Ensure and similar?

[Izzie]

Hey there!

So, lately I've been entirely unable to get enough nutrition in me. I keep losing weight at a rapid pace, and have developed a lot of anxiety about food since I'm in horrible pain as soon as I've eaten that lasts for hours.

So I'm starting to wonder about Ensure and other forms of liquid nutrition. Is it feasible to replace a meal per day (maybe 2) with some kind of liquid meal replacement? It'd be nice to get by on liquids during my school days because as it is now I can't go at all. If I eat solids, I have to be home for the following 2-3 hours to deal with the pain, belching, bathroom visits etc.

I realize it's not ideal, but at this point I'd like to jus be able to leave my house and resume SOME of my normal activities.

Has anyone else done this? What's your experience with it? I'd appreciate any input!

 

[FrozenGirl]

A meal, would probably be fine. I get it, I rarely eat outside my house or before leaving the house. Just makes me too anxious, dealing with the after effects. Have you talked to your GI lately about a plan for tackling this flare? While ensure is fine for a bit it really isn't meant to be a long term solution.

 

[Izzie]

A meal, would probably be fine. I get it, I rarely eat outside my house or before leaving the house. Just makes me too anxious, dealing with the after effects. Have you talked to your GI lately about a plan for tackling this flare? While ensure is fine for a bit it really isn't meant to be a long term solution.

I don't have a clear diagnosis yet, sadly, and my hospital is proving increasingly incompetent. Getting a hold of a doctor is taking forever, and not even my diagnosed problems (GERD, bile reflux, hiatus hernia) are getting treated properly. I keep nagging them though, so hopefully soon something will happen :tongue:

I have a CT in a month, and an appointment with a GI another month after that. So hopefully there will be a plan soon, but in the meantime I'd just like to feel like I can do SOMETHING. I've already missed almost 3 months of school, and I can't really afford to miss more. That and the isolation isn't really helping my overall mood, either... I think I'll give it a try for a while, see if it gives my poor guts a bit of a break :lol2:

 

[FrozenGirl]

Aww that's a super sucky situation. Hopefully the CT will show enough for a diagnosis or at least for them to take you more seriously. Have you had scopes? Dealing with this in school is really hard, I'm in uni and it is so tough to feel like crap all the time and still have to try and get stuff done.

 

[Izzie]

Aww that's a super sucky situation. Hopefully the CT will show enough for a diagnosis or at least for them to take you more seriously. Have you had scopes? Dealing with this in school is really hard, I'm in uni and it is so tough to feel like crap all the time and still have to try and get stuff done.

I have had scopes, yes. Upper showed the GERD, hernia, bile reflux stuff. Colonoscopy was normal. But I've had positive occult blood tests and anemia stuff too, so something is clearly avry.

I find that specialist doctors are really nice and helpful - once you actually get in to see them. It's the red tape and countless nurses, receptionists, GPs you have to talk to before you get there that's the problem.

Also they really don't take someone's inability to eat properly all that seriously when they're not super skinny. I was normal weight at the beginning of this year, maybe even had a couple extra pounds on me - no one cared that I couldn't eat. Now that I'm starting to look fairly scrawny, -20 lbs later, people are starting to notice :frown:

Now I just have to make peace with the taste of Ensure, for a while :lol2:

 

[UnXmas]

I've had a lot of Ensure (and many other brands). I'm not sure where you live but in the UK you get them on presription, so it's up to your doctor(s) to decide if it's a good idea for you and how much you should have if you want to try it.

I've only had supplements along side regular food; I've never had them exclusively. They're nutitionally complete though, so people can live off Ensure alone if they have to, and you can certainly replace a meal of solid food with them without worrying about lacking nutrition. A bottle is around 300 calories, so you may need a bit more than that for a main meal. You can also get supplements in forms other than milkshake-style bottles; you can get yoghurt-like puddings, fruit juice styles, savoury soups, etc.

One warning though - supplements are more substantial than drinks like water and juice. So they may not help you avoid sympoms quite so well as when you replace food with other liquids.

 

[Izzie]

I've had a lot of Ensure (and many other brands). I'm not sure where you live but in the UK you get them on presription, so it's up to your doctor(s) to decide if it's a good idea for you and how much you should have if you want to try it.

I've only had supplements along side regular food; I've never had them exclusively. They're nutitionally complete though, so people can live off Ensure alone if they have to, and you can certainly replace a meal of solid food with them without worrying about lacking nutrition. A bottle is around 300 calories, so you may need a bit more than that for a main meal. You can also get supplements in forms other than milkshake-style bottles; you can get yoghurt-like puddings, fruit juice styles, savoury soups, etc.

One warning though - supplements are more substantial than drinks like water and juice. So they may not help you avoid sympoms quite so well as when you replace food with other liquids.

Really anything that isn't a clear liquid will give me some kind of symptoms, for sure, but I seem to be able to handle yoghurt, soups etc. okay. It's not perfect but it's not horrible either. Living solely off yoghurt doesn't seem nutritionally sound, so this might be a better option.

I did have it a couple times when I was hospitalized and couldn't eat solids at all, and it went down alright.

Volume seems to matter, if I eat normal sized portions I'm just going to be in agony for half a day, which means I just do not get enough food, so basically right now every calorie is a good one

 

[happy]

You may find this section of the forum helpful: http://www.crohnsforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=161
Good luck.

 

[If*]

Hi, there is Boost in powder mix for ~ was pretty tasty with several things i mixed it with.
organic ~ milk, almond milk, lactose free milk, coconut milk.... was kinda nice to have as an option

hope you feel better soon