I don’t update Firefox unless it’s a major release in the hopes of the bugs having been worked out. But either there’s new options in Firefox 3 that I need to learn to configure properly, or it’s buggy as far as saving sessions and cookies.

Sometimes it will open with an older session, and occasionally there’ll be no menu bars, just the tabs area. I can’t figure out a way to pull up any menu bars without the main menu (File, Edit, View, ect…), so I have to close and restart. Other times it will start with an older session, but at least my menus are loaded. My husband’s noticed his sessions load sporadically too.

And either Firefox 3, and/or Enhanced Cookie Manager are no longer saving my protected cookies like I’ve grown used to over the last few releases. I’m having to sign in to regular sites every time I load Firefox. Enhanced Cookie Manager was supposedly compatible with Firefox 3, so maybe some new security/privacy enhancements have been put into FF3 or ECM that need tweaking, but I’m not ruling out FF3 being buggy because it’s human nature to blame the new release when someone’s miffed at it 8^P

Under Options | Privacy | Cookies, I’m configured to accept cookies, and to delete them after they expire. Under Options | Privacy | Private Data, I’m configured to Always ask me before clearing private data. The Cookie Manager doesn’t appear to have changed with the release of FF3.

I just want FF3 to stop eating my cookies and sessions.

I still had occasional gut episodes after eliminating gluten from my diet; I studied hidden gluten from many informative websites and read labels closely to make sure I didn’t eat hidden gluten by mistake. Since I had already ruled out the biggest diseases: colon cancer (colonoscopy), ovarian and uterine cancer (pelvic ultrasound), diverticulitis (CT scan), cervical cancer (pap smear), Celiac (bloodwork), and bladder infection (urinalysis w/ culture). I never saw signs of bleeding (fresh blood, tarry stools, or coffee-ground stools), so it probably isn’t ulcerative colitis. I decided it was time to do more research.

I found HelpForIBS.com’s fiber page very helpful in teaching IBS sufferers how to always eat soluble fibers on an empty stomach, then IBS sufferers could eat insoluble fiber, but it’s better to finely dice or puree the insoluble fiber food. The linked page gives a list of soluble fiber foods that IBS sufferers can eat. The site also has a IBS cheat sheet in PDF free to download that prints up very lovely, and it’s great to hang on the fridge, or give to family members doing the shopping.

There’s also a page that teaches other IBS trigger foods. I’ve been able to tolerate many of the other triggers, except I’m not sure about plain milk — I can tolerate cheeses though. One of my most painful attacks came after eating rice krispies with milk, so I’m not very anxious to experiment with plain milk any time soon. And I usually don’t eat too much fat in one meal, since not having a gallbladder makes it difficult for me to tolerate too much fat.

I found HelpForIBS.com a few weeks ago, and have only suffered one gut episode while following their diet. It happened after eating red beans and rice with sausage, and brocolli and cauliflower mix with butter and lemon-pepper. I thought I’d be covered by the rice, but maybe there was too much insoluble fibers with the beans, brocolli and cauliflower (plus I ate the veggies whole instead of diced or pureed). And the sausage could have had too much fat also. But the episode that followed that meal was not as bad as prior episodes. But it taught me that maybe I shouldn’t eat three insolubles in one meal, or at least to dice or puree cruciferous vegetables. I’m also wondering if I had made the beans from scratch, rubbing the beans between my hands after soaking to remove the skins might have helped too, we’ll see later on. I’m thinking this also explains the two episodes after eating peas; I’ll probably try experimenting with rubbing the skins off of dried peas later on.

I have experimented with small amounts of finely ground wheat products, and did not suffer any attacks afterwards. It’s my guess that the reason for my past attacks after eating bread was because I used to eat whole grain bread (whole grains have insoluble fiber as well as soluble, whereas regular commercial breads usually just have finely ground wheat (which is mostly soluble fiber). It’s easy to mistakenly think gluten was the culprit.

I’m going to try the IBS diet for a few months before deciding it’s probably what I have, and bringing it up with my GP. But if I do bring it up with the GP, I’ll bring a copy of the cheat sheet with me.

It stormed a little bit two days ago, but it wasn’t too awful where I live, but I heard other parts of town lost power. But I was very grateful for the rain, plus it really cooled things down, which was great. Yesterday it got up to 94F before more storms came through, but this time they hit me harder — no flooding thank goodness, but we lost power with a big lightning blast.

I kept waiting for the power to come back on like it usually does, but after the storm passed, we figured it wouldn’t come back until the Centerpoint guys fixed it. I was hungry and didn’t want to cook in the dark since I guessed the outtage probably wouldn’t be long term, so I went to buy dinner for the first time in months.

First I looked around to see who had lights, and the across-the-street neighbors had theirs (not the first time we’ve lost power, but they kept theirs), and the same side of the street on the next block had theirs too, but not the ones on my side of the street. My immediate neighbors weren’t home from work yet, so I drove around to my caddy-corner backyard neighbors, and their power was out and they’d already called it in. So off to find food.

