I Hate Eating, I’m Trying To Quit
Published by McBoing August 19th, 2006 in We Eat, Health, WorkBack for my weekly cry. Hold me.
Forgive me for being spare around here lately. I haven’t been well. As of this week my fellow trainees and I discovered at Customer Service Hell Co. that they plan on hiring a new batch of people next month — but they aren’t using a temp agency. Interesting, I thought. That means that with the three-month period I am employed by the temp agency and the six month probation period, I am not even eligible for benefits until the end of April 2007. The newest batch of trainees, however, will be eligible that March.
Let me tell you why this pisses me off.
1. I can’t eat,
2. because every time I eat I get an awful stomache ache that leaves me doubled-over in pain for several hours. This probably means I should see a doctor, especially since
3. I throw up every morning. Every fucking morning. However,
4. I can’t afford to go to a doctor because
a. I don’t have insurance,
b. I can’t take time off,
c. I currently owe over $300 to the local health network for receiving medical services I couldn’t pay for after I was shitcanned this year,
d. So if I see a doctor I have to pay for all services rendered at the time I receive them. This ain’t cheap.
5. I’m hungry, and I want to eat something, but I can’t unless I’m willing to put myself out of commission for a four hour block of time. Plus I get cranky when I’m hungry.
6. I’d go to the free clinic, but there is a six-month-long waiting list for adults.
7. Did I mention that any food I digest turns to poo stew in roughly twenty minutes?
Someone suggested that I may be allergic to gluten or wheat, which is a totally helpful comment since I can’t actually get to a doctor for an allergy test. So yeah. If anyone has a good IV stand they’re willing to sell me, leave a message in the comments.
22 Responses to “I Hate Eating, I’m Trying To Quit”
- 1 Pingback on Aug 22nd, 2006 at 9:11 pm
oh jeezus, McBoing, I’m sorry. goddam motherfucking “health care” in this country…
fuck. that really sucks.
does it make any noticeable difference wrt what you eat?
how long has this been going on?
If it’s at all helpful, I think you might be allergic to food. Have you tried acupuncture? I had a friend once who heard of someone for whom it solved a problem/
What you’re going through sounds horrible. My mom had to screw around with her diet and it never ends. After the carbs went the dairy after the dairy went the gluten, and although her symptoms got better, they didn’t stop. Then came a few hundred in essential oils which also helped, but then the one store that had them stopped carrying it and it was difficult to find online.
When you need several hundred dollars worth of prescriptions and medical advice you need several hundred dollars worth of perscriptions and medical advice, and there’s not all that much the local hippie co-op or the overpriced natural goods store can do for you. Hope you find a solution sooner rather than later.
yeah.
and sorry to add to the helpy helperton-ness, but I am thinking that if and when you get to the doc (and I hope you can), if it ’twere me, I’d check for basic viral, bacterial, first. good ol’ fashioned antibiotics might be what’s needed.
seriously, having an appetite but having your digestion in an uproar sounds kinda like turista, you know.
Just verify for me that you knew when you posted this you were going to get a truckload of assvice from people who think they know shit but who aren’t actually doctors? Because, yeah.
Try clear liquids only for 24-36 hours–broths, juices, maybe Jell-O. If that goes well, advance to a BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and . . . ooh, maybe not toast, if you think you might have a wheat allergy. Anyway, soft, easily-digested foods. See how that goes, then start adding solids gradually. Obviously if you notice a particular food makes the pain recur, that’s a solid you want to swear off until you get to the doctor. Oh, and what Kyso said about the dairy–stay the hell off it.
Finally, what are your county health services like? Maricopa County used to offer sliding fees and payment plans at its clinics and hell, that was in Arizona; it’s difficult to get more red state than the home of Barry Goldwater, so I’m hoping you have access to something, wherever you are.
Don’t eat dairy but see if you can get some acidophilus pills, because you need that to digest.
What Amanda said. And I hope you get to see a doctor, McBoing although, the fuckers don’t seem to care what happens to poor people.
Don’t do the acupunture thing, or moxibustion or acupressure or have anything to do with homoeopathy, tripley homoeopathy, but the acus utilize an outdated theory of medicine, it’s like someone bleeding you becasue you’re humors are out of whack - save your money.
Have you tried just drinking water for a day or two and see if whatever your body is trying to flush out of your can just get out? Oh and check if there’s blood in any of your explusions, so that you can worry more about stuff there you can’t do somethign about /useless advice
And I’d be grumpy because of the fucking moulitsas nature of how health care is handled, just remember that it’s hard to be both pissed off and depressed - beat up a mime if you see one and your justifed rage gets too much, if it comes down to your word against his you’re laughing.
What Ilyka said, about the clear liquids etc.
If it helps at all, which it won’t, I’m having the same issues *with* (very bad) health isurance, and after about a bazillion tests that have left me owing several thousand dollars (oh yes AFTER what the insurance covered) to the fucking local clinics and hospitals they still can’t figure out what’s wrong. They thought it was a kidney stone at first (which was so stupid even I knew it was stupid) — I did have one, but they drilled it out, which hurt like, well, it hurt, and didn’t fix anything, and so they did an upper GI and after that –
Well, they did and are doing tests and still every time I eat anything I end up feeling like I’ve eaten a bag of glass and yeah the poo stew, hah, that’s exactly right.
Coffee with lots of milk, interestingly, is one thing that doesn’t hurt. But I mean LOTS of milk. Noodle soup also. Heavy on the soup. Lukewarm.
