The After-Dinner Activities You Don’t Want

A quick note first: our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies here, and we are not here to diagnose you or treat you; we are not doctors, let alone your doctors. Do see yours if you have any reason to believe there may be cause for concern.

Coughing and/or wheezing after eating is more common the younger or older someone is. Lest that seem contradictory: it’s a U-shaped bell-curve.

It can happen at any age and for any of a number of reasons, but there are patterns to the distribution:

Mostly affects younger people:

Allergies, asthma

Young people are less likely to have a body that’s fully adapted to all foods yet, and asthma can be triggered by certain foods (for example sulfites, a common preservative additive):

Adverse reactions to the sulphite additives

Foods/drinks that commonly contain sulfites include soft drinks, wines and beers, and dried fruit

As for the allergies side of things, you probably know the usual list of allergens to watch out for, e.g: dairy, fish, crustaceans, eggs, soy, wheat, nuts.

However, that’s far from an exhaustive list, so it’s good to see an allergist if you suspect it may be an allergic reaction.

Affects young and old people equally:

Again, there’s a dip in the middle where this doesn’t tend to affect younger adults so much, but for young and old people:

Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing)

For children, this can be a case of not having fully got used to eating yet if very small, and when growing, can be a case of “this body is constantly changing and that makes things difficult”.

For older people, this can can come from a variety of reasons, but common culprits include neurological disorders (including stroke and/or dementia), or a change in saliva quality and quantity—a side-effect of many medications:

Hyposalivation in Elderly Patients

(particularly useful in the article above is the table of drugs that are associated with this problem, and the various ways they may affect it)

Managing this may be different depending on what is causing your dysphagia (as it could be anything from antidepressants to cancer), so this is definitely one to see your doctor about. For some pointers, though:

NHS Inform | Dysphagia (swallowing problems)

Affects older people more:

Gastroesophagal reflux disease (GERD)

This is a kind of acid reflux, but chronic, and often with a slightly different set of symptoms.

GERD has no known cure once established, but its symptoms can be managed (or avoided in the first place) by:

• Healthy eating (Mediterranean diet is, as usual, great)
• Weight loss (if and only if obese)
• Avoiding trigger foods
• Eating smaller meals
• Practicing mindful eating
• Staying upright for 3–4 hours after eating

And of course, don’t smoke, and ideally don’t drink alcohol.

You can read more about this (and the different ways it can go from there), here:

NICE | Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease

Note: this above page refers to it as “GORD”, because of the British English spelling of “oesophagus” rather than “esophagus”. It’s the exact same organ and condition, just a different spelling.

Take care!

Lipedema occurs mostly in women, mostly in times of hormonal change, with increasing risk as time goes by (so for example, puberty yields a lower risk than pregnancy, which yields a lower risk than menopause).

Its name literally means “fat swelling”, and can easily be mistaken for obesity or, in its earlier stages, just pain old cellulite.

Cellulite, by the way, is completely harmless and is also not, per se, an indicator of bad health. But if you have it and don’t like it, you can reduce it:

Keep Cellulite At Bay

Obesity is more of a complex matter, and one that we’ve covered here:

Shedding Some Obesity Myths

Lipedema is actively harmful

Lipedema can become a big problem, because lifestyle change does not reduce lipedema fat, the fat is painful, can lead to obesity if one was not already obese, causes gait and joint abnormalities, causes fatigue, can lead to lymphedema (beyond the scope of today’s article—perhaps another time!) and very much psychosocial distress.

Like many conditions that mostly affect women, the science is… Well, here’s a recent example review that was conducted and published:

Lipedema: What we don’t know

Fun fact: in Romanian there is an expression “one eye is laughing; the other is crying”, and it seems appropriate here.

Spot the signs

Because it’s most readily mistaken for cellulite in first presentation, let’s look at the differences between them:

• Cellulite is characterized by dimpled, bumpy, or even skin; lipedema is the same but with swelling too.
• Cellulite is a connective tissue condition; lipedema is too (at least in part), but also involves the abnormal accumulation and deposition of fat cells, rather than just pulling some down a bit.
• Cellulite has no additional symptoms; lipedema soon also brings swollen limbs, joint pain, and/or skin that’s “spongy” and easily bruised.

What to do about it

First, get it checked out by a doctor.

If the doctor says it is just cellulite or obesity, ask them what difference(s) they are basing that on, and ask that they confirm in writing having dismissed your concerns (having this will be handy later if it turns out to be lipedema after all).

If it is lipedema, you will want to catch it early; there is no known cure, but advanced symptoms are a lot easier to keep at bay than they are to reverse once they’ve shown up.

Weight maintenance, skin care (including good hydration), and compression therapy have all been shown to help slow the progression.

If it is allowed to progress unhindered, that’s when a lot more fat accumulation and joint pain is likely to occur. Liposuction and surgery are options, but even they are only a temporary solution, and are obviously not fun things to have to go through.

Prevention is, as ever, much better than cure treatment ← _{^{because there is no known cure}}

One last thing

Lipedema’s main risk factor is genetic. The bad news is, there’s not much that can be done about that for now, but the good news is, you can at least get the heads-up about whether you are at increased risk or not, and be especially vigilant if you’re in the increased risk group. See also:

One Test, Many Warnings: The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing

Take care!