Three words come to mind - low residue diet!
This diet is what saved me from living in my bathroom (after losing 90% of my sigmoid and 15 inches of my colon, due to rectal cancer in 1999). Do a google search, you'll find lots of links for this diet.
Basically it's the diet you give to children after they've had a severe GI tract bug or D. In other words, the BRAT diet - bananas, white rice, applesauce, white toast. Of course you may add other foods, such as cottage cheese, iceberg lettuce wedges, roast chicken, turkey, mashed potatoes (I find instant is better for D than mashed from scratch), baked potatoes, mac & cheese, plain or vanilla yogurt with live cultures, plain bagels, plain english muffins.
Avoid chocolate, candy, nuts, carbonated beverages, beer, high fiber foods, whole wheat products, fresh summer fruits such as straw/blue/raspberries, pineapple. Canned fruit is okay, just watch fresh fruit with lots of pulp. It's hard on the gut. With the exception of ripe bananas - I have one every single day.
I hope you see improvement soon.
As always, check with your doctor before going on a specific diet. My colon doc gave me his blessing for this diet, but initially said I could eat anything I wanted (wrong) and to eat 4 to 6 small meals a day and not 3. The small meal suggestion was accurate though. Not much else he said, post-op, helped though. He also said to "enjoy life, take Imodium"......I don't see how you can enjoy life (ie, eat anything you want), when you're living with less colon.
It just makes complete sense to me now, to eat foods that agree with my gut and avoid the ones that irritate my gut the most.
Keep a food journal (notebook, keeping a page for each day). That's helpful too.
Mary
Post Edited (Marsky) : 7/4/2008 5:14:25 PM (GMT-6)