Re: Edema & Protein Deficiency?
From: Kayce (anonymous@medispecialty.com)
Sat Oct 27 19:03:50 2007
I had a HUGE problem with edema about 2 years ago. As my surgeon explained
it to me, edema is when water leaves the cells of the body and fills the
open spaces when the cell walls are too week to contain the water. In my
case, cell walls were weakened by severe protein deficiency brought on by
months of living on baby food, laxatives, and buying time until I could find
a doctor able to pinpoint what was wrong with me and then correct it. I had
adhesions that created two small passages that were too narrow for anything
of any size to pass through and by the time I had surgery, even baby food
and water had become impassable. I just got sick all of the time and rapidly
lost weight. When edema is as severe as mine was, the body doesn't have the
protein needed to recover from surgery and I was protein deficient to the
point of requiring Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) via a port that was put
in my chest just for this purpose during another resection surgery. I stayed
on TPN in the hospital for three weeks. It's amazing what that stuff can do!
I started gaining weight back, getting energy, etc. I started to recover!
>From my experience, I would suggest that you have a doctor test
specifically for protein deficiency. I'd also suggest evaluating your
protein intake and seeing if you need to increase your intake. Boiled
chicken is one of the easiest ways to get protein that's easy on the
digestive system. Rice protein is another option that's easily digested.
Stay away from soy protein, wheat and whey protein shakes and supplements,
and beef. Turkey and buffalo are much easier to digest.