new to board - questions

[ukbill]

Mushrooms are a staple food for me..

I like to add dried wild mushrooms to stews and rice.. you cannot really taste them but somehow meals with them in just taste better and have more body if you can understand what I'm saying.. its like Bay leaves they do the same thing in a meat stew.

I prefer the brown skinned mushrooms they are firmer and musk tastier than the white marshmallow type ones

[gretchen]

Hi UKBill! I really enjoy your posts - thanks for all the great info.

I love brown mushrooms too, but from the info I have found I think they have a little bit of fructose. White mushrooms have less but still have some. Whereas I think that mushrooms like nutsake, chantrelles and morels have essentially zero.

Of course they're way more expensive too, sigh. But our health is priceless, right? Cheers, Gretchen

[tikitavi]

Here's some numbers from the Fineli database:

Shiitake
www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=11734&lang=en
sucrose 0 g
fructose 0 g

Chanterelle
www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=30478&lang=en
sucrose 0 g
fructose 0 g

Wild Mushroom, Boletus, russula
www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=3240&lang=en
sucrose 0.8 g
fructose 0.1 g

Oyster Mushroom
www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=11735&lang=en
sucrose 0 g
fructose 0 g

Champignon
www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=3334&lang=en
sucrose 0 g
fructose <0.1 g

It does seem that the wild mushrooms have more sucrose and slightly more fructose.

[ukbill]

Unfortunately the HFi diet is expensive..

Meat, Fish, Cheese etc etc.. no opportunity for a cheap snack (like a Mars Bar or Snickers)

However on the plus side.. we get great home cooked meals with far less additives and preservatives not to mention far less risk of tooth decay and Diabetes

Everything in life has a cost, however to me being HFI, is a benefit that I would not swap for all the chocolate in the world!

I am very sad that a lot of people find the diet difficult and for carers it is of course.. but for HFI people it should not be a problem, unless you have unfortunately been brought up on glucose and liking sweet tasting foods..

Then I would guess HFI life would be a real drag.. particularly if you are making yourself ill all the time eating contaminated Glucose.

[gretchen]

UKBill, thanks so much for posting that info about mushrooms. They're so yummy, and so many are free of fructose - yay! I wanted to get some chantrelles at the market this weekend, but they were $20 per pound so I ended up going with the nutsakes at $10 per pound. You're right - it is expensive to eat well, but it's totally worth it. Our health is priceless, right?

I did grow up liking sweet-tasting food, unlike most here. I think it's bc my reaction to fructose is severe low blood sugar, but it's delayed by one to several hours, so I didn't connect it with the sweets. I'm sure I would have if I had immediately thrown up! But when I'd get low blood sugar, instead I craved something sweet to get my blood sugar up asap. And thus began a vicious cycle. I know I feel worlds better off the sweets though, and I'm learning to dislike a sweet taste now that I understand what's going on.

I also think you're right about how important it is to keep your taste buds sharp and attuned to any sweet flavor in food. That way you can know to stop eating it after the first taste to minimize the damage.

[tikitavi]

I also think you're right about how important it is to keep your taste buds sharp and attuned to any sweet flavor in food. That way you can know to stop eating it after the first taste to minimize the damage.

I agree, that really seems to be very helpful as a defense mechanism!

[gretchen]

Hi All, I just wanted to give you an update. After a month or two of eating very low fructose, I experimented this week with trying some fruit. I was really nervous, and worried that I would get a low blood sugar reaction. But my blood sugar was totally fine!

I did get horrible gas and bloating and was miserable that way though. So I think it's pretty clear that I have fructose malabsorption, not HFI.

This is probably why I can eat brown rice and oatmeal and lots of steamed greens and feel great, whereas that would be too much fructose for someone with HFI.

Thank you all so much for your feedback and support. This is such a nice community of folks, and I have learned a lot. For example, I have a student at school who doesn't like sweets, and of course all the kids bring candy and cookies to our club meetings. So I've started bringing fresh bagels for him, and it's nice to know that I can feed him something that won't make him sick, just in case he has HFI intolerance too. I've told him about this condition, and hopefully planted a seed if he wants to pursue a diagnosis at some point.

[ukbill]

Well at least you now have as near an accurate diagnosis as you need for a happy healthy life.

Only one or two words of caution.

With HFI we all seem to have differing levels of "tolerance" and it can vary depending on how much Fructose we have eaten in the last hour, day, week or so.

It just might be that you have a higher level of "tolerance" to Fructose than is "normal"if there is such a thing for HFI or that your response is delayed for example.

I am not wanting to throw a spanner in the works but it might be worth keeping in mind if problems reoccur?

Charlie is running a really good site for FM so I know you will find much help and advice whatever the outcome

Take care and enjoy life!

