my mole medical mystery

June 21, 2018 6:53 PM

Please decipher a strange thing that happened to me several years ago. I was having dinner at a friend's house. She made a delicious mole sauce and served it with something vegetarian. If I recall, it wasn't particularly spicy (though quite flavorful), and in any case, I love spicy food. Some way into the meal, though, I felt suddenly exhausted. Maybe I had a little stomachache? Whatever it was, I absolutely had to lie down in a quiet, dark room—the commotion of the dinner party was too much to handle. It was different than normal tiredness, which doesn't make me need to suddenly retreat like that. I felt better about an hour later, but for the next year or so, I couldn't eat any spicy food at all without getting terrible indigestion. What happened??
posted by the_blizz to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

Perhaps a minor migraine followed by taste aversion?
posted by RichardP at 7:38 PM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]

Best answer: The initial exhaustion with sudden onset after eating that, which was only addressed by lying down in a dark room, sounds like a migraine to me. Abdominal migraines are also a thing. You're probably sensitive to an ingredient in the mole and/or other spicy things.
posted by limeonaire at 7:53 PM on June 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

I agree, sounds like migraine to me. Both spicy food and chocolate are migraine triggers for me, so it could certainly be that (or some other related thing). Sometimes I get the associated symptoms without headache pain, and I know people who rarely get the headache part of it. It is not uncommon for me to have a sensitive/upset stomach during or for up to a couple days after, and my son experiences abdominal migraine (which is more common in kids). Bodies, man.
posted by Emmc325 at 8:22 PM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Nthing that this sounds like migraineville.
posted by desuetude at 9:30 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I had food migraines triggered by yeast at one point (due to a medication.) I couldn't eat foods with yeast without a pounding headache, severe exhaustion, and stomach problems for about an hour after. I also have IBS and if something I'm intolerant to I get exhaustion with stomach problems because my body is busy trying to digest. Your gut takes lots of energy to work.

Start tracking ingredients and see if there's a specific trigger.
posted by Crystalinne at 9:40 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm an emergency physician/toxicologist.

1) a strange thing that happened to me several years ago

Was that the first time it happened? only time it happened? had it happened before? Has it happened again since?

2) I felt better about an hour later

And that was it? No lingering effects over the next hours/days/weeks?

3) Any mental health issues?

4) Do you have any physical conditions or symptoms doctors cannot find a biological/organic explanation for?
posted by BadgerDoctor at 10:48 PM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Huh, a migraine never occurred to me. I don't normally get migraines, so I guess I'm not familiar with the symptoms. Interesting!

To clarify: it was the only time something like this has ever happened to me, never before or since. I'm not even aware of any usual sensitivity to the ingredients one might normally find in mole. The only lasting effect was a year(ish) of stomachaches (without tiredness) triggered by spicy food (even just a little bit spicy). But I am now back to my normal diet of occasional mouthburning meals and have no further mystery symptoms.

Mental health issues, sure, but, uh, pre-existing.
posted by the_blizz at 11:15 PM on June 21, 2018

My mother has had a couple of peptic ulcers over the years and the only symptom she had is nausea after eating spicy foods. So maybe you had a peptic ulcer that healed.
posted by defreckled at 2:53 PM on June 22, 2018

Salicylate sensitivity?
https://fedup.com.au/factsheets/additive-and-natural-chemical-factsheets/salicylates
posted by egk at 11:26 AM on June 23, 2018