It’s somewhat customary, when one has been absent a long
time from one’s corner of T’Internet, to apologise and offer an
explanation. So, lovely readers, the
primary reason that I have not been posting recently is because it is hard to
work up any enthusiasm for writing about food when you seem to spend half your
life dealing with it at the other end. I
am sorry to be coarse, unladylike and to be offering what is undoubtedly I of
the TM sort. But there you have it.
Finally, at the end of last week the problem was diagnosed
as Bile Acid Malabsorption (BAM) or, as it is sometimes called, Bile Acid Diarrhoea
(BAD), almost certainly caused by the removal of my gallbladder around eighteen
months ago (I wrote a post about my experience with that so will link the two together in case it should prove useful to anyone).
I won’t pretend to understand the ins and outs of it, but basically
BAM means that your guts are not absorbing as much bile acid as they should be
so you end up with bile swilling around that your body tries to flush out by
releasing more water – the result being that you end up with pretty much permanent
tummy trouble. A normal reasbsorption
rate is about 20%. Anything under 15%
and you get your BAM diagnosis. Anything
under 5% is considered severe. My rate
was 1.8% so –well. Winning.
I have now started taking medication which should mean that the
problem is sorted out and very shortly I will be looking back and laughing
at all this. Because, believe me. I am not labouring under any sort of delusion
that this is a Big Problem in the grand scheme of things. I am perfectly well aware that there are many
people out there who are dealing with far worse and I am a little ashamed that
even at my ripe old age I have not got any better at pulling on Big Girl Pants
and being stoic in the face of such annoyances.