I passed Wendy’s, Whataburger, and Taco Bell without a second thought; I wasn’t about to chance another gut episode with cheaper foods. I saw the Wings place, thought that would be ok as long as I got potatoes for the soluble fiber, and pulled in; their power was out too, sigh.

I remembered Quiznos was down the street, but far enough away that it might be on a different transformer grid, and headed there. They were open, and I got Sammies because most of their breads have whole grains. I tried calling hubby to see which chips he wanted, but the cellphone service in that area must have been down.

Power was still out when I got home, so we ate by the hurricane lamp. After eating, I went to the local store for ice to put in the freezer and fridge, and got the last two bags. I didn’t worry about it much at first because both were pretty full, and would hold onto the cold temperatures better with so much bulk, but after a few hours, I knew I was risking things not getting ice. I had to rearrange (smush) things just to get the ice in the freezer.

He watched a DVD on the portable DVD player I bought for his birthday until the battery ran out; he got out the cheap DC backup doodad so he could finish watching the movie. He found the miniature battery-operated TV so I could watch the news at 9p in case anything about the outage was covered, but it didn’t make the news. I heated the coffee in the carafe on our gas stove after we got grumpy with each other.

The hurricane lamps were making the areas close by too hot, so I switched to candles, and a solar LED light he found dumpster diving. He went outside again to see if the Centerpoint crew was still working, and to cool off before bed.

The power came back on around 10p, and I cranked the AC down a few degrees so the house would cool off quicker, then turned it back up about 30 minutes later so the bill wouldn’t be too high from forgetting about it. Everything was still frozen solid in the freezer, and cold in the fridge. Today, hubby heard from his coworker that some areas near us in Pasadena were still without power this morning, so I guess things could have been worse.

No official diagnosis yet, but feeling almost better. The steroid pills made me feel tense and anxious for about two hours after taking them, so I didn’t get any sleep until last night finally. But with the sleep, steroids, and antibiotics, I feel almost chipper today! Enough to actually go into my teensy garden that I had such big plans for 8^(

Well my tomatoes are looking decent; one was wilted, but they’re all watered and slightly mulched again, as is the single row of corn I managed to get in. A few are showing tassels now; I’m excited because they’re my first corns.

The peppers are still in their seedling containers, and might not make it. I gave them a watering, and if they pull through, I finally got some planters to put them in.

Hubby never did till like I had begged him a few months back, so that’s why there’s so little planted in the ground. I tilled with the grub hoe with my own hands (and back). I dumpster-dove some containers that the tomatoes and peppers were going in, but it turns out they were paint containers that stuck together DOH!

So the few times I felt up to even going out to garden, I wasn’t able to start my planters until I was able to buy some proper ones. But I used some extra space in the rows I had tilled for the tomatoes at least, whew! I can’t put anything into the ground now because it will be blazing July/August temps by the time for plants to produce. I’ll have to wait until September to think about putting anything new into the ground.

I’m afraid to do much more right now; don’t want to over-do things and relapse. But if I’m still up to it later this evening when it cools off, and the peppers recovered, I’ll put them into the planters 8^)

Update on the gut episodes:

After approximately six weeks of no episodes, and eating gluten-free, I had an episode (left lower quadrant) bad enough to send me to the ER of a major hospital system in Houston because I feared intestinal blockage once I started sounding like a beer-swilling sailor. Long story short: Abdominal CT - negative.

GP follow-up: He asked me a lot of questions about the results of the colonoscopy and the CT at the ER, which I could only answer as no polyps or lesions from the colonoscopy, and a negative CT. The GP ordered Celiac bloodwork and CBC because of slight temperature. White count slightly elevated, so started on Cipro and Flagyl; and steroid injection because gut was still extremely inflamed and swollen. He also gave me a prescription for Darvocet 100mg for the pain, with refills thank goodness.

The next afternoon I started feeling better, and the day after that I felt much better, except the antibiotics were making me a little queasy, but I was able to eat roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots for dinner.

I was still getting queasy from the antibiotics the next day, and I still had phenergan 25mg pills the GI had ordered before the colonoscopy, so I took one. OMGosh! I can’t believe how high it made me, granted I’m a lightweight on drugs, but I was drunk and silly while making pesto with GF pasta, then slept 14 hours on that stuff.

I woke up the next day still feeling a bit dopey, and realized I was off my antibiotic schedule. I made sauteed onions with scrambled eggs and took the antibiotics. Later that day the gut pain returned. I took 1/2 Darvocet and a stool softener, and went on liquids. As the pain increased, I took more Darvocet until I had reached the maximum dosage.

The pain continued to increase to a 9 on a 0-10 pain scale, then the sailor-burping started, so hubby took me to a private ER my GP recommended. They did another CT, but this time the ER dr gave a very detailed report to both of us: No diverticulitis pockets! I thought the private ER Dr’s care was far superior to the big company’s ER Dr’s care. The nursing care at both places was pretty good, except for when my discharge blood pressure was elevated, I was given a klonidine and the private ER nurse set the machine to check my BP every 1-2 minutes until it came down. I finally snapped at her to let me be a few minutes before checking it, because it was bugging me so much. Later she sent in the tech, and it had come down.

