I Have an MBA

Hello all. Yet again, I have become lazy in posting. Yet again, it is due to school. Missing seven days of class takes a lot of previously-had free-time away. I had caught up on all of my homework but still needed (and still need) to catch-up completely on the topics covered. I had a mid-term in my logic-based math course today. I think it went well, although it was difficult and took me the entire class period. Hopefully it turns out well.

I thought I'd make a comment on this post about my latest dietary supplement experiment: probiotics. Heavy duty probiotics, at that. I've been eating Activia yogurt with probiotics for a while now (low sugar, of course). But research has shown that these yogurts don't even have enough bacteria (good bacteria) to do anything against the bad intestinal bacteria. But the probiotics I'm taking have the big bats. They are like the Cleveland Indians line-up while the bad bacteria are like Chien-Ming Wang and a sorry Yankee bullpen. They are Teddy Roosevelt: quiet, but not afraid to get dirty. Everyone remembers his Big-Stick Policy ("Speak softly, and carry a big stick") with regards to foreign policy. They are like Manny Ramirez while the bad bacteria are like every pitcher ever. They are like Omar Vizquel's glove while the bad bacteria are like every ground ball hit to the left side of the infield. You get the picture.

The probiotics I am taking are VSL#3 ("The Living Shield"). Each serving, two capsules, contains 225 billion live lactic acid bacteria which act as my Microscopic Bacterial Army (MBA - I told you I had a MBA, and you didn't believe me. Now how do you feel?) fighting what my Cleveland Clinic doctors have diagnosed as Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO - Also referred to as Small Bowel Bacterial Overgrowth [SBBO]). I have taken one serving each morning for the past month, and I have noticed a definite decrease in what I like to call "intestinal activity" - the grumblings and rumblings, both felt and heard, within the intestines since having my bowel resection. Less cramping at the end of the day, less class-interrupting stomach noises (re: Seinfeld's "The Voice"). That is not to say that I never feel cramping. I do. But usually I know immediately that I shouldn't have eaten what I recently ate, i.e. a large cookie, a bowl of most likely fatty soup, etc. And I do have stomach noises still. Today's mid-term was incredibly noisy thanks to Jay Junem, Dewy Denim, and Ih Liam (he's Middle-Eastern).

My doctors recommend that I take up to three servings of my MBA each day, increasing upon my one each day. Unfortunately that poses a slight fiscal problem. The bottle that the MBA comes in contains 60 capsules (30 servings). So, at one serving each day, a bottle lasts one month. The problem is that the bottle costs $50. Taking three servings each day means that I would be paying five dollars everyday for these guys. My mother has attempted to get the insurance to cover the cost to no avail.

These pills are definitely making a positive difference for me, though. And I recommend them to other SGers who may be suffering from SIBO. I'm not sure if it would be helpful to SGers without SIBO, but it couldn't hurt to bring it up to your doctors. I know that dealing with short-gut is mostly a guessing game, playing with different prescriptions and supplements in search for the perfect line-up. Like a baseball team, you don't just put your nine best on the field everyday, you have to find your best nine. Meaning you can have nine potential All-Stars on a team (re: New York Yankees) but the best teams have nine guys who sacrifice for the team and play well together (re: Tampa Bay Rays).

This is interesting. Watch out in the near future for a current prescription and supplement baseball-esque line-up. Now I'm excited to put it all together.

In response to Renee's comment on my last post: She wrote about a home-made pizza that she made. I must say, the BBQ style sounds fantastic. I have made home-made pizza as well. Strike that: my mother has made home-made pizza for me. With the ability to control fat content in the pizza, home-made is definitely the way to go. My current favorite is cheese with green peppers and onions, although it isn't the best for the breath. I've also put pepperoni on it. Cutting the pepperoni slices in fourths allows you to cover the whole pizza with just a few slices of pepperoni. For quick and easy pizza, I especially like using Italian buns instead of "pizza crust." Italian bun, covered with a layer of Ragu, some shredded cheese, maybe a little pepperoni (three or four slices would be more than enough), and a few minutes in the oven. It's fantastic.

I know it sounds odd to say, but I'm going to say it anyway: "There has never been a better time in history to have to live with the Short-Gut Diet." There, I said it. The diet, as I've said before, requires low fat and sugar content. Every super market has almost everything you could possibly want in a low fat or low sugar version. Hotdogs, salad dressing, frozen treats. And if there isn't a low fat or low sugar version (like pizza), there are low fat or low sugar ingredients to buy in order to make a home-made version. Pizza, mashed potatoes (Bob Evan's version is fantastic!), you name it. My mother has even made a Short-Gut-friendly version of cheesecake desserts. She's a genius when it comes to creating tasty recipes for her boy.

I think that's it for now. I'm going to do my very best to stop going a week between posts. I enjoy writing on the blog, so I need to make it a priority again, like it was when I first started.

Tribe came through with the comeback 5-2 victory today, improving to a record of just 6-10 though. Starting pitching, though, is looking like it is going to be a big strength on this club through the season. The bats have been dormant the last handful of games, but I still think they will have the best offense in baseball at the end of the season. The bullpen, well, it's not very good so far. Kerry Wood has been deadly to opposing batters, but beyond that, everybody has struggled. Jenson Lewis is coming around again. I say that it should be looking better soon, as long as the starters can continue to go deeper into the ball games. At the beginning of the season the bullpen was being called upon by the fourth or fifth innings. Perhaps their struggles have come because of being so over-worked to start the season. Now, they can start to relax until the seventh or eighth. Look for the Tribe to be third or higher in the central division after the Detroit series during the second weekend in May (Mother's Day).

You heard it here first. -IW