What is dumping?
Dumping is when, after eating or drinking, you hear or feel your heart pounding and you feel clammy, sweaty or shaky. You may also feel the urge to use the bathroom. Any combination of the above symptoms can occur either mildly or severely depending on what you ate. Some patients experience it after too much sugar intake and others after much fat or greasy food intake. Try to avoid sweets.
Dumping is the word describing the fact liquids and sweets very rapidly empty out of the stomach into the jejunum through the small pouch. Sweets have a characteristic called ‘hyperosmolality’ which means it has a high concentration of particles in solution. One of the functions of a normal stomach is to act as a reservoir where food will be held until the concentration of particles are “dumped” from the small pouch into the digestion/absorption part of the gastrointestinal tract, the jejunum. The jejunum reacts by sending off chemical signals to stop the intake of such materials on such a rapid basis. These chemical signals cause nausea, dizziness, and faintness – an awful feeling. The chemical signals are relatively harmless but they should not be repeated in order to avoid these unpleasant symptoms. This might be a bad thing if one continued to crave sweets, but most sweets lovers will come to loathe sweets after this symptom occurs a few times. The avoidance of sweets under these c
