End of the water fast - Summary

I came off the water fast yesterday, earlier than I had wanted to but the symptoms I was experiencing made me feel too ill to continue.  On the Saturday evening I developed a pain in the roof of my mouth and my spinal injury began to hurt much more than normal.  Overnight I slept very little due to the pain in my back which made lying down comfortably, impossible.  Also the pain in my mouth got a lot worse and swallowing became very painful.  On the Sunday I felt very weak, probably due to lack of sleep but the pain in my mouth was terrible.  I was wary of taking painkillers as I wasn't eating and I know that it's unwise to take tablets on an empty stomach, so I soldiered on through the day. Sunday night I didn't sleep at all and felt so ill I would happily of shot myself if I'd had the chance.  I had to call in sick at work yesterday morning as I felt like a zombie due to lack of sleep and my mouth was still agony.

So I decided to go to the supermarket and stock up on fruit juice, fruit and veg and come off the fast onto healthy food.  With food in my stomach I could now take painkillers and this helped the pain in my back but didn't touch the pain in my mouth, which by now had spread to include the whole of the roof of my mouth, my upper jaw and the bit where my lower jaw hinges into my skull. I drank fruit juice and ate a meal of lightly boiled veg last night and kept up the painkillers every 4 hours and was able to get some sleep last night.  I had to take more painkillers at 2am as the back pain was creeping back but then got another couple of hours sleep.  I got about 6 hours or so sleep last night thanks to the painkillers.  This morning my mouth is still very painful; it hurts to swallow and it even hurts to talk so I have to mumble very slowly so as not to strain my mouth muscles and make them hurt.  I lost 12lbs in weight, which has now decreased to 11lbs since yesterday.  I don't know how much weight will go back on, hopefully some of it will stay off.

What has changed though, is my feelings about food.  Before the fast I was addicted to chocolate and carb crap. Buns, cakes, sweets, desserts of all kinds were what I lived on.  Even though I'm now off the fast I know for certain that I'm not going back to eating that stuff and just the thought of chocolate now sickens me. I had a whole week of not being able to use food for comfort and discovered that I don't need it for this purpose.  I'm going to stick to fruit juices, fruit and veg for the rest of this week, then start next week doing 1 day water fasts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with normal eating the other days. Even if all the weight goes back on, I know the fast has done me good because it's help break my addiction and dependence on the wrong food and I can now start to eat healthily.