OCTOBER 9 — My doctor said, “I’m sorry to tell you this is incurable.”
Yes, doc, just add that to the list of my health foibles.
While she wrote down GERD on my medical leave chit (it stands for gastroesophageal reflux disease), what I actually had was laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR), its cousin.
Both are acid reflux diseases, but my variation meant my stomach acid shot up through my esophagus to my larynx and voice box because the valves that kept it out just aren’t working correctly.
Of all the things that triggered it, it was a plate of fried chicken gizzard.
Neither medicines nor cough syrups helped but after two weeks of too much coughing and too little sleep I desperately resorted to drinking two bottles of Yakult.
Dear reader, it worked.
No, I’m not cured but I have my voice and my sanity back.
Alas, I cannot scream
For the moment I’m on a month-long restricted diet to keep my LPR symptoms at bay and it was disheartening to find that almost all my regular takeout places were just not an option.
I love fatty cuts of meat but my LPR didn’t and one of my worst sick nights was from having a rather fatty extra portion of a different meat with my chicken rice.
Now I can’t have fried, stir-fried, greasy food, fatty meat, onion, garlic, spicy or peppery food — I am cut off from nearly every Malaysian staple.
I eat three smallish portions of food, every three hours with no snacks allowed to keep my acid levels under control.
A typical day’s food looks like this: a peanut butter and banana sandwich for breakfast, an omelette or air fried diced potatoes for lunch with some oat milk, while dinner is miso soup with a large slice of watermelon.
“It feels like prison food,” I complain to my friend, who sagely nods in agreement.
The worst thing for me is how my body is so comfortable with what I’m feeding it.
Traitor, I think at night, before I sleep, when I don’t hear my stomach make a blessed sound even though it last got fed three hours ago.
Just months ago I was having burgers at 8pm because I just felt like it but now I don’t even feel hungry anymore.
It’s the Ozempic experience for free with bonus coughing and sore ribs from said coughing.
Honestly, I hate it.
It’s about adjusting
There is a lot of hysteria online about how “unhealthy” Malaysian food is but despite my current predicament I think it’s really about adjusting portions and learning to supplement your meals with more vegetables.
Malaysian food is a blessing but the reality is also there are things we should be having less often or treating more as a treat than daily repast.
On Reddit, I am in various health support groups for my assorted baggage of ailments and what I have found about this disease, and pretty much anything non-genetic, is that sometimes it’s just a matter of luck.
Even though losing weight is often prescribed to GERD sufferers, many of those with GERD are skinny or at supposedly healthy weights.
What works for one person might not work for another and what I like about Reddit is that in medical sub-Reddits at least, there is compassion and solidarity.
Yakult might have worked for me but it compromised another person’s digestion and the usual medicines for GERD also don’t work for everyone as I found.
It’s also sad to read about how many in so-called developed countries struggle to get their ailments taken seriously while in my case I just had to walk to my (expensive) GP down the road.
The nearest Klinik Kesihatan is much cheaper but Grab fares are ridiculous enough now that being able to walk a couple of hundred metres to a clinic with a comfortable sitting room and a very nice doctor (“Take it easy, all right?” she said when I left) is something you won’t appreciate until you go somewhere that isn’t an option.
I have learned the hard way that my body really can get by with a lot less food than I used to give it though I still take iron to ward off anaemia and fish oil for my deteriorating joints and to please my inner five-year-old, multivitamin gummies.
Once this month-long digestive sabbatical is over I don’t plan to get myself sick by eating everything I missed.
Instead I hope to find something I can eat with my Ipoh White coffee without causing a digestive episode and am resigned to taking a takeout box everywhere because my stomach will now only tolerate portions the size of my fist.
I will eat what I want... in very small, measurable portions and drink Yakult every day.
It’s OK, I think, to still love and desire food.
It’s better to find that happy medium that I think my body is telling me to seek... and also, maybe to make eating cheeseburgers and onion rings a very occasional thing instead of whenever I get depressed about the Middle East.
Bon Appetit.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
