diet advice

My name is Corey and I am a 21 year old male college student. I was diagnosed with colitis exactly 2 years ago. I would say I've been in a flare this entire time. I was originally on prednisone, then went to immuran, and now I have been on remicade for about 8 months. So far, the remicade has worked best but I still go to the bathroom about 6 times a day on average (mostly within the first half of the day).

My doctors tell me to not worry about my diet with colitis and just trust the meds. I did that for about a year and a half but then I decided to change anyways. Growing up I was definitely your typical teenager. I ate a lot of meat, drank a lot of soda, and ate mostly processed foods. This continued til about June of 07. I started by quitting sodas and gatorade and now I drink once bottle of vitamin water a day, a glass of soymilk, and water throughout the rest of the day. I also cut out most of my dairy except cheese. I have heard with breads that going whole grain is bad for colitis but then I've read that whole grain helps with diseases in general. I still eat meat, but I would say I've cut my daily meat intake in half. I mentioned that I am a college student and it makes it hard for me to stay on a healthier diet because those are more timely and expensive but at the same time I'm willing to figure things out that will help me.

Another thing I've done is daily excercise, yoga, and meditation. I just started the yoga/meditation part but those require a certain diet as well and I don't know if that kind of diet would help me or just hurt me.

If any of you have any advice or any ideas I would really appreciate you sharing them with me. And for those of you that have changed your diets and noticed good results please let me know what you did. Thank you all very much.

i have great results with diet and am off drugs. that is just my experience!

hello!
i love the book "eating right for a bad gut".
some good general guidelines but really you have to understand that this disease doesn't really treat anyone the same.

soymilk would be killing me. but that's me.

i had a lot of success cutting out processed foods. like you said, more time consuming and more expensive. but it did cut down my trips to the toilet. i eat meat, veggies, fruits, rice, oatmeal, and even some dairy but i make almost everything myself. even got a bread machine to cut out the strange stuff that is in packaged bread. the biggest difference actually came from just cutting out protein bars!

many have had success with very strict diets like scd, but for me i found it certainly didn't work in proportion to the trouble it was and the slight depression of not being able to eat very much variety. but it may work for you!

the main thing for me was keeping a food journal for a long time (that's how i eliminated soy and eggs) and that made it pretty clear what was good and not so good for me. also keep track of your meds, probiotics, vitamins etc in the journal as well as how many BMs and what their quality is each day.

hope that helps some. good luck and do what works for YOU!
aloha

Welcome to the forum.  I think it's awesome you have been able to make all those changes for your health.  The New Eating Right for a Bad Gut is a great resource for diet.   I agree with what the others have said so far.  If you feel ok eating whole grain bread than keep eating it.  I try to eat very little red meat.  I eat Tilapia fish because it's not too expensive usually, I broil it with some