LIST OF DIGESTIVE AILMENTS (generally by descending order of commonality)

This is a list of digestive ailments I have learned from both my own experiences and decades of study that I have written for a family member and would like to share for anyone else interested or concerned about their own health. 

1. Low Magnesium: Emotional irritability, nervousness, sleeplessness, and constipation. Effervescent Mg is the most useful and should be taken at bedtime due to its instant relaxing effect. Excess will cause the bowels to relax so much as to cause diarrhea. (There's a reason Milk of Magnesia is used for constipation.) Nearly everyone on the planet has a Mg deficiency, especially Americans, due to processed foods, sugar, and phytoestrogens (such as those in soy and in the glues used in carpeting and home furnishings) causing the body to need excess magnesium while people are ingesting less.
   
   
2. Low Probiotics (gut flora): indigestion, stomach pain, diarrhea, constipation, gas, nausea, lactose intolerance, food sensitivities (which may cause rashes), yeast infections, urinary tract infections, or fungal infections (athlete's foot). 
   
   
   People who often eat yogurt (not frozen) and never use antibiotics or birth control pills have this issue less often, but a single dose of antibiotics was enough to destroy all of my gut flora and make anything I ate come out a chewed up version of what went in—it came out VERY painfully, of course; I tend to use things like cayenne (or Sunrider veggie wash) now for safer bacteria-killing properties and try to take probiotics whenever I'm fighting off a germ since a healthy colon is necessary for a healthy immune system.

3. Lactose Intolerance: gas pain starting 20-60 minutes after eating dairy followed by explosive diarrhea for up to about 3 days (yogurt and other cultured dairy is often easier to digest than high-fat milk or ice cream). Avoidance and taking lactase supplements can help, although all supplements are not created equal in this field. Many digestive enzyme supplements contain lactase. Even B-12 "shots" (the drinks) contain lactase easier to assimilate than typical Lactaid tablets.
   
   
4. Low Digestive Enzymes: Pain and constipation after eating meat is one of the easiest signs to see a lack of enzymes, although the American diet and use of antibiotics and other drugs (such as antacids) makes this a common problem. Ironically, heartburn is usually caused by too little digestive enzymes in the stomach—not too much—because it makes the body just throw more of what it DOES have at the problem. If I need yeast for bread, throwing more and more sugar at it will not make it rise, for example, and the stomach tends to throw its most useful acid (HCl) at anything that it cannot otherwise digest. Digestive enzymes are sold at heath food stores (and, in a pinch, in B-12 shot drinks sold in grocery stores).
   
   

5. Celiac Disease: Wheat (and anything with gluten similar to wheat) causes constipation and gas pain followed by light-colored stools that often float, and there is a sense of hunger despite all of this going on (because the nutrients are not absorbed). These sufferers are often very thin, pasty pale, and malnourished—children can die from this problem. The cilia (hairs inside the intestines) are damaged with every bite of gluten and the digestive system becomes worse and worse over time. 
   
   
   There is no cure, only abstinence from gluten. Gluten-free grains (corn, rice, buckwheat, quinoa, etc.) are digested fine, assuming the digestive system is not too permanently damaged. A biopsy of the intestines can check
   for certain whether a patient has Celiac, but the symptoms specifically after glutenous grain products can become fairly obvious.
   
   

6. Food Intolerances: Specific food sensitivities that do not cause hives, rashes, or shock, and symptoms cannot be helped with antihistamine; they are very specific to a food (or foods) and are usually a sign of enzyme deficiency, systemic illness causing liver toxicity, a low immune system, or other serious illness. 
   
   
   They can also, however, be psychosomatic. (Perhaps your mother died eating pizza and your stomach cannot process it due to the nervousness such thoughts cause you, for example.) Avoiding these foods, dealing with an underlying illness, ruling out more encompassing issues or allergies, and even psychotherapy can help.
   
   

7. Food Allergy: specific foods, often even in very minute qualities, cause hives, throat or tongue swelling, rashes, or can even stop your heart and kill you and are stopped by antihistamine or, in the severe cases, epinephrine. 
   
