Liquid diet & tiredness

[rinnywee 11]

Hi all,

Relatively new here and enjoying reading about everyone's experiences. My surgery is on 5th February. I have Multiple Sclerosis.

I have been on a liquid diet for 6 days now (4 Protein Shakes a day, so around 800 calories total). The first 72 hours were, quite frankly, absolutely horrendous - I was headachy, very cranky and slept a lot (thankfully I was off work for a few days). Yesterday was my first day back at work and, boy, was it tough. I have a reminder on my phone to have Water every 30 minutes and kept up with that really well and, while I did get hungry, it was the tiredness that really hit me. I was literally nodding off in a meeting at one point.

My MS means I am generally fatigued all the time and so I have some little tips and tricks to help with that in general which might be useful for others. These have been hard to break through the fatigue and tiredness completely, but that may be due to my MS *and* the lack of nutrients and so may work for people without an auto-immune condition.

Some things I do:

Try to go for a walk every hour. Even if it's just a 5 minute stroll around the office, it gets me away from my desk. When I worked in retail and was on my feet all the time, I would take 5 minutes each hour to just sit. I would often go into the lavatory and sit in a stall. I live in the UK so was able to negotiate reasonable working changes to take my MS into account, and my managers were very supportive of me taking breaks. I realise this won't be the case for everyone, but if you can, I really recommend it.

Fresh air. If you can get outside for your walk, do it. Even a couple of minutes of fresh air will help awaken your body and will help energise you. Also get as much fresh air as you can outside of work. I find that I am far more tired if I spend all my time inside than if I step out for a bit. Even at home.

Do the easy tasks first. If you have a long task list - get the easy stuff out of the way. This will be an easy win and will give you a confidence and energy boost to tackle the more challenging items. We want to regulate and manage our energy and get the best pay off for minimal effort exerted.

Smell peppermint, eucalyptus, lemon, etc. I always carry a small vial of eucalyptus essential oil with me and when I find myself getting particularly sleepy at work, just have a quick smell and it awakens my senses. Plus it smells lovely! Any essential oil that wakes you up and is "vibrant" will work.

Talk. Tell your colleagues and manager that you're experiencing some fatigue at the moment and that it is affecting your energy levels at work. You'll be surprised how supportive people will be and how much people want to help.

I hope this helps. Sending you all lots of good, positive energy. 🙏

[ChunkCat 689]

Lovely suggestions!! I'm an autoimmune patient and I incorporate these every day. I'd also suggest for the fatigue and mental fuzziness due to the liquid diet, add ELECTROLYTES. You can buy all sorts of sugar free ones. Often during the liquid diet our body is trying to shift into fat burning mode/ketosis. This can feel very unpleasant and we go through carb withdrawal. We are also low in calories. So electrolyte supplements once a day help give us the things the low calorie, sugar free diet is lacking and it often eases the fatigue and headache some...

Good luck with your surgery!! ❤️ I have found mine has really helped my systemic inflammation and fatigue!

[summerseeker 1,860]

Great insights. May I also add that we don't realise how much sugar is in our diets pre surgery and our bodies are really used to using this as energy. Take this away and oh boy the body slump is real. The symptoms can be extreme like the withdrawal from alcohol. shakes, headaches, tiredness, skin irritation.

I was allowed coffee and tea, I would have been a mess with out it. I just toned down the strength of it post op so that it was a little kinder to my new stomach.

Doing the pre op diet can be as hard as pre op. Be kind to yourself

[Bariover54 18]

Thanks for the tips, I’m definitely going to try them.