Thank goodness for fruit smoothies! Jalan Aru Beach, Sabah
I’ve been having problems with my stomach since I came to Malaysia. Actually, it started before I even had left Australia. I thought maybe it was something I ate or the way I was eating that was messing up my lap-band. I thought I’d irritated it because I ate too fast and got an air bubble my last day or two in Australia. Most meals I’ve tried to eat since I’ve been here in Kota Kinabalu haven’t been going down or staying down. Yesterday was the worst and I finally ended up in bed for most of the day with stomach cramps.
Finally, I figured out what I think must be the problem. A couple days before leaving Australia, I took an anti-malaria tablet. It’s probably been over a year since I’ve taken one, and I forgot how much my stomach hated them! I had remembered that it made me feel a bit sick to my stomach, so when I took it, I made the effort to take it with some food and a lot of water, which is hard to do with my lap-band. What I didn’t recall was that I’d had problems for days after each pill when I’d first started taking the mefloquine, which is taken weekly.
I think that after a couple of weeks, this subsided. I hope this is true. Because yesterday, as I lay in bed with my stomach cramping, having failed to keep down even one egg and a cup of tea, I thought that perhaps risking malaria wouldn’t be such a bad option.
Malaria Warning Sign seen while Whitewater Rafting at Padas River in Central Sabah
Nonetheless, malaria is apparently in some areas of Borneo, particularly in the center of the country, and since I’ll be traveling throughout the island this month, I am going to try to take another pill tomorrow. I hope I won’t have another week of this suckiness to deal with. I don’t think a bit of queasiness would be too much of an issue, but the problem is that with my lap-band, when I get an air bubble and don’t keep some food down, my stomach gets quite irritated, making it extremely likely that it’ll happen again. And again. It can snowball all the way into gastritis if I’m not careful. If I go for too long without eating, however, my energy levels drop pretty dramatically. And I end up having major issues staying hydrated, particularly in a hot place, like this! Given that I want to do things like hike Mount Kinabalu and go whitewater rafting, it’s really important that I keep my hydration and my energy levels up. Regardless, I need to get this under control before my divemaster course starts in a couple of weeks. So I’ll give it another go and see if the pill is actually causing the issues, and whether it wanes as the week progresses again, or whether I’ve simply been inattentive during meals, eating the wrong things, getting air bubbles, and irritating my stomach.
Afternoon scene at Jalan Aru Beach near Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo
Sadly, the limited options here aren’t super helpful. Since I can’t really eat rice or noodles, Malaysia (anywhere in Asia, really) isn’t the best culinary option for anyone with a lap-band. I’ll have to start keeping more fruit around, or find more places that have satay chicken (or any meat-on-a-stick). Surely there are more things to eat in this country than just noodles and rice! There just have to be! The satay chicken I found at the beach the other day was nice – going down, that is! Twenty minutes later, when most of it came up, I wasn’t such a fan….