Low electrolytes?

[a1000lies]

For the past two months I've only been eating chicken with butter lettuce and eggs with a slice or two-three of rye toast as part of an elimination diet I've been testing. I was 210lbs (6ft tall) and now I'm down to 189 (which I needed to get down to just not this way unfortunately ) since I wasn't able to eat much I was only taking in 800-1300 cals a day. I had a worse flare up a few days ago where I was eating even less and noticed I was getting some shallow breathing, weird heart beat, insanely lethargic and feeling rather odd all around. I had been drinking a lot of water and then I took a nap and woke up not knowing where the hell I was, incredibly confused, shaking, amongst a lot of other strange sensations in my body that are hard to even explain.

I would have went to the ER but my insurance got all screwed up and I can't afford that sorta bill right now. I was able to get myself to a 711 and get bananas and Gatorade/vitamin water, and ritz crackers and it seemed after a few hours I leveled out a bit.

I took another nap a few hours ago having the most bizarre dreams I've had in years but I feel like I'm improving. I have this odd craving for fried food and I don't really care what it does to me so I had some french fries and a burger a bit earlier and that also seemed like it may have helped.
Anyone else experience anything like this? It was pretty scary.

 

[jjk308]

Try a normal balanced diet. PLEASE!

 

[kiny]

Try to see a doctor if you keep dropping weight and try to eat balanced meals like jjk says.

Some basic rule is that the big majority (at the very least 50%) of your energy dense foods, your calories, should be carbohydrates.

Your diet is very low in carbohydrates and high in protein and fats which is really hard to digest. Simple sugars, fructose, glucose, sucrose, they all get turned into blood glucose and are extremely easy to digest. EN for crohn's disease tend to use dried glucose / fructose or lactose because they are an extremely easy to digest source of calories.

Low electrolytes can happen if you have a lot of D. Make sure you drink enough normal plain water.

 

[a1000lies]

Yeah, I'm back into reintroducing more things into my diet now. I tried this elimination diet out of desperation to try and see if there was something making more sick than I've been given my weird pattern of being sick lately. Any recommendation on how much vitamin D to take a day? Mine is insanely low. It's an 8.

 

[jwfoise]

Anyone else experience anything like this? It was pretty scary.

My wife has that problem all the time. She has Crohn's and has an ostomy and it is a constant struggle for her to keep properly hydrated. Being lethargic and erratic heart beats are prime signs that she is getting seriously dehydrated. She has had multiple ER and doctor's office visits for this, when she got bad enough to require an IV. Any sort of flare, or even a bad cold, can make it hard for her to stay hydrated.

She has to watch that she eats regularly, have foods that help her retain water (like starchy foods), and she drinks a steady supply of sports drinks (gatorade or anything similar). Even sleeping in too late and not getting breakfast can cause her mild problems.

I would suggest that you really need to watch your hydration levels and you may want to back off your elimination diet.