How Do You Feel After Eating?

[ipad]

How do you guys feel after eating? Does it make you feel worse?

Around 10-20 minutes after eating, I feel completely exhausted, even more so than I normally am. It's almost if my limited supply of blood is being directed to my digestive system, worsening my lightheadedness.

Does anyone exhibit a similar behavior? If not, what happens to you?

[Libby]

I think that's exactly what's going on. Blood is being diverted away from other areas (like your brain) in favor of your digestive system. It's a normal process (like people wanting a nap after a big dinner), but POTS complicates things. As always.

I get light headed and spacey. I'll black out more often when I stand up. I'll get really cold, too. My fingernails turn blue, especially if I was somewhat cool/cold to begin with. Then they're practically purple. It'll tinge my lips too, if I'm having a really bad day. I look like death. It's attractive.

Taking a dose of midodrine or pulling out my electric blanket are pretty much the only things that help.

[sue1234]

I personally don't have any issues with feeling much different just from eating, but I do feel different if I eat something loaded with sugar. Even though my glucose doesn't change rapidly, it FEELS like it does. I can feel hyper, then sleepy, all within an hour of eating sugary foods, and I check to see it slowly go up, until two hours after eating, and then it drops by the third hour into the 50s.

[Zap]

YES! Eating has been a struggle ever since I started having problems. Eventually, it became that eating would always bring on feelings of aura / migraine, which threw the migraine specialists for a loop, as not eating usually makes things worse - but for me it would bring on remission of my symptoms.

It isn't as bad, thankfully, with some of the more recent things I've been trying, but eat too much and it can still make me feel off.

[NMPotsie]

Eating is the thing I hate to do most since POTS. I just feel terrible, especially if the food is hot. I am eating soup out of cans, unheated, because it's the only way I can tolerate it. Smaller meals, fewer carbs, and laying down after meals helps, but I am dizzy, nauseous, and generally terrible-feeling after I eat. I also really, really hate lettuce now. It just grosses me out.

[Millerla]

Eating doesn't necessarily make me more or less dizzy, it just makes me nauseous and crampy as heck. I finally pinpointed one issue to be lactose, but I've been having trouble cutting it out, cuz I like ice cream. The more I've cut it out though, if I do eat it, I get diarrhea all day.

Anywho, if I don't eat, I just pass out. (This usually happens pretty quickly. I ate a light lunch one day, just some cookies and chex mix and gatorade, and by 5:00 PM I was in the Mall of America clinging on to my mom) But if I do eat, I feel horrible shortly after.

I also do badly with lettuce, I thought it was all in my head, because I feel like lettuce should be a "light" food, but I've heard others saying the same thing.

Interestingly enough, most people have problems with carbs, that is about the only thing I can eat. Most of my meals lately have consisted of peanut butter or noodles.(Sometimes with sauce, but that's usually too much for me, so usually with a little bit of dairy-free butter)

I was in the car with my Grandma after breakfast one morning, and I was curled up in the back seat moaning, she thought I had menstrual cramps. It probably doesn't help that I've always had issues with getting gas/bowel movements out, so they like to sit and make me miserable. (Yay!) But I do get even more so exhausted and, now that I think about it, headache-y.

But this was the biggest symptom for a while, because I was already thin to begin with, and I lost about 25 lbs. People just kept telling me that they were going to have me over and feed me a bunch of food. It does not work like that people.

[issie]

Hey, you guys with lettuce issues - you may have a sulphur/sulphate issue. I recently figured it out with my genetic testing that I have issues with those things and lettuce can cause a problem for some with that issue. As can - cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, eggs and more. You can do a google search and find info that can tell you which foods are high in that. Also, a lot of meds are sulphur, sulfa based and you will most likely have issues with those too. It's good to figure out if you are sensitive - because that can affect you a whole lot - especially with certain meds.

For one thing with POTS - a lot of people have gastroparesis (slow motility) there can also be splanic pooling. When the blood pools in the abdominal region - it can cause nausea. When we eat the blood goes to that area to "improve" digestion - too much blood there - can cause nausea.

Issie

[NMPotsie]

thanks Issie. That's great to know! I am allergic to sulfa drugs (recent, post POTS thing) and wine makes me feel horrible. The doctor suggested Sulfites may be the cause. I had no idea lettuce has sulfites. Any raw veggies you listed bug me as well, but cooked I do okay with.

[Katybug]

Yup...especially dinner. I almost always have to lay down by the end of dinner (sometimes I don't get that far...only 3 or 4 bites and then I'm off to the couch.)

[diamondcut]

Its strange with me, i hate when i have to eat really, about an hour after eating i start to feel very sick and this lasts hours. I have had every gastric test/study done, all normal so i can only put it down to blood pooling, although Midodrine and Octreotide did not help me or its part of the MCAS thats not under control yet.