[gretchen]

Thanks UKBill, I will. I know that I do seem to feel much better on a low fructose diet, so I probably have less tolerance than most people even if I don't have hfi. I'm so much more aware of sugar now. I've spent the weekend reading over my journals from the past couple years (I keep track of what I eat and my health to be able to figure out what works for me.) When I was eating lots of fruit I started having severe blood sugar crashes in reaction to it, so I'm wondering if even people without hfi can react this way if they eat way past their body's capacity to process fructose.

[ukbill]

mmm blood sugar crashes are a sure sign of HFI unless I'm mistaken.

Try self diagnosis its easy.. if you can got hold of a blood Glucose monitor for a few days.

First do not eat for 12 hours before the test.

Then take blood sugar reading.. it should be around 5 (UK Blood monitor)

Eat something containing sucrose (and nothing else!) two sugar cubes should do it but in your case maybe 3 or 4 or more depending on your tolerance.

Keep testing blood sugar level for 3 hours every 20 or 30 min.

Record results.

Second day of testing (might be a week later not important if its next day.)

Repeat but Replace Sucrose sugar with Fructose.

Mix it in to a glass of water and drink if you are not able to munch 3 or 4 teaspoons full of the stuff.

Repeat same blood sugar monitoring. one before test and then every 20 or 30 min for 3 hours and record the result.

If you are HFI then with Sucrose your blood sugar should rise for the first 20 min or longer and then crash.

With Fructose your blood sugar should stay static for 20 min or more then crash.

Anything different to this would indicate perhaps you do not have "Classic" HFI but it is possible that there are versions as yet undiscovered.

Charlie can tell us what the results would be for FM but I would imagine that for sucrose the blood sugar would go up and not crash.

For Fructose it will go up but not much and might drop back to original starvation level (5) quite quickly.

For FM I do not know of a reason that your blood sugar should drop below the "normal" 12 hour starvation level.

Usual disclaimer applies.. it your body, your life.. if you choose to test yourself and it causes you discomfort or damage of any sort.. don't send Lawyers after me..

I'm skint anyway

Take care

[gretchen]

Hi again,

Thanks for those details, UKBill. I have a friend with a glucose monitor, and I know I really should do this. It would be so good to have that info. Otherwise I don't even know if what I'm experiencing is actual low blood sugar or if it just feels like it.

I'll definitely post with results when/if I test. I'm trying to motivate and get over my aversion to needles and such!

Cheers, Gretchen

[ukbill]

I used a "clicker" that shot a tiny pin into my finger.. yes after a time I was flinching before the click so I did not end up with a proper hole that would allow blood to flow..

Had very sore thumb and fingers after a week of testing..

I was just testing normal 24 hour sugar levels and because I was reasonably controlled at the time I had no "episodes" that indicated HFI.

I had already a diagnosis I think although its so long ago I cannot remember if it was before or after.

It works better if you have a psychopath for a partner.. then get them to do the clicking.. my ex got quite a kick out of it!

I think it was the time we were trying to find out why my blood was so good at clotting.

A lot too good as it turned out. I managed to put my bare skinned foot through a plate glass door! The glass went straight through my foot and deep into the joint and cut an main blood vessel.

To start with I had blood spurting each time my heart beat.. 2' or 3'

By the time I got to the hospital 30 min later my foot was simply "oozing" that was not supposed to happen.

4 hours later a large Petri dish full of glass fragments a lot of bandages, butterfly stitches and 4 real stitches later. I was on my way home.. Worried as to why the cut had sealed by itself so quickly.

[charlie]

Hi Gretchen,
if you are testing your own blood it is important to use a good quality machine to be more accurate.

Take a base reading first on a normal day when you are feeling good as this gives an indication of your norm

An important point is make sure you have washed and rinsed your hands well before pricking as any sugar lingering on them will give a false reading. Also the warmer your hands the better the blood will ooze.

I'm not convinced this is a good test to use to decide about whether it is HFI or FM though, there really is liitle known about FM other than it gives gas and bloating, I have posted before and on the FM site about the possiblity of hypoglycemia too for the simple reason that the fructose uses the glucose to pull it through the bowel wall, therefore does that use up all spare glucose which would lead to a drop in blood sugar too. I haven't been able to work out yet if the glucose is then released afterwards to be used for energy or has been used up.

So not sure how effective this test would be for that. However if you need to know if you are getting low blood sugar and that is why you feel like you do sometimes then that may be more useful. Just do a test when you feel OK for an average reading then when you feel shaky, nauseous or clammy the chances are its hypoglycemia, if the reading is below 3.5mmol then it is positive. Most machines instantly tell you if it is low, ok or high. At least that way you know why you feel how you do and can eat accordingly.

Hope this helps and yes do pop over to fructosemalabsorb if you want to, we could do with a few more ideas there too.