The Wrong Breakfast
Hi and welcome to the very first episode of Harmful Eating and How to Eliminate it.
I’ve been considering hosting a new podcast for some time but just couldn’t find the right angle on what I wanted to talk about. Well, this very morning while eating breakfast guess what, it found me!
As I sat down and put the first spoon of cereal into my mouth, I realised I’d chosen the wrong breakfast this morning. Why? Because it hurt!
Whilst I wasn’t in any pain until I started eating, since talking generally doesn’t exacerbate my sores usually, as soon as the spoon entered my mouth and I started chewing, my sores gave out an almighty scream telling me to stop eating! Well, there are 4 of them today so a lot of screaming to be had amongst them all!
Having a disease or illness, acute or chronic, which affects any part of the digestive tract can be pretty inconvenient to say the least when it comes to eating, but for me when the oral cavity is in strife, I really do get to know about it and it can last for 7-10 days depending on severity of the outbreak.
Given our digest tract takes up huge part of our body from the mouth all the way down to the anus, I figured there’s probably a lot of people out there where eating or drinking can be a problem in exacerbating illness or disease symptoms, making it more difficult and challenging than ever to deal with.
What was worst is that my hygienist had just trialled me back on a more abrasive toothpaste containing sodium laureth sulphate (SLS) to help remove staining. It’s used in a variety of products such as food thickeners, toothpaste, and floor cleaners and a known irritant to eyes and the respiratory tract, but great for preventing staining on teeth.
When I got diagnosed with mucous membrane pemphigoid in 2020, I banished it from my diet in favour of more gentle product that wouldn’t trigger and exacerbate ulcers and sores in my mouth. When we do something regularly, like brushing our teeth, it becomes automated i.e., a mindless act and so when I got the outbreak, I didn’t link SLS with having so many sores initially. When the penny finally dropped, I knew I had to eliminate it again and have every confidence this time, I won’t be using it again no matter how good it might be! There are other things I can use like bicarbonate of soda and there are some toothpastes that have this as their base, but don’t always taste so good. Managing harm is a compromise for sure.
So here we are. I don’t yet have a roadmap for the podcast, but I do hope it’s going to be an awesome, interesting and creative journey I’ll be on with you. I have my condition for life so I’ll no doubt be sharing lots of stories and ideas from my experiences and the workarounds I have to do. I hope it will be an interesting listen for you too. Perhaps you’ll even join me on an episode or two to share your story and solutions you’ve found to eliminating harmful eating without making a condition you have feel worse than it already is.
Perhaps you don’t have an illness or disease yet to speak of, that you know about anyway, but you do know that what you’re putting into your body is far from ideal or healthy for you and you’re somewhat concerned about that and wanting to do something healthier about it but yet not sure what.
If you like what you’re hearing, want to join me on an episode, or have more ideas of what you would like to listen to, be sure to drop me a line on my contact page at karenbartle.com/contact , I would love to hear from you. Also, I would love for you to support me in getting started, so please subscribe to this podcast and let others, know about it too.
Until next time bye for now.