I haven’t tried doing nothing but water for awhile. I also do a lot of Xanax and a lot of Zantac, which help a bit. Not much.
R Mildred- I was kidding about the acupuncture. What McBoing needs more than anything is what the rest of us could use, which is some affordable health insurance and a decent provider. The end of my mom’s story is that her dermatologist kept telling her over the phone that it couldn’t be that bad and the nearest open appointment was six months in the future. She badgered and she badgered and finally they gave her the name of a clinic that was over an hour away that could see her sooner, and their eyes just about popped out of their heads when they saw how bad her condition was. She got the full round of steroids followed by the strongest non-steroid prescription they could give her. It all could have been avoided if they’d done more for her earlier-she’s had this problem in a chronic though less severe form for like 20 years.
That’s the service you get WITH insurance. People like McBoing are tragically screwed.
Although Ilyka’s advice seems pretty solid. I’ve solved a few mysterious digestive problems that way, but none so severe as what McBoing is describing.
I’m still waiting for the IV tip.
Have you tried a medical supply site? They probably have everything including the saline
Jesus Christ, you have to wait 8 months to get health insurance? How the hell is that even legal?
Nine, total. Company policy has a six month probationary period. Thing is, as a temp, I’m not an employee, so that six months doesn’t even start until I’m officially hired. I have two more months to go before I’m available to be hired, as the temp agency has a contract to keep me as their employee for three months.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Corporate America.
If I told you how much I’m making with one full time job and one part time job you’d probably throw up every morning just like moi. I still can’t pay the bills.
R Mildred- I was kidding about the acupuncture. What McBoing needs more than anything is what the rest of us could use, which is some affordable health insurance and a decent provider.
Oh okay, sorry I did wonder why the physicist was advocating acupuncture.
And Fuck the Neo-Cons, between bush and reagan and the invertebrate position of dems who could have fought harder but didn’t, ooo!
If it continues Mcboing, go onto one of the RealDoll forums, get the address of the nearest RealDoll owner, break into his house, beat the crap out of his skinny white ass, steal the RealDoll, and then have violent and disgusting sex with it in the main office of your local repuglican party offices, in the most public area possible so the big whigs in the local party are likely to notice you.
Then they’ll make you a congress critter and Ka-Ching! You’ll have the special congresscritter nationalised healthcare on your side.
And an endless supply of blow and manwhores too (I’ll take the manwhores if you don’t want them).
Actually, you can’t border hop and exploit canada’s healthcare system somehow can you?
If you can, let us all know how.
Ah, of course, the “temp”. My company does that shit all the time. I’m pretty sure at least 75% of the people actually on the phones are temps. I know people who have been “temps” for 3 years. Never got laid off, never got insurance. They do pay a stipend, $2.57 extra, to “cover” not giving them health insurance. But of course, they don’t get any vacation or sick days. Thankfully, I’m regular full-time, so I got insurance as soon as my security clearance came through. Of course, that was a month and a half after I actually started.
How many people actually stick around for 9 months to get the insurance? Cause I know with my training class, people were dropping like flies from day one. We started out with 22, there are now 2 of us left, and I’ve been there 11 months.
Two possibilities:
You have celiac disease
You have gall bladder disease
The latter is the more likely if you have stomach pain AND diarrhea after eating, and if you are overweight and have a crappy fast food high fat diet.
You have no choice but to go to emerg.
Or visit me. Which border crossing shall I meet you at?
I can heartily recommend giving Pepcid a try. And cut down on alcohol and caffeine for a few days. If that doesn’t make a world of difference, see a doctor.
I went through a weird period 2 years ago where for a full 2 months I puked up anything I ate, and had my usual reaction when I stopped eating. Which is to puke.
My mother is a pediatrician. Essentially, it is her job to deal with people who are puking and such. Her recommendation to me is always to drink clear liquids as much as possible, particularly lots of water. You might want to try a little Gatorade, if only because it’s going to make your body happy to have electrolytes. Also, she always recommends sleep. As much sleep as you have time for. Soup is always good because it tends to cram a lot of nutrients into something which is pretty gentle on the stomach.
When I was going through something similar, I found that I could usually keep down small amounts of food at a time. Like…very small. You know those little packages of peanut butter crackers? Those pretty much saved me. I could keep down about a pack of them a day. You may want to try just eating small amounts of a starchy food, like a couple of crackers, a very small serving of unsauced pasta, etc. And you may want to not eat red meat. Also, don’t eat oily foods, fatty foods, or heavier things like that. Try very, extremely small servings, and eat slowly.
I saw like 3 doctors (my mother, a school doctor, and my primary care physician. Yay for being under 22 and still in college. Mom’s insurance covers me) and not a one of them could find the problem. A radical change in my diet was about the only thing that I could find to help it at all.
Also, are you under a lot of stress right now? Stress is hell on the immune system. Taking time to chill out, working on pacing yourself at work, or even just taking a minute or two at various points to close your eyes and breathe deeply for a few minutes can do wonders.
Normally my advice is just “go see a doctor,” but when that’s not an option, this is the best I can do.
Try plain white rice. I was travelling for work, and in a foreign country, and when my stomach was upset and I felt like I was going to puke (but not actively puking, YMMV) a dinner of plain white rice put me back on track.
It isn’t very fun to eat nothing but rice, but it is cheap and it might give you a place to start….
Hey man…Move to Canada!!!!! it’s great here.