Today’s follow-up had to be with my GP’s PA because he was booked up. She ordered a urinalysis and sent it for a culture too. She prescribed methylpred 4mg pack steroids after I asked if maybe that’s why I had the good 1.5 days after my last GP visit (I originally thought it was due to the antibiotics, which it still could be).

Right now I’m uncomfortable, with a pain rating of 3 on a 0-10 pain scale while on 2 Darvocet 100mgs. I’m eating soups without wheat or dairy, and fruit. If my pain level remains the same, I’ll drop down to 1 Darvocet. I haven’t been too queasy on the antibiotics today.

EDIT: My Celiac bloodwork was negative, but I hadn’t eaten gluten for at least six weeks when I was tested. I’m still undecided about whether or not I might have Celiac disease, but will continue eating gluten free until my gut episode is finally cleared up. It’s possible my episodes were not gluten related, but just coincidental timing. However, I also think it’s possible the gluten might have triggered something, so I’m not going to challenge myself with gluten until my gut episodes are resolved.

I’ve been extremely bloated for over a week; my gut episodes last between 24-36 hours, then start up again. My husband, who won’t do an elimination diet and loves packaged and junk food, has also had a few episodes this week.

The only new processed food we’ve recently added was Quaker Rice Cakes. I ate some as recently as this morning, but now I’m going to skip them a few days to see if that helps. I found a thread about Quaker Rice Cakes at Gluten Free Forum, and it seems many people there can’t tolerate Quaker Rice Cakes either.

I brought the scale in here so I could look it up online, but Health o meter no longer has our model on their site. I weighed myself a few more times in here, on hardwood floors, and got the same weight each time. Umm, we got all the weird readings when it was on the bathroom floor, with tiles, oops.

Now that it’s in here on the hardwood floor, it’s given the same reading many times in a row, about where I should be. But I did lose another pound, yay! And more yay that I’m not losing it too quickly like I thought.

I was using Google to combine the dry ingredients in a recipe so I could divide it in half, to save some for later. I got the total amount in milliliters, but when I tried dividing that in half, I somehow ended up with millimeters and centimeters.

I should be able to fit the saved batch fit into the freezer, since it’s a bit under 6 inches.

Since cutting back on sugar and high-glycemic foods (mostly), then wheat, I felt like I was losing weight. I asked my husband to buy a scale since we haven’t had one since the flood in 2001. He brought home a digital scale that required reading a book to figure out how to work it. At that time, I had lost six pounds, which was acceptable because it was still winter so I didn’t do my outside activities.

Now it’s a few months later, and it’s plenty warm to be outside doing gardening, foraging, and biking, but of course I’m going to start off slow (I do have my bum knee to consider). I’ve continued dropping a pound here and there, except I noticed I put on 2-4 pounds when I have gut episodes, but that’s probably due to inflammation, which retains fluids, and it goes away).

My husband’s noticed I’ve been losing, and he mentioned that he’s lost some weight recently too.

So now I’m noticing I’m losing even more weight, enough that I’m concerned about how quickly I’m losing it. Am I losing it because of malnutrition due to the self-diagnosed celiac? I try not to dwell on it, and fail by weighing myself yet again, only a few hours since my last weigh-in.

OMGosh! I’ve lost two more pounds in just a few short hours!

Reality slaps me upside the head like Jethro in NCIS; it’s probably the digital scale. I’ll get hubby to reweigh himself when he returns from work, and see if he’s lost even more weight since his last weigh-in.

Since I self-diagnosed myself as having a problem with gluten after doing an elimination diet, I’ve had only a few gut episodes. Most were from my thinking I could eat just a little wheat, until I read that once a gluten-sensitive person stopped wheat they most likely would suffer from hyper-sensitivity if they ate it again. Once I figured that out, I bought non-gluten flour, baking mix, and pasta from the health food store, and the episodes dropped almost completely.

But I did suffer from an episode about a month ago after eating frozen peas with butter. I checked the package, and it only had peas listed. I also looked up the manufacturer’s website, and it stated their vegetables were gluten-free. I figured that I might have made a condiment mistake the day before (there’s hidden gluten in lots of condiments).

I made split pea soup the other day, and had another gut episode all day yesterday. I finally fell asleep after it settled a little, but I woke up feeling like I was fighting off an infection in my throat. I had brain fog, and achy neck and shoulder muscles, but was only slightly warm. I made meatloaf I had put up a few months back, got my husband to peel potatoes, and steamed some frozen broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower mix, then took ibuprofen 800mg, and Tylenol. I feel better, but still puny.

But two times with the peas? That’s not a coincident any more. I did a little search for cross allergies between peas and gluten, but didn’t find anything. I won’t be making peas again though.