How @DelTaco and Chinese Take Out Helped Me Recover from Spinal Cord injury - Pt 1

When people talk about healthy eating, they usually don't mean fast food.  However, the fast food chain, Del Taco, and a local Chinese take out place called Wa Wa Restaurant both played a role in my recovery from spinal cord injury.

When the spinal cord is damaged, it is not just the legs and arms that are affected. Several body functions also break down, such as temperature regulation, memory, and bowel and bladder functions (and many more areas).

First Del Taco - the 1/2 pound bean and cheese burrito from Del Taco helped me with my bowel recovery.

After being discharged from the hospital, I returned once a week to the hospital for physical and occupational therapy.  On the way home, we would order a Fiesta Pack at a local Del taco. A Fiesta Pack consists of 6 regular beef tacos and 6 1/2 pound bean and cheese burritos

To backtrack a bit, in the first five months of my recovery from spinal cord injury, I had to do a bowel program called digital stimulation - this entailed someone other than me (until I regained enough mobility to do this myself), to pull out stool manually.  Sometimes, if all the stool hadn't been removed, I'd have an accident some hours later, but I wouldn't know until the stool was already coming out.

The first time I ate the bean burrito (and a taco), within the hour, I had a feeling of having to go to the bathroom.  What came out was  a normal shaped stool, and came out naturally, on its own, without straining or without manual assistance.

The following week and the week after, the same thing, although not always within the hour, sometimes later that evening, or the next day.  Usually, there was enough leftovers for me to have a second serving, so many times, I'd end up having two or three natural evacuations (in the morning, I'd still have to be checked to see if any stool was left to come out). But, having a natural evacuation in the morning was extra special because I wouldn't have to go through digital stimulation.

I'm sure it was the fiber content from the beans that was the catalyst.  It made me realize the importance of adding fiber to my diet. Under the bowel program, the stool was being removed manually, but the burritos help me achieve a natural evacuation, and I think it made my muscles stronger since they had to push out the stool, and also re-trained my nerve-muscle communication to let me know when stool was ready to come out.

This may seem like TMI, but spinal cord injury affects several areas of the body, and all need to be addressed.    I'm convinced that having these natural evacuations before I fully regained this function helped me recover faster.  The bean burrito from Del Taco was the start of this realization between fiber and bowel recovery, and for that, Del taco has a soft spot in my heart (and I also really like the taste of their bean burritos (ask for green chili)).

Pt 2 will cover how Wa Wa Restaurant helped me recover in areas other than digestion.

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Slow Digestion and bowel movements.

Before I got sick, I had very regular, very smooth bowel movements.  Although my bowel function has come back, and its relatively normal, there are differences - and I don't know whether they will return back to normal - as much as I hope they will.

The following may be uncomfortable (disgusting) to read, but, it is a topic I had lots of trouble trying to find out about when it wasn't working.   The subject matter is one that causes sufferers from speaking out, but I would like to share my experiences with anyone who is trying to figure out when bowel functions might come back, or if they will come back.

Here goes: If the topic makes you squemish, then stop reading.

I am lucky in this area.  My bowel movements have returned alomost to a point of normalcy for me, but I believe it would be considered normal for others.

In the beginning, someone else had to digitally stimulate me because I couldn't reach down and do it myself.  This went on for about 5 months after the spinal cord injury.  A theripist said I will get to the point where I can digitally stim myself, but I didn't have to reach that point.  By the time my abdomen got flexible enough so I could reach down,  my bowel movements came naturally. 

However, the timing and "holding" it in became a problem.  I would not evacuate every day, and when I did, it would be a rush, and the stools were elephant sized.  I suppose I could have taken laxatives and suppositories, but I wanted for my body to evacaute without any aids, except for fiber.  During this recovery process, I have taken in more fiber in the forms of oatmeal and beans.  My fruit and vegetable consumption has also increased.

This went on for about 10 months, and now I evacuate about 5 - 6 days out of the week, and usually in the morning, like before I got sick.  The difference now is that many times I do strain (more than I should), but I am careful not to strain too much, and will give up and go at a later time.   I can hold it in better than before, but sometimes I do feel like the stool will come out on its own when I am not ready for it to.  It's as if my muscles still haven't the strength to push out the stool efficiently.  The size and of the stool has become rabbit-pellet like, and instead of one or two large pieces, about a dozen of these pellet sized stool comes out.  And this is with the contiuation of my increased diet take.

I hope this function will return to my regular habit before I got sick, but in the meantime, I am at a point where I can live with this function as it works right now. 

I feel I am lucky because my bowel movements are natural, and now that a year has passed, regularity seems to be coming back very slowly, but surely.