Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Nausea Dos and Don'ts


Lately I’ve had really bad nausea from my arthritis medications. I found I go a bit crazy when I feel sick all the time and especially when my blood sugar gets out of whack. Today I’m not feeling so bad so I thought I’d write myself a list of reminders for what to do if the nausea comes back. Hopefully this will keep me slightly saner.

Dos

Do try to eat even if you feel sick. You’ll feel worse if your blood sugar gets low. Eat small meals and choose healthy foods. Avoid greasy or milky foods, or anything that makes you feel particularly sick.

Do ask for help if you need it. If you don’t tell your medical team you’re not feeling well they can’t do anything about it.

Do let the important people in your life know you’re not feeling well. Often you’ll want to prove you’re fine and don’t want to feel like you’re being a burden or like you’re dumping on people but on the most part they’ll want to support you. You need that support and if you need help, or can’t meet work or social commitments – they aren’t mind readers. They need to know what’s going on to be able do anything about it.

Do get plenty of sleep. Nausea is amazingly exhausting. Give yourself a break!

Don’ts

Don’t try to work out whether you feel nauseous or nauseated. This is not a time for grammar and the more you think about feeling sick, the more you will feel sick.

Don’t start thinking about the weight you might loose while sick. Yes, you are eating less; yes, you might loose weight but that’s not what you should be focusing on. This is not a clever or healthy way to drop kilos. It’s a slippery slope and what you should be focusing on is trying to feel and be healthy.

Don’t over-exercise. It’s important to keep your joints moving but you’re likely to be too tired and too low on calories to do any more than that.

Don’t take on too much and if you can’t get much done on current projects don’t be too hard on yourself. Try to keep doing the things you love but keep in mind your stamina will be low. If you can only manage a shorter period of time, that’s OK. If you can’t do anything at all, just remember this won’t last forever. You can come back to things later.

There are probably other things that should go on here but I think this will do for a start. As I’m reading over this I think maybe these are dos and don’ts I should adopt for life, not just for times when I’m nauseous. Or maybe they should be a list of Autoimmune Dos and Don’ts. Either way, I’ll try to keep them in mind next time I’m sick.

Little Miss Autoimmune

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