Sunday, March 22, 2015

Health: Stomach Ulcer and Food Poisoning Quick Treatment

First of all, I'm not a medical doctor. I, like, have an engineering degree. But I do have LOTS of experiences handling these: stomach ulcer and food poisoning; for myself and for other people around me.

It started out when I was in college. If you'd been in college, you might share the same stories. I had food poisoning, typhoid fever, dengue fever (I live in tropical climate), and other college-boy-related lameness. And super thanks to people around me, and my own learning ability, I'm still alive.

Let me share some of quick treatments for those. For stomach ulcer and food poisoning.

# Stomach Ulcer: The Habit
Sometimes (or most of the time), as we get stinking older, we don't take meal with constant periodical cycle like while we were children or teens. But as I've noticed, teens nowadays also have that habit.
Such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner at regular time cycle. Either because we are completely brokehi five?, or our thingies we do, at that moment (or any given moment), are so hard to leave.
Our human body can adapt, if you notice, to that kind of "punishment". At first, it was probably hurt like insane, but as time went by, we don't feel the pain.

It has some meanings:
  1. Our nerves "finally" ignore the pain signal (because we consciously and constantly pretend it doesn't hurt, like Rambo), but our system hasn't adapted.
    This one is dangerous.
    The wounds are still there, latent. They might be temporarily healed, but when we take it a bit further, some really unwanted things will happen.
  2. There's no pain signal, because our digestion system has actually adapted.
    Some people have this inborn splendid genes. Fast healing.
    Like that "Highlander" but minus the visual effects and not that fast.
Regular morning coffee (acidic liquid) without substantial amount of (just) water to balance the acidity will also cause this problem (digestion system, including the "front gate", TEETH for instance). There's that decaf coffee, which is kinda not-that-low pH (acid), but the point of coffee is that horse-whipping substance called caffeine (alkaloid family, not actually an acid) and those other substances (acids) involved in the brewing.
The decaf is actually having just the "flavor" of it. And for some people, it can still spark "the pacing". You know, that "triggering memory/perception" part based on senses. But without having the actual caffeine and the low pH liquid.

Regular cokes (Sprite/Pepsi/etc), or highly concentrated sugar beverages with soda can also trigger this kind of digestive problem (and other illness) if we don't take water to balance the sediment. Fast food always offers this, and we think we "have drunk enough water". No, we haven't.
Why?
Because it contains various salts (the soda-bubbling part and flavor enhancers). Salt "absorbs" water.
More like retains itWikipedia: Hygroscopy, so our body can't properly absorb the actual water needed. Like, if you drink sea water, you'll always be thirsty.
Ocean critters have the ability to do the filtering. We don't.
These drinks are manufactured to actually make us more thirsty and hungry. Well, the feeling of it, the can't-get-enough-addicting sensation. Nice, eh?
# Stomach Ulcer: Quick Treatment
Ulcer means wound, from Latin, ulcus. Our stomach is an acidic environment. If you remember high school Biology class, the acidic environment acts as food processor (with the enzymes) while eliminating the bacteria brought in.
Take antacid and water.
Usually common Antacid is not expensive. It is a base (high pH, more than 7) substance. It will temporarily neutralize the acidity (low pH, less than 7) in your stomach and the mint will somewhat sanitize the wounds. And your body will have time to heal them.
Antacid can be in tablet (solid) form or liquid form.
There are many brands you can choose in drugstore. Take the suggested dosage which is written on the package.
Remember, "and water". Take some water with it. Don't drink other than that, like tea or milk or coffee or beer or soft-drink or gasoline. Just clean WATER.

Do not attempt to consume banana if you have stomach ulcer. You can read somewhere else about it. I just had the experiences with bananas v. stomach ulcer.

If it's REALLY bad, you need to take the liquid form of antacid. It will calm the pain faster than the solid form (chewable tablet).

Then, after the pain calms, take your routine meal.

Afterward, if you have the time and like, money, visit an actual doctor to say hi, and ask the lady or the dude about it. They will prescribe some antibiotics and some supporting multi-vitamins if the ulcers are really bad and ruining the entire body ecosystem.

