In the past I have spoken a bit about Fructose Malabsorption on this blog (see here for previous posts). I haven’t talked about it for a couple years, but this does not mean that we have not still been dealing with this issue. We have actually been dealing with it much more in the past couple years as it has made a major change in our way of eating. With four of us in the house having FM it’s hard to get away from it. Previously we only lightly followed the FM diet, thinking that we were not a severe case, but now we have discovered that we have issues with fructans (chains of fructose) and have a much more strict diet as far as wheat and brown rice goes.
In my last post about FM I was talking about Matthew and how we were struggling to figure him out but finally making progress. Pulling rice out of his diet was the big change and it took a few months for his body to heal from the rice he had been eating (all the time) before that. We now realize that this is because his diet was gluten free and the majority of gluten free foods are made with brown rice, as well as his rice milk, also made of brown rice. Brown rice has fructans in it and we cannot handle fructans. It took some time before we pulled Matthew completely off wheat. We kept him on a lower amount of wheat for a year or so thinking that this was okay for him, but always struggling to figure out what would cause a flair up … only to finally clue in that he needs to be wheat-free. Wheat-free has made a huge difference for all of us and while we hate not being able to have wheat, we do love how much better we feel.
In the past few years I’ve done a lot of reading about FM and learned a lot. I’m still lost at times, as FM is not an easy diet to follow since there is no consistency on what works as everyone is so very different in their sensitiveness. I know what the data and information about FM says, but also know that this doesn’t work for everyone. We have worked through the challenges of this diet and we still have our struggles, but we have been able to find a more happy balance. I love my food and I love being able to eat whatever I please so I do have trouble sticking to the diet, but I do not miss the days of constant brain fog, tiredness, fatigue, body aches and so avoiding these helps me to keep on track a bit more.
Since there is lots to say about FM and I know what a struggle it is for those who are trying to figure it out I decided to take the information that I have read and gathered and put it together so others can benefit from what I have had to figure out. I continue to regularly get comments and e-mails with regards to FM and my previous posts about it and thought it might be wise to update my information and dedicate some more time to it. So while I haven’t always been completely faithful to keeping up with this blog I do have a bit of an excuse since I’ve been trying to put together a new blog at the same time …. of course, one wonders how I plan to keep up with two blogs if I can’t even keep up with one.
For those who have stumbled across this blog looking for information about fructose malabsorption please check out my blog dedicated to this topic at:
Life with Fructose Malabsorption
The information on this blog is simply information that I have gathered over the past couple years or learned through trial and error, it is what works for our family but is not necessarily what works for others with FM since all are very different. I by no means am an expert or specialist with regards to FM but I am simply putting together the information I have learned so that hopefully others can benefit from it
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