Why does my Dr tell me this

Hello, Why does my GI tell me to eat more fiber and fruits and veggies??? Every time I eat a salad or have any bran/fiber I end up in the ER. I am getting frustrated. KayC

I can't take fiber either. I know a lot of GI's recommend it, but that is when you are in good shape. Although I am doing pretty well right now and still can't take a lot of fiber so...there are some of us who just have to avoid it I suppose.

time for a new gi?

Your GI's stupid. If you're flaring...and fiberous stuff is painful, avoid it. Course I deal with my flares by drinking Ensure. about 4 a day with 0 solid food for a couple of days to a week. Calms the flares down at least for me. Then, every now and then I add some salad or fruits. I don't do well with MOST veggies. I even had green beans cause a flare once. I found OUT I had Crohns by ending up in the hospital after eating a purely fibrous diet for a few weeks (I had pancreatitis caused by a gallstone blocking a duct). Course the hospital didn't use more than a sonogram to see what was wrong with me. They kept me off food and such for 3 days and sent me home to eat ONLY tons of fiber and low fat diet. Which I did...and then ended up in an ER about 3 weeks later with stricture and fistulas and abscesses. The nurse said it looked like a bomb exploded inside me. Yay. And into surgery #4.

What I'm trying to say is sometimes, the doc's don't know everything if they haven't taken ALL the tests to see what's wrong. Plus they handle tons of cases a day. So if you really can't stand the idea of fiber...maybe a completely low residue diet for a bit will help ease the pain first.

Try firbre supplements (same positive effect as fibre without the pain/issues of fibreous foods), I still take fibre supplements as my GI directed me to 5 yrs ago now and I can eat all fibreous foods now since I started taking the supplements. Fibre is your friend, you just have to know what you're doing with it.

With fibre supplements you want to take caps, not the sugary/junky powders that are full of extra crud in them for flavouring, you want to drink plenty of water with it, you want to start out with the smallest amount (1 cap) and increase only if necessary and only after your system has adjusted to the initial dose first (will likely cause extra gas and bloating which is completely normal and will go away).


Best advice I've ever got from a GI was to take fibre supplements, cut mucus out, formed stools, less trips to the can daily, no more bloating and very little gas, only benefits.

:)

My GI doc explained it to me like this. Fiber is what absorbs excess liquid in your bowel and when you are having loose stools, it bulks them up. When you're constipated, it absorbs any liquid it can and releases it in the bowel so as to loosen the hard stool. So I think they tell us to eat or take fiber to keep everything balanced. Does it work? Not usually, for me anyway. If I happen to get a bit constipated, I just take a stool softener for a couple of nights. Otherwise, what little bit of fiber I get in what I eat generally keeps everything flowing more-so than I'd like.