# Food Poisoning: The Habit
This can be caused by:
  1. Eat-whatever-without-looking-at-the-expiry-date pattern.
  2. You eat something too much. Overdose kinda thing.
  3. You unconsciously take poison. This can happen like, 0.01% of the time. Just like number #1.
  4. You consciously consume poison.
The last one, is, well, your own choice. But in my opinion, don't do that. It sucks.

Food poisoning symptoms are:
  • Nausea and followed by vomiting.
  • You feel intense pain or burning on the left side of your abdomen. Your belly. It might feel like ordinary stomach ulcer, but it's also followed by these other symptoms.
  • You taste everything as bitter all around the tongue. And it's paler than your ordinary tongue color.
  • Dizziness or lightheadedness with rising body temperature.
  • Your skin is paler (freakishly lighter) than its usual color.
  • Abnormal frequent flatulence and diarrhea.
  • Fever.
  • Sometimes, if you touch/press your arm or other parts of the body, it feels hurt.
  • In some cases, you can see red dots sprawled on your arm or thigh. If this happens, call the ambulance, or ask your friend to call them. This needs professional medical attention.
  • Also, the chest pain (could be heartburn or angina pectoris or myocardial infarction or other) for some acute thingy. You'll need professionals to calm it.
# Food Poisoning: Quick Treatment
Right away, take:
Lots of activated carbon/charcoal (carbo activatus) and warm water.
Activated carbon is available in many brands, you can buy it in any drugstore. The process of coagulating the chemicals and pathogens can be read somewhere else.
This substance is ineffective to absorb strong acids or alkali, cyanide, iron, lithium, arsenic, methanol, ethanol or ethylene glycolWikipedia: Activated Carbon.
Whence, for example alcohol poisoning, is not recommended using activated carbon. It needs complex detoxification treatment by professionals.

Other than that, like too much coffee, common drugs overdose, or expired food/non-alcohol drink product, or "just" pure poison (various pesticides) can be treated using activated carbon.

After you take the activated carbon, you need to take dioralyte or just lots of water with salt and sugar to refill your body fluid. It's called "Oral Rehydration Therapy" (ORT) . The mixture of water plus salt and sugar is called "Oral Rehydration Solution" (ORS).
For mixing your own homemade ORS, take the WHO/UNICEF's formulationWikipedia: ORT.

Per litre of water consists of:
  • 2.6 grams (0.092 oz) salt (NaCl) (salt)
  • 2.9 grams (0.10 oz) trisodium citrate dihydrate C6H5Na3O7,2H2O (salt)
  • 1.5 grams (0.053 oz) KCl (salt)
  • 13.5 grams (0.48 oz) anhydrous glucose C6H12O6 (sugar)
Or using the easy-to-do-it ratio:
30 ml (around 6 teaspoons) sugar : 2.5 ml (around 0.5 teaspoon) salt : 1 litre fluid (water)
To sum up, to treat yourself from food poisoning, you need to take the activated carbon with (recommended: warm) water, follow the recommended dosage on the box, then drink the ORS regularly. Repeat the procedure until you feel better.

If this treatment gets you nowhere for 48 hours, then you have other pathogens/poisonous sediment inside of you. Force yourself to drink A LOT of water, then visit the hospital. To say hi to the emergency fellas.

# Stomach Ulcer and Food Poisoning: Maintenance
I had typhoid (together with dengue) fever back then in my first year of college and thankfully cured from it. FYI, it was fatal. Totally an agony, really hurt all over the body, total nausea, and my head was having insane swirling hammering migraine. The blood vessels on my arms and legs became red and looked like I was on "fire". I was treated first at emergency room, then moved to the ward. While I was having follow-up treatment at hospital, my aunt introduced me to a Chinese medicine, which consists of dried earthworm (in a convenient form of capsule). It's a particular species of earthworm used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure any of digestive disorders. It's the Lumbricus rubellus species. The traditional herbs really sped up the healing.

Right then, that was my own emergency situation experience.

The typhoid fever is caused by those salmonella or escherichia coli or other typhoid bacterium families. It's not quite like stomach ulcer or food poisoning, but it attacks pretty much the same area, the digestive system, connected to the blood circulation. So then I did some "researches" about it.

