update on Zometa/reclast and digestion

Well lemme tellya, when I wrote the last post I had no idea. The reclast was the worst of all. I was exhausted for 2 months, at which point I became convinced that I was dehydrated* and started super hydrating, which made a BIG difference. DIdn't fix it copletely, though. I still have to be careful, which I don't like.

I remember Lynn talking about having to be careful to ration out her energy while she was on chemo, and worrying that if I were ever in a similar situation..... I would have a really hard time with it; I just don't have the planning skills! That was, oh, some months before my own diagnosis.... but luckily for me chemo was not like that for me, and I didn't have to learn to ration out my energy. (Whew!) However, NOW I'm having to work on that.

* About the dehydrated thing.... Christina, my acupucturist, wondered if I was dehydrated. She hears my symptoms every week when I see her (well twice a week now) so her ideas come from hearing about my symptoms. Still, I dismissed it because I haven't been thirsty. However, I realized I'm usually very careful to hydrate.... in the summer, when I'm biking in hot sweaty weather. I don't worry about it so much in the winter. And I always think of hydrating as a companion thing to exercise.... though I DID hydrate extra when I was on chemo, and also the day I got the reclast. It didn't occur to me that I might need to hydrate extra for MONTHS!

But after CHristina wondered about dehydration, I saw online that it could be a side effect of reclast, and that the symptoms I was having were listed as side effects of both reclast AND of dehydration.... Then I went to the dentist and I had my first CAVITY in over 30 years.... I was instantly suspicious. I said to the dentist, WAITAMINIT, how could this be caused by that nasty drug? And he asked if I had had a dry cottony mouth.... which in fact I have had, but not thought anything of. He explained that bacteria don't cause cavities directly by eating holes in your teeth.... they produce acid, which eats holes in your teeth -- except that saliva neutralizes it -- or washes it away, or something. But if you don't have enough SALIVA.... Is that interesting or WHAT???

Well that convinced me that I was dehydrated. I went home and watered myself like I was a newly planted shrub. The pain in my leg went away.... I neglected to mention that at the beginning of this post, but I had a pain in my left leg just at the base of my hamstring, which started around the same time as the exhaustion, about a week after the reclast. It wasn't that painful, but it was more or less constant, and I wondered what it WAS. It made my leg feel heavy, and I wondered if I should be careful of it somehow..... I was also getting leg cramps during the night, for the first time since pregnancy. Very strange! These symptoms have disappeared since I started hydrating.... That was on 3/14, 4 weeks ago tomorrow -- so that's pretty real.

The other interesting news is about the digestion. I tried eliminating wheat, and the result has been pretty dramatic.... so I've cut it out. Now I'm eating no meat, sugar/honey/maple syrup, only limited dairy (feta, yogurt, & aged cheese -- but nothing else,)and very limited soy and alcohol..... Good thing I'm not actually a picky eater :-D

So -- I have to be careful not to over-exercise, and of course I'm not real clear about what that means, so that's an interesting dance. I've stopped biking to acupuncture, because C says that I use up her treatment on my ride home..... My digestion is touchy even though the drug didn't go through my gut -- but much better w/o wheat.