Traveling & Stress...the norm!
#293641 - 12/14/06 08:28 AM
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Aly
Reged: 08/16/04
Posts: 669
Loc: Columbus, Ohio
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Hi everyone! It's been awhile since I've posted, as I was doing wonderfully and felt quite stable for a good few months. Well, stress has hit and IBS is not enjoying it. I finished my first term of grad school (yay!) but I have 2 large essays looming...both are due at the beginning of January. In the meantime, my fiance and I are going on a 12 day tour of Europe. As excited as I am, reading things like "there will be no bathroom on your bus, but it makes comfort stops every 3 hours" does not help.
My belly has been jumpy, crampy, with nausea (not like me at all!). I'm doing hypno again (which is so soothing for me)...but I'm nervous about EUropean food. Living here in England is fine, as I know the language and make my own meals... We are going to be in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy & Switzerland...any suggestions? I'm assuming lots of fresh fish around, and grilled chicken, but what about quick stuff?
Of course I'm bringing oatmeal for the mornings, my acacia twice a day, granola bars, pumpkin apple bread, and some rice milk. I have all of my meds ready, but I am having some anxiety about this trip. I know I'll be OK, I really do, so that's reassuring, I just feel like I want to be on the trip already, you know?? Stop worrying, just do it- that's how I feel.
And stress..well a 20 page essay and a 10 page essay are not complete. I wanted to finish them before we leave on Saturday, but I am only half done with one and 1/4 done on the other...I've been lazy!
Anyway, hope all is well--thanks for listening to my rant and feel free to give any suggestions- especially if you've been over to those countries!
Congrats on everyone's adorable babies!:)
Have a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year...full of happy belly days!
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IBS-A
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I travelled around Europe and didn't have much problems finding IBS-safe foods. I found that you could always find a safe tuna sandwich, so that's a good back-up option if you're starving and wandering the streets. There's tons of bakeries and fresh sandwich places that usually will make you something specific, so you can always ask for safe ingredients. In Italy, I ate a lot of pasta that had just tomato sauce, and some with seafood in it too. They always had options without ground beef or meatballs so not to worry.
It might be helpful if you can find the translation for a few words in each language, things like chicken, tuna, fish, and bread, and write these down on paper. It would help if you are trying to order something and pointing isn't working too well.
From my experience, all those countries you listed seemed to have safer foods than London. And the dinners shouldn't be a worry, every place I went to had good seafood or chicken options without triggers.
When are you travelling? For the holidays?
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Kat
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Re: Italy
#293779 - 12/15/06 07:30 AM
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Ulrika
Reged: 08/20/06
Posts: 581
Loc: Uppsala, Sweden
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It's pretty easy to shop for food in Italy as I recall (though that was before I got IBS). If you can't cook yourself it should still be possible to find good food at restaurants. Just tell them to be careful with the oil. But Italian pizzas should be wonderful for IBS (if you ask them to do them without cheese of course which might make them raise an eyebrow at you, but you can just tell them you're allergic to avoid having to explain the details). Italian pizzas are NOTHING like regular pizzas. They are thin and crispy and pretty low fat. When eating other things than pizzas you might have to order things in a different way than they are used to. They tend to do crazy things like eating a whole bowl of pasta first, then comes the meat and then the dessert. When I had lunch in Rome with a tourist group we got lasagne first, then meat with some cooked vegetables and 3 tiny fried potato balls (maybe twice as much meat as other stuff) and then dessert. You will probably want the pasta WITH the rest of the food. 
/Ulrika, IBS-D
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Re: Seafood
#293780 - 12/15/06 07:35 AM
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Ulrika
Reged: 08/20/06
Posts: 581
Loc: Uppsala, Sweden
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I'm not sure about the seafood part. I had seafood in Italy and got really sick though we had it at a really fancy restaurant. I guess it depends a lot on how sensitive you are to infections. When I say seafood I don't mean fish, but the other types of seafood. Afterwards I did notice that a lot of guidebooks suggest you skip that kind of seafood to be on the safe side.
I agree though, it's a good idea to write down and learn some key words in the different languages. In Italy they aren't always that good at English...
/Ulrika, IBS-D
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Thanks!
#293800 - 12/15/06 09:17 AM
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Aly
Reged: 08/16/04
Posts: 669
Loc: Columbus, Ohio
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I'm all packed and ready to go!
I'm going because my fiance and I are studying in England for the year, and we had the opportunity to do this traveling. We'll be there over Christmas, which will be nice since we can't be with our families this year.
My attack plan is Italian pizza...seafood and the good old stable of grilled chicken!
Wish us luck!
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IBS-A
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Re: Italy
#293810 - 12/15/06 10:39 AM
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Toady
Reged: 04/06/06
Posts: 1299
Loc: A small city, Northwestern Ontario, Canada
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I concur with Ulrika. I lived in Italy when I was 16 for 3 months on exchange.
Italian is easy to pronounce - just sound out all the letters!
pizza with just sauce - pizza margarita
pizza without cheese - senza mozzerella per favore
pasta with just tomato sauce - pasta marinara
pasta with spicy tomato sauce - pasta arrabiatta
sandwich - un panino
with tomato - con tomate
with tuna - con tonna
grilled chicken - pollo arrosito
Watch the desserts!!! They contain a lot of heavy cream (crema) and are very hard on the tum!
If you have anymore questions about Italy, let me know!!
Cassandra
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Cassandra
Live like there's no tomorrow. Love like you've never loved before.
IBS A 20+ years, Chronic Migraines, Chiari Malformation (decompressed June 22, 2010), Brachial Neuritis, and ??? the list just keeps growing, but I'm still shiny side up!
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