Kiddipedia
Recently I had the misfortune of getting food poisoning after a business lunch in a local café and spent the better part of next 12 hours intermittently calling out to God via the porcelain telephone.
After each vomiting episode my body felt better but I know that this would be repeated again in about thirty minutes or so. The gut heaving was intensive as my body attempted to dispel every last bit of the foreign body. Causing my stomach muscles to ache for days after the vomiting was done.
And each vomiting episode was more traumatic as my body, going through the motions, had nothing left to expel. But continued to retch uncontrollably.
In the past I have also experienced the added bonus of loss of bowels or bladder, just to further add to the degradation of being face first in the toilet bowel.
During my recent bout however, I was able to keep control over my bowels and bladder. But the intro-abdominal pressure upon my pelvic floor was immense! And I was very pleased to call it a day in the early hours because I was sure that this continued and sustained violent pressure on my pelvic floor would cause me to prolapse. As I have known other women to do, uncontrollably.
The next day, I was forced to wipe my calendar of all commitments and slept my way to recovery. I celebrated every sip of water than remained in my barren stomach.
The good thing about food poisoning (if there can be such a thing) is that usually does not last more than 12 hours and being fit and healthy I felt pretty much back to normal 24 hours later.
Except for my pelvic floor.
I could certainly feel that it was overworked, exhausted and at risk.
And that is why on Day #2 of my post vomiting experience, I decided to forgo my usual scheduled workout. Instead, I followed the advice that I normally give to new mums post birth.
Why?
My body on the outside was strong and back to functioning normally, however my pelvic floor had experienced trauma and needed some rest and restoration. If I wanted to avoid further damage, I need to give it some specific care.
Here is what I did:
- Rest and recovery:
I cancelled my work out. In a world focused on strength, strength and more strength, we sometimes forget that recovery is a vital part of the muscle building process. Your muscle grows in your rest periods. Over training over a long time (which neatly explains my bouts over the toilet) will lead to injury.
- Take a load off:
I did not need to spend another day in bed, but I did spend some time with my feet up, especially in the afternoon.
- Focused on breathing:
General household chores don’t go away because you are not up to it, but I did do them mindfully. I was careful to exhale when lifting the heavy basket of wet washing.
- Re-hydrate:
The collagen that is our ligaments is mostly made of water. I knew I needed to drink more than normal and kept adding water to my same bag of green tea to keep me interested in drinking.
- Eat well:
I personally call bull-shit on the term ‘clean eating’ because does that mean your other food is ‘dirty’? But I know that the nutrients that I needed can be sourced adequately from food, so I made sure I had:
- Crunch:
I have a tendency to eat fast and that makes it difficult for me to read my natural “fullness signs” so eating raw food allows me to eat slowly and forces me to chew more. The fibre factor of raw food also ensures no constipation will put further pressure on my exhausted pelvic floor.
- Limited processed food:
I can identify all the ingredients that make up my meals.
- Protein:
Adding a significant source of protein to each meal – as protein is the building block to muscle building.
- I also added a magnesium supplement:
this helped ease my sore stomach muscles and enabled me to have a better nights sleep.
And day 3?
All back to normal!
Have you had a similar experience?
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