   
   These are often caused by the body taking in a food when it could not handle it, such as before age 4, and thus seeing it as so toxic that any method to get or keep it out of the body seems preferable to digesting it. This has led to peanuts, a food notorious for being one that should be introduced to children who are at least age 4 due to its extremely high mold content, being introduced to PB&J sandwiches about as soon as they can eat white bread.
   
   
   The prevalence of so many foods and chemicals put in EVERYTHING and weaker children growing up to procreate thanks to modern medicine have made food allergies increasingly common. They can also change over time as our cells replace themselves and our bodies change. 
   
   
   Allergists use abstaining from the culprits, antihistamine medications, emergency epi-pens (easy hypodermics), and slowly building up tolerance to combat food allergies.
   
   
8. Irritable Bowel Syndrome: This is somewhat named for how it confuses doctors. The things that bring on the alternating constipation, gas pains, and explosive diarrhea can be somewhat different from person to person, but the common threads are stress, stimulants, sugar, chemicals, hormones, and anything that can be hard to digest (such as grains, dairy, and high-fiber foods). 
   
   
   Raw carrots can upset mine, for instance, if I eat more than a few, even though I tolerate most raw vegetables without trouble and used to be able to eat several servings of carrots at once. Cooked ones do not cause the trouble, but corn does. Mostly, though it's that initial list and all grains—the heavier the grain the harder to digest. Sprouted wheat bread does not cause the pain of whole wheat, though, likely because the seed husk has already been partially digested by the sprouting process. All grains do cause me some grief, however.
   
   
   Avoiding the foods, taking prescription medications, taking gas pills for gas, magnesium for constipation, and diarrhea medication for that symptom does help. Fiber supplements can cause more trouble than they help. 
   
   
   Realize that a recent study found soy infant formula to have as much estrogen as 4-5 birth control pills per serving, so even the soy protein in a frozen dinner can change hormone levels enough to bring on IBS in some people—especially when accompanied by all of those preservatives and a diet cola.
   
   
9. Crohn's Disease: Most common in older women (although a friend of mine was diagnosed before 25), this is a wasting away of the intestinal tract, requires medications and requires surgery to remove the parts that stop working, brings on serious malnutrition without supplementation, usually makes the patients quite thin, and requires an extremely low-fiber diet.
   
   
10. Colon Cancer: More common in men, this loss of control over the bowels and tendency towards liver problems causing yellowing of the skin is likely due to their poor low-fiber diets; this is brought on by family history, high stress levels over time, and high-chemical, low-nutrient, low-fiber processed foods. 
    
    
    A diet high in raw produce (except celery, which is carcinogenic) that is not cooked in Teflon, aluminum, or over flames, a good anti-oxidant supplement, a checkup by age 40 with a family history (or 50 otherwise) and a low-stress, low-sun lifestyle are the best defense. If caught early, surgery can usually remove 100% of the cancer growth.

The best overall plan is to start with magnesium, digestive enzymes, and probiotics (although these can take a little getting used to and should be started with the smallest dose, and also bought in a refrigerated section of a health food store so the flora are actually alive). 

Make sure you stay hydrated, preferably with spring water in ounces totaling half your body weight per day. (This equals eight 8 oz glasses for someone who is 128 lbs but obviously that would be doubled for someone weighing 256 lbs.) Avoid having any food to excess. Try avoiding a questionable food, such as dairy or glutenous grains, for at least a few days (preferably longer) to see if it is a culprit food. 

Getting a test for colon cancer is probably something we should all do. They say the age 50 rule, 40 with a family history, or 10 years before your family member's diagnosis, whichever is sooner. Every 10 years after that if no family history, and ever 5 with family history. I believe Mother's father died of lung cancer, unless I'm mistaken, so we've kind of got a double whammy. (He was quite the smoker, however.)

Keeping a food journal of meals and symptoms can be helpful to show patterns, too. Make sure to include any strong emotions in your data.

Realize that a food we love and crave could be what's literally killing us, so try not to assume cravings are always a good thing. Often our body is responding to an overdose of a food over several years. Diabetics crave the sugar whose excess brought on the Diabetes, for example. There is a fine line between craving and addiction. (People can also crave ice cream when really what their body needs is calcium, not sugar, fat, chemicals, and a little calcium thrown in for good measure.)