Dumping syndrome

Hi Podgerina, 

Thanks for bringing up this important subject that I think we all suffer from to some degree? 

The good news is things do get better!

My treatments finished 2 years and 19 days ago. (FLOT --> SURGERY --> FLOT) and I didn't start feeling better until at least 6 months after I finished my second (post op) chemo cycle. I learnt to listen to my body better and be careful of sugar and fat in my diet. For me smaller portions and no drinks until after I have finished eating works. but I think everyone has different coping strategies? I still have dumping occasionally and can usually trace it back to something I ate, but not always. 

Thank you your feedback was very helpful. 

I remind my husband when he has over eaten and has urgency and he gets a little awkward and defensive,  I  just tell him to remember his stomach is now up his body and into his neck it works and we ve a laugh because if you don't you may cry. It helps us anyway.

Sorry, what is dumping? I’ve read that a lot of people experience this but not sure what it exactly is! 

Hi ..I’ve just copied this ..Hope it helps …Dumping is pretty common after a gastric surgery ..It usually settles as the healing process continues .

Dumping syndrome is a group of symptoms, such as diarrhea, nausea, and feeling light-headed or tired after a meal, that are caused by rapid gastric emptying. Rapid gastric emptying is a condition in which food moves too quickly from your stomach to your duodenum.

Thank you. 

JPM sums it up nicely. However there are two sorts of dumping (or more correctly dumping syndrome), both result from food being dumped into the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine) 

Early dumping is that unwell feeling you can get soon after a meal. It generally lasts about 20 minutes when you are best left alone, not required to answer any questions or make any decisions like “would you like a glass of water” or any such well meaning concern. This is due to the relatively large volume of undigested food suddenly entering the small intestine. It’s something the body is not used to. For most people it gets less frequent with time (months or years). I still get it very occasionally especially if I eat too much.

Late dumping is however due to rapid absorption of sugar in the small intestine due to the relatively large volume of sugary or starchy food entering and being digested and absorbed quickly. This can result in a higher than normal peak blood sugar to which the body reacts by producing insulin to deal with it. But when this peak is sharper and less broad than normal the high level of insulin produced continues to have an effect after the blood sugar has returned to normal. This results in an abnormally low sugar (or hypo). This usually occurs about an hour after the offending food was eaten. Sometimes I forget myself and eat biscuits or cakes and wash it down with tea (quite naturally!). I can tell when my sugar drops below 4.0 (vision disturbances and giddy feeling), so I eat four jelly babies which is enough to bring my blood sugar back to normal limits. Any more than four and the whole cycle repeats itself. Late dumping is sometimes also referred to as reactive hypoglycaemia (low glucose).

So I have a strategy to avoid both sorts of dumping and that is to drink then eat. This will avoid flushing food into small intestine faster than would otherwise occur. Remember our stomach’s now in our chest, and unable to digest and release food into our small intestine (duodenum) as gradually as a normal stomach so flushing it down with liquid won’t help with any of our limited gradual releasing process that remains.

Sorry for the long winded explanation of my dumping syndrome. It is different for everyone and poorly explained by the clinicians, but I hope it helps.

No worries..Just a brief explanation but BrentS has explained it further ..regards J