't know that about juices. Is that from personal experience or is there some literature you could point me to? Everything I have read says that juices are very easy to digest...
Good point...my salad was simple, though. Just veggies and lemon juice. Probably about an hour after the green juice.
Yes - another good point. I will definitely remember that next time!
HCL is hydrochloric acid - it is supposed to assist with digestion.

I am not eating much today, but I feel I need to eat something because I am so weak and I need to go to work tomorrow. I am hoping that just the few fruits I have had will be okay. These burps seem to be continuing, but not quite as bad.

Thanks again, everyone!

[rawpriestess]

hope you are feeling better soonly.

[Vegan Diva]

I had this experience with millet. I have not eaten it again.
I chew my juices when I drink them in order to produce the gastric juices. I remember reading about this in Power Juices Super Drinks by Steve Meyerowitz. I also read a few articles that mentioned chewing your juices. It made sense to me.

I hope you feel better soon.

[Misty*Mountain]

wow, i just had the same experience this past weekend-- three days of explosive diarrhea and nasty burping (ugh, the taste of those burps is so disgusting!). the onset of these symptons occured after I ate some of Alissa's butternut squash patties. as i was making the patties, I kept sampling the mixture in the food processor to see how it tasted (it seemd like the recipe wasn't coming out right). shortly afterwards, i had to make a mad dash to the bathroom. i went to bed early that night because i felt SO sick. the next three days consisted of a lot of burping and diarrhea. it was not pleasant. i am kind of perplexed by the experience.. how could a recipe like that have such a bad effect on my body?? it really makes me want to start eating much simpler foods from now on. apart from this experience, i find that i am SO gassy most of the time! it's frustrating and embarassing! what is it about raw foods that makes me SO gassy?? i know food combining is important, but before i was raw and i did improper SAD food combining i never was this gassy! :confused:

[moonstone523]

Missy,

I'm with you on the gas. It is raunchy. :cool: And it just seems to slip out. No control.

:D

[rawnora]

Veganman,
Happy to help.

On your question regarding supporting data for the idea that juices are not easy to digest, there is info in the hygiene literature on this topic. Look for authors like TC Fry, Herbert Shelton, Ralph Cinque, Vivian Vetrano, David Klein, Doug Graham and others. For myself, I like figuring things out logically and intuitively from a nature-based perspective, and then allowing my personal experience to give me further evidence. Our bodies adapted to whole foods during our long development as a species. Any process that takes away parts of a food will make it more difficult for the body to recognize and digest the food. It's true that "chewing" your juice can help, but it still arrives too soon in the stomach for maximum digestion. It's also true that nutrients are very concentrated in juice but the fact that digestion is hindered means they are not fully utilized. Loren Lockman uses the analogy that if you were building a house and you ordered ten 2 by 4s and someone delivered 1,000 instead, you'd have a problem. You're going to have to move them, store them, or otherwise get rid of them because you can't use them all at once. It's the same in the body. The body needs ALL of the constituents in foods, not just the ones we deem with our feeble (by comparison) minds to be more important than others, and it's perfectly capable of getting what it needs from whole foods without any assistance in the form of processing. Juices are fine to the extent that they allow people to stay on track in transition (even if it's only out of a belief that they are helping their bodies), but there are good reasons to aim for giving it up eventually.

All grains are difficult to digest, sprouted or not. Unlike most grains, Buckwheat is not a grass but the seed of a weed similar to rhubarb. As a seed, it might be more palatable raw and this is really what determines its suitability as food. It's generally not eaten raw, and in fact is usually subjected to lots of processing. Foods that don't require much processing would be better choices, but if eating Buckwheat represents a major improvement over what you were eating before, its consumption can be more than justified as a short term 'bridge' food. The test will be how you feel after you eat it, and whether those feelings are worse than what you experience when you *don't* eat it (i.e., 'cravings').

As a new raw fooder, I also made very complicated meals and ate almost constantly throughout the day. I did this for a good 6-12 months before I started trying to eat less, and more simply. It's more important to keep ourselves satisfied in the beginning than to worry about some lofty ideal, because of the danger of going back to cooked food. Your body will begin to demand that you continually simplify things, however, and if you don't, you'll re-experience eliminative crises like the one you just had.

The reason for this is the "Law of Vital Accommodation". When we follow a bad diet for a couple decades or more, the body adapts and institutes protective barriers to keep from absorbing too much of the harmful substances in cooked foods, medicines, herbs, supplements and other ingested toxins. It's like when a callous forms on your hand -- that's your body sacrificing sensitivity for protection. When we stop consuming that bad stuff, the body is able to rid itself of its protection and becomes more efficient as its digestive membranes become more permeable and able to absorb nutrients. What this means is that the bad stuff gets into the bloodstream more readily too. That's why raw fooders who go back to cooked food often get sick. Increased sensitivity and intolerance to the foods and/or food combinations that a person used to eat is actually a sign of improved health and returning vitality. This is why it becomes increasingly important as you go along in your transition to try and simplify your eating habits and eat foods in digestively compatible combinations.

Warm regards,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[veganman]

Sorry for the delay - I didn't get a notification that this post was updated.

Thank you everyone for your assistance in my time of crisis! :eek:

I think I am doing better now. I lost about 5 pounds over the weekend and and looking a bit emaciated. :(

I have been taking it slow with what I am eating, very tentative. I have been staying away from juicing, as that is not very appetizing right now. I have tried a green smoothie a couple of times - also not very appetizing. Greens in general are repelling me at the moment. I don't understand why. :confused:

Melon is very appealing and fruits are doing well. I find when I am eating salads, I get a bit nauseus, anxious, and jittery. Very strange. I find nuts to be grounding and tolerable. Just had some dried figs tonight with walnuts. Okay so far.

It is such a disappointment because for the last 2 weeks, before this happened, I was finally letting go of some of my rules and fears and letting myself eat more. I had more energy and digestion was working well. Now, I am fatigued again and anxious (I attribute these to lack of calories, which I am adding slowly), digestion is a bit off, and nausea comes and goes. :(

Nora - thank you for all the great info. I am familiar with some of those names, but look forward to learning more. Also, buckwheat is highly processed? I like to soak the raw groat and sprout it.

[Sheryl]

When that happens to me, and it does occasionally if my energy is low and I eat too many nuts (or on a rare occasion eat grains) then I tend to drink a tsp of clay in water. Literally ten minutes later it's gone. It's pretty amazing. I'm assuming the clay is soaking up whatever is fermenting in my stomach.

I had the burps exactly like you describe a couple of times pre raw as well, each time when I'd eaten falafels made from those dried mixes.

Rest up, drink lots of water, and personally I wouldn't add more food to the mix if something is still upset in your stomach. That's just me though.

Cheers,
Sheryl

[Wendee]

Hello. It's hard to admit, but.......

I've had stomach problems in the past, but it cleared up on raw!