Can you tolerate sugar free stuff?

When I was flaring a few years ago, I was hospitalized and given some prep that was mixed with Crystal Light. GI saw me drinking it and was frustrated they mix the prep with a sugar free beverage and actually called to see if they had it in anything else. He said to 'be prepared to spend some time in the bathroom' as most of his Crohns patients have issues with sugar free.

I'm not a fan of artificial flavors so I hadn't had much sugar free stuff before.

Sure enough, straight to the bathroom (and I do not get the big D with my disease).

Since then, I attempt every so often to drink a "skinny" latte at Starbucks in order to save myself lots of calories and it goes right through me. I'm back trying to diet and I figured that I can save 150 calories if I go with a sugar free syrup in my beloved iced coffee. I'm halfway through it and already feeling the ramifications.

How do you react?

My sister, who has also been dx with CD, cannot tolerate anything with Splenda. She seems to start flaring pretty quickly after ingesting anything that has it in it. I was talking to her the other day and she was feeling a small flare coming on and realized that she had eaten a couple of sugar free mints the day before. I drink a lot of zero calorie gatorade and zero calorie vitamin water. Not sure what sweeteners are in those but they don't seem to bother me. I really should just stick to water - all those artificial sweetners can't be good for you, whether you're healthy or not.

the only sugar substitute my stomach is ok with is splenda sucroloase is ok but Nutrasweet is the worst cant even chew gum with that as a sweetener without severe abd pain

I find this really interesting because at times I cannot tolerate sweetener, whilst at other times the same sweetener can go down fine.

Generally though, I am with the rest of you - Sorbitol is the DEVIL in my book, and causes me immense cramping and pain to the point where I am unable to stand up straight. It has such an adverse reaction, as I understand it this is because it is a compound which goes through undigested and cannot be properly broken down by the body?

I can handle saccharin, the sweetener I use in my tea - (legal on the SCD) - but the links to cancer to worry me, I wonder if they are doing further studies to come up with some more conclusive evidence?

It's hard to tell, since by and large I won't eat 'lite' products; it's usually the full-sugar, full-fat version for me or nothing at all.

I do drink diet Coke occasionally and that doesn't seem to cause any issues. But I noticed a while ago that eating too many sugar-free mints/boiled sweets did seem to send me running to the toilet. And yeah, they contained sorbitol, whereas diet Coke only contains aspartame (I think).

Conversely, I think sugary stuff tends to give me D. I've drank tons of Powerade Zero, which has sucralose, and never had any problems.