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For a long time I couldn't tolerate even nut butters, let alone the nuts themselves. I'm talking about all nuts. But earlier last year I discovered that I could handle almond and then cashew butter just fine. I've been doing so well with them that I decided maybe I should try whole almonds. So I tried a few, and after a couple of hours or so I was still feeling fine. So I thought, "Heck, that worked so well I might as well try some more". And that's where things started headin' south.
By bedtime I had a belly ache, but it wasn't totally intolerable, so I made a note to self, "Self, don't eat so many next time". Somewhere around 2 or 3 am I suddenly found myself awake with intense gut pain due to cramps. The pain slowly intensified until it threatened to peg the needle on the pain meter. While lying there with nothing other than pain to occupy my thoughts, I made another note to self, "You idiot, don't ever eat another one of those damn things again. Ever!"
I would have got up and got dressed to drive to the ER except that I was hurting too much to get dressed. So I decided to wait until the cramps subsided a bit. But you know how it goes . . . after the cramps backed off to an almost tolerable level, I figured that the reaction was over, so it would be foolish to go to the ER. Of course it didn't take my belligerent gut long to illustrate the problems with my logic. Before it registered on my foggy brain that the cramps seemed to be getting worse again, the pain was already pegging the needle.
But somewhere around 9 o'clock the pain seemed to be backing off again, so by 10 I got up the nerve to get up and get dressed.My gut was still bloated and sore, and my back was so stiff and sore that I couldn't bend over to tie my boot laces initially, but after a few minutes I was able to take care of that little chore. I skipped breakfast, but by noon I felt almost human again, so I ate some pork sausage and a baked potato. That fixed me right up, so now I'm ready to take on the world again.
During the 7 or 8 hours when I couldn't do much but grimace in pain, I kept thinking that maybe I was passing another kidney stone. But it didn't feel quite the same, and when I checked my temperature after I got up, it was slightly low, so apparently it was just a problem with the almonds — probably too much fiber.
As you may recall, I had a similar reaction to peanuts back in September. The peanuts completely stopped my guts from working. But after that I ordered an EnteroLab test that showed that I am now sensitive to soy. I didn't have a stethoscope available to check my gut motility this time, but when the cramps were running amuck I could occasionally hear some rather loud gurgling sounds, so I have reason to believe that they weren't in neutral or paralyzed. And of course I had a round of D this morning.
At any rate, I ain't never gonna touch another whole nut, no matter how enticing they may seem. If I ever post that I'm considering doing that at any point in the future, just shoot me.
Tex
I don't see how I survived when it was a regular daily routine. 
I still wonder about those thin brown husks on the almonds. At any rate, something definitely didn't sit well with my digestive system, because if it were a pinball machine it would have been screaming "Tilt" most of the night. 