The dengue fever is caused by dengue virus brought by those striped mosquitoes, Aedes aegepty. It can also bring "other", like yellow fever, and others. So those guys are carriers. Hm. It's sort of a small flying venomous insect. Well, they just try to eat I suppose.
Similar like other disorders caused by bacteria/virus, doctors usually prescribe certain antibiotics to eliminate the pathogen.


Anywho, this fella (Lumbricus rubellus) apparently has natural antibiotics and protein to kill pathogens and strengthening the mucous membrane of our digestion channel, respectively.
In traditional method, for instance, in the rain-forest-y area, experts (in that method) actually excavate them from the ground, and then serve those as soup (with additional herbs and spices to tone down the gross level taste) to sick people.
I don't know how they (ancient Chinese people) discovered that, it's a mystery to me how they did the researches. But it's proven, the result is me and other people who had the treatment. Well, earthworm lives in the soil, and literally digests the soil, along with lots of microorganisms within the soil. We know that they (earthworms) are decomposers in food chain, and the sign of fertile soil. We (humans) live above the soil, usually, not eating soil, directly, usually. Hence, it's very logical to start researching how it can do what it does, what it is equipped with and how that can be beneficial to us. Yeah of course, not all kind of worms can be used to treat indigestion. Maybe that was the idea behind the research (afterward), and perhaps the very first "introduction" was taught by "somebody" who knew a lot about this realm, the "what is that?" phase. Since we're not like animals or plants with inborn pre-programmed scoped instinct, we have it way broader and more flexible, more adaptive.
Traditional remedies are fascinating. Not to mention other important survival skills, from hunting to construction (shelter and more). The knowledge is usually passed down and perfected from generation to generation, and it varies between places because the places are different surely. Each person is also different, naturally.

So, if you're an adventurous person, you can try this traditional prescription, to maintain your own digestive system and make it stronger, thus you have a healthy body.
It can be a capsule form, or just dried earthworm form (you need to brew it with boiling water + honey and others), or powder form if you buy it from the store. Some pharmaceutical stores provide it (you can choose between different brands).
In the US or Europe or other places besides China, there're the Chinese herb stores, offline and online. Best is offline, so you can talk to the person directly.

Or if you wanna, you can like, farm them, and do everything manually yourselves. It's interesting.

To me, it has no side effect because it came from the nature. It has plenty of benefits.

If you always drink (regular or hard) coffee in the morning, remember to always drink a glass (or more than one glass) of water before that first sip. Or, put a jug of water beside the coffee cup/glass/mug. You need to drink the water; before, after, or between sips.
You can do that, drink a glass (or a cup) of water, each time you drink coffee for the rest of the day.
That will help to thin out the acidity and make your stomach comfier. It will still do the horse-whipping trick, and even fresher.
That also applies if you often consume "energy" drinks. Those are the liquid substances with Taurines, B-complex vitamin, Caffeine, etc mixtures with sour sparkling tastes. It doesn't give you any energy, you are the energy source. Instead, the combination of the ingredients (sugar, Caffeine, Taurine, and more acids - "vitamins") whips your body to "burn" more energy which is still stored as raw materials. Like in racing, "turbo" mode. Now that needs a lot of coolant, water intake is naturally required even more. Maybe the mouth isn't thirsty, but the overall internal system surely needs it. Mismatched sensing effect, or some other phrase to describe it.
If you take notes at the hospital, for some reason, heart attack patients are usually those who drank water very little. And of course, the eating disorders, then triggered by "events". Thus the clogging started to "do its job".

Other than that, follow your doctor's advice, they're experienced and surely know A LOT about things in that field. Or like, my general advice, take standard food (not instant, well you can consume instant meal, but not all the time; make it less frequent), drink a lot of water, and do exercises regularly.

Additional: White Sugar

Added on June 20, 2016

This is based on my experience and experiments. When I drank coffee with white sugar, you know, the standard (grainy) sugar you can find in supermarket or the sugar provided in coffee shop/restaurant/cafe, it always made my stomach had that "twisted" feeling. But when I put brown sugar (coconut or palm type -- the brown sugar block type, not the grain one) or when I didn't put any white sugar for the coffee, just plain bitter coffee, no weird feel occurred in my stomach.
I did the experiments around the beginning of 2016 until couple last months. I observed that in coffee that I made, and the cafe/restaurant ones, and also in soft drinks. As you know, soft drinks are just "sugar" with soda and flavor. The "diet" soft drinks are the "sharpest knives" of all. It's all about the type of sugar (the chemical being used to crystallize, granulating, and whitening -- refinery process) included in those.
I haven't done research on white sugar blocks though (cane/beet type). I don't know what's the impact if I consume it in certain time range.

Therefore, I would strongly recommend to use brown sugar (the block type) for coffee or just drink plain bitter coffee to avoid the "sickness". Of course, more stirring time, but consider it to strengthen your wrist muscles, hehe.
And try to reduce consuming soft drinks. Soft drinks are not soft at all.
Also, again, remember to always drink water everyday.

The processed refined sugar, or "soft" drinks, or other factory processed instant stuffs ALWAYS leaves some "sour" taste in the mouth. The sourness is because the varieties of acids, with their magic chemical or brand names nobody could figure out or even to pronounce its train of letters. Teeth dissolves in acid, our entire body can dissolve in acid. So, please brush your teeth regularly with toothbrush and toothpaste, and maybe floss with dental floss and gargle with mouthwash.
Try to not swallow the mouthwash liquid or floss filament or toothbrush or toothpaste.


Additional: Fluoride

It is recorded that it was used to create sediment within the brain, to block some of essential synaptic natural responses, and it was scientifically proven method, thus implemented somewherewhere?. The sediment will act like a road blockwhat?. In periodic table, the neutral element (F: Fluorine) is within Halogen group (VIIA). Fluoride is F- (as anion). Halogen group consists of F (Fluorine), Cl (Chlorine), Br (Bromine), I (Iodine), At (Astatine), and the synthetic, Ts (Tennessine). Each chemical element within Halogen group is naturally poisonous for living being, with one tiny weeny "exception" for iodine; thyroid gland related. So, it's not wise to consciously take it for long term. Unless you know what you're doing of course. Toothpaste usually consists of fluoride, as putty for the enamel, to prevent tooth's outer layer further corrosion. It's fine as long as it's external usage, and not swallowed (too much).

Once more...
Try to not swallow the mouthwash liquid or floss filament or toothbrush or toothpaste.
Also applies to soap (liquid or solid), shampoo and cosmetic dillies. They're supposed to be applied externally.


Additional: Apple and Tea

Added on July 2, 2018

This is from my own experiences, so I guess I add this info.

Fruit, particularly apple, is always good for me, the stomach part especially. Actually, all fruits and vegetables are meant to be consumed by us as long as it's not poisonous and taken in moderation. Chewing (apple) properly is good for the teeth, gum, all equipment in our mouth, including the muscles (motors).

Second, tea. Without sugar is recommended, but you can always add sugar into that. Hot tea, if consumed regularly will have remarkable result for overall body. Among others, the skin is pretty noticeable. Anti-aging, as some refer to that result. It doesn't have to be hot, warm is sufficient. Cold is just for fun taste, it will have result too, but not as good as hot or warm. I noticed that the warm or hot beverage could "clear the street", it's about the temperature. While cold (way less than 23°C or 73°F) temperature would do the opposite. Our normal (healthy) body temperature ranges from 36°C to 38°C (97°F to 100°F). Over that is usually caused by internal infection. Below that, usually is caused by irregular blood circulation, or the blood itself, or nervous system. For short term effect, tea has calming effect, natural anti-anxiety beverage, and it's usually comfortable for stomach, also making the stomach comfortable. Tea consists of a bit of caffeine to keep you alert, but not as intense as coffee. Too much coffee can lead to severe sleep deprivation, diarrhea, nausea, flatulence, painful stomach ulcers, anxiety, involuntarily tremors and cardiac related stories. Too much tea will, well, make you bloated and pee a lot. Tea also tends to separate (artificial) chemical bonds, as in chemical bonds in (modern) medicine. So, you should not use tea when you're taking pharmaceutical intakes, just drink water. Regular consumption of tea can also reduce the body odor problem, I suppose. Since it breaks down plenty of (unnecessary) chemical compounds, that indeed needs to be broken (if not it will stay there as sediment) and then excreted as waste.


# The Stomach
I also learned other traditional knowledge, mostly derived from the Chinese culture, it's about the stomach (referring to the entire digestive system).

In Asian martial art (there are lots of branches), if we're in high position (there's that "rank" in martial art), we'll learn about divine things: nature and healing.
I learned one or more techniques in hand-to-hand combat. Our limbs can be really something if properly trained.
SO, the first step is to strengthen ourselves via rigorous physical combat training. Then the highest is about balancing ourselves with the surroundings and to cure others and ourselves. Well, this peak phase is rarely told.
It's actually the real science, but with different presentation and more respect.

Stomach is the "center" of ourselves. Well, the brain, heart, lungs, pancreas, and, like, genital are also important, but as a whole, those other parts of the body get nutrition from the "stomach".

So, illness such as heart disease, or liver (hepatitis related), or irregular blood tension, or even the brain problems, started from the digestion. The intakes.
That's why people in the country, or village, with literally no access to chain-restaurants (or any instant modern meals) are healthier.

You might find some documentations about "weird" diseases first discovered in advanced cities. Then of course, spread to everywhere. That's the circle of modern life. Some chance those are made up, charity dramas, laws, etc. Some real, you know, like, birth defects and those other bulking up diseases at older age. "Spread to anywhere", the "anywhere" refers to place with accesses to news and books.

Fast food industries, like whatever you can find nowadays, to reduce cost and things, use lots of chemical compounds: metal, metalloid, alkaline, etc, which is more "attractive", last longer (more like not-that-lethal-mummification), and easier to cook/bake, usually pre-cooked meals. You just heat it for couple of minutes and bam! Ready.

We have this tendency to engineer everything. And to "control" other people's fate. By we, I mean not exactly we. We just follow what they told us. Well, that's fine, as long as we (they) understand the "boundaries". Which apparently not. On purpose, since they "know" bunch of stuffs already.
Because we know so very little about what we are, why we are here, and the real facts are blurred by "mainstream science", we need to re-observe ourselves, others, and our place on our own. Observing takes a lot of time because earth realm is really vast with kajillion different beings on and in it. There are the real domain (we can literally see or feel it) and "other". The "other" consists of our imaginations and "more other", things which are invisible to human eyes but factually exist.

In this era, we are always dictated to be "fast all the time". I really don't care about it, but then again, it's all over the place, so I brought the subject, with that "quick" keyword. But mainly, it's because this post is an emergency related situation, so quick action is needed.

Anyway, the good news is, the ancient people had already done some parts and written down their discoveries somewhere. Regarding our habitat and ourselves.

The nature literally provides us with everything we need. Olden people knew things about which and what on this realm. Certain special people had knowledge about special fields. Like, druids for example. Not all druids were in dark side. But usually, they knew both sides, who and which and what.
Back then, we built, planted and cultivated things directly. Now, we "need" the middlemen, the corporations, to do those for us. Thus, no knowledge about anything anymore. Dumbed down and "entertained" (zombified) very much.

The key from those buried knowledge is always about THE BALANCING concept. It's actually used in engineering anyhow. Engineering is about mimicking nature and manipulation. Hm.

6 comments:

  1. I went through some of this stuff this week. Bananas...who knew???

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yeah, banana is sort of "acid" to wounded stomach.

      Delete
  2. Love your writing style (this isn't spam...I'm a real person). It's fun and relatable! Lol! You'd have made an interesting science tutor so I wouldn't have always felt sleepy in college chemistry...lol. Interesting fact about the worms. The researcher in me is intrigued. Summary....just thought to not be a ghost reader and say good job.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much! You're so kind. Yep, we should all do our own researches to make ourselves more independent and understand stuffs.

      Delete
  3. Have suffered from Typhoid and Ulcers for over two years now but i don't seem to get fine regardless the medication i use

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sorry to hear that.

      Well, if I were you, I would stop taking antibiotics (the basic prescription for those usually), and switch to herbal or other non "modern" "medication".

      Yeah of course there are many swindlers when talking about holistic knowledge. You could try to find the worm I mentioned above, usually they are already in packages (capsules). It works for me and my friends and students who had those sort of stomach problems.

      How to know you're better is by having normal appetite.

      I hope you'll get much better soon.

      Delete

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