Gastroparesis is a condition in which the muscles in your stomach do not work properly. This causes your stomach not to empty correctly and leads to unpleasant symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. Gastroparesis also impedes digestion and makes controlling your blood sugar difficult. Learning to manage Gastroparesis will improve your health and well being.
Instructions
Manage Gastroparesis
1. The most important thing you can do to manage Gastroparesis is control your blood sugar. Keeping your blood sugar in the correct range will keep Gastroparesis from becoming worse.
2. Along with keeping your blood sugar under control, you should also eat smaller more frequent meals during the day. Smaller meals are easier for the stomach to digest and won’t leave you with the overly full feeling lots of Gastroparesis sufferers endure.
3. You should eat low-fiber, low-fat foods for your small meals. Fiber and fat slow down digestion. If you have Gastroparesis your stomach is already emptying too slowly, therefore you don’t want to add to the problem. The low-fiber and low-fat foods will go through your system much faster and help with digestion.
4. Be sure to drink plenty of water and take liquid nutritional supplements. Poor digestion and vomiting can cause you to become dehydrated and cause your body not to absorb nutrients that it needs. When you have a heath condition such as Gastroparesis adequate vitamin and minerals are essential to your overall well being.
5. If your Gastroparesis progresses you may find that you have to puree your foods or eat mostly soups and liquid meal supplements. When even pureed and liquid foods just won’t go down you may have to use a feeding tube.
6. There are also medications that help if you can’t use dietary changes to control the symptoms of Gastroparesis. The medications help control nausea and stomach contractions but they have side effects that should be taken into consideration.
7. There are new ideas being tested to treat Gastroparesis that are promising. Hopefully they will negate the necessity for medications that have severe side effects. Until then if your Gastroparesis can’t be controlled then you may consider surgery. The surgery works by bypassing the lower part of the stomach. It is risky and has complications though so is only used as a very last resort!
Tags: blood sugar, your blood, your blood sugar, your stomach, low-fat foods, low-fiber low-fat