From their website:

• Enzymes Provide Support
  Our body uses enzymes to enhance digestion and turn the food we eat into energy. Produced throughout the digestive tract and available from raw foods and supplements, these enzymes include: amylase for carbohydrates, lipase for fats, protease for proteins, and cellulase for fiber. Like tiny shears, enzymes help break down the foods we eat leaving particles small enough to provide nutrition to the cells after they enter the bloodstream. In addition to aiding digestion, some enzymes provide additional support to the body by eliminating harmful toxins and by-products.
• Use in Combination with Special Diets
  Reducing or eliminating the foods which trigger digestive problems is a key part of managing food sensitivities.  While special diets are helpful to those with impaired digestion, dietary modification used in combination with enzyme supplementation provides peace of mind and complete spectrum digestive support.  Digest Spectrum™ contains no corn, rice, soy, potato, gluten, casein or sugar, making it an ideal choice for children and adults with multiple dietary sensitivities.  

So what does this mean?  Do I NOT have Fructose Malabsorption but rather some type of enzyme deficiency?  I don’t know.  This is a question I will have for my GI doc, the next time I see her.  What I do know is this stuff is amazing and making my life normal, again.  I haven’t felt normal since possibly my teens and early 20s.  I’m 46.  That’s a long time to suffer.

My insides feel very calm.  This is strange and new.  I’ve taken a HUGE chance with dinner and just ate about 1/4 cup of lo-mein noodles and a spring roll, wrapped in a wheat wrapper.  I took two capsules before eating.  If I had eaten this at any other time, I’d be guaranteed pain and suffering starting about 36 hours later. 

We’ll see how tomorrow goes, after using DS all day today, and how I feel on Friday and Saturday, following my wheat-laden meal.  So far, this is amazing.

Today, I bought a product called Digest Spectrum, after reading about it in the Yahoo Fructose Malabsorption group. One person in the group talks about it constantly and how it has helped her. I found more “testimonials” online, in blogs, in comment area, etc. that indicate this product may actually help someone with FM. I don’t understand it, since FM is not the result of an enzyme problem but for some reason, this stuff is said to work. I started it tonight. I will keep you posted.

Because of Fructose Build-Up, I cannot have a big salad, filled with “small amounts” of several items.  I can have a very small, simple salad 2-3x/week and not in addition to having another vegetable.  I do not eat veggies and fruit everyday.  I wish I could but I just can’t, without big symptoms.  Usually, I make the choice of a fruit OR a veggie OR a small salad, maybe 3-5x/week (5x is pushing it).

High Fructose foods (Avoid)

Fruits – Apple, apricot, blackberry, cherry, pear, plum, mango, pear, watermelon, fruit juice, dried fruit, canned fruit in natural juice, tomato (I can eat small amounts of tomato and organic tomato sauces).

Vegetables – Asparagus, artichoke, beet, brussel sprouts, fennel, garlic, leek, okra, onion, peas.

Grains – Wheat, rye, brown rice, chicory.

Sweeteners – All artificial sweeteners, agave, honey, molasses, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, maple.

Legumes – Chickpeas, broad beans, soy beans, black eyed peas, butter beans, lentils, baked beans, kidney beans, pinto beans.

PERSONAL FOOD ALLERGIES – Tree nuts, mustard, Yellow 5, real cinnamon, fish.

Most of the GF products I’ve been eating are made with brown rice.  Pre-sourdough, I avoided everything with brown rice.  Fructans hit me hard, brown rice has fructans, therefore, I gave up all brown rice.  Post-sourdough, I decided I was being too picky and decided to give brown rice-based GF foods a try.  Something tells me that this was a BIG mistake.

As of today, I am giving up all GF foods containing brown rice.  I’ll keep you posted.

My insurance did not cover this test and it was $500.00. I would rather have been miserable after the FM test, knowing for sure what the problem was, than to have a negative SIBO test, severe symptoms, and no real answers.

It’s been almost two years, since I was diagnosed with FM. I’m tempted to make an appointment with that GI doc for more answers, though it seems easier to just avoid wheat. Maybe I had false negative results for Celiac’s Disease? It seems unlikely but something in the wheat makes me very, very ill.

I’m considering deleting this blog, since nearly everything I’ve written is inaccurate, at least when it came to my experiences and symptoms. I have no doubt that if I overeat fruit and drink too much wine, I’ll have symptoms; however, for me, wheat is EVIL.

When I eat wheat, I get very sick, about a day-and-a-half later. When avoiding wheat, I would still have symptoms, which I attributed to the other foods I allowed myself to eat (e.g., “It must have been the grapes/plum/salad/etc. I had the other day”). All the while, I was enjoying organic sourdough bread or regular sourdough english muffins, everyday.

I wound up gorging myself on pizza, one night. I knew it was a very bad thing to do and I was going to be sick as a dog, in a couple of days. After I got through the aftermath, I had no desire to eat anything “risky”, and no desire to eat sourdough bread, for over a week.

A strange thing happened. My system started to become more normal. Trips to the bathroom weren’t painful and drawn out, for any reason. I have not eaten any sourdough for about a month, now. I feel NORMAL. I’ve been eating salad, almost daily, I’ve been eating some small amounts of fruit, and I haven’t had any major fructose-related symptoms.

At the beginning of this journey, I tested negative for Celiac Disease and my SIBO test was negative. Then, I had a full colonoscopy and an endoscopy, and my GI doc took several biopsies, which confirmed that I do not have Celiac Disease. So, what’s going on here?

If it’s not Gluten and the wheat in the sourdough is “safe”, then what is causing my reaction? I don’t have the answer to that. Maybe I never will.

At this point, I’m going to continue eating more like “normal” people do, those without a severe Fructose Malabsorption issue. I will not eat more that trace amounts of wheat (like that found in canned soup, for example), unless I’m prepared to deal with the painful consequences. If I simply must have a sandwich or toast, I will use sourdough, since my symptoms are more tolerable and less painful, than when eating regular wheat-flour bread.

I feel like an idiot. I’m frustrated by this mystery. I’m mad at myself for not properly testing sourdough, to begin with.

Wheat — who needs it? Not me.

I’ve discovered that my Diabetes medication gives me the runs (!!!), along with nausea and vomiting. This is not conducive to trying to eat a low fructose diet, since it interferes with the true reactions to the foods I eat. I don’t think there are many alternatives but I may need to call my doctor, soon.

I went off of my Diabetes med for about two weeks. I was able to eat small amounts of pasta and fruit, that I normally can’t eat, and the reactions I did have were milder than usual.

I’m in quite a bit of a fix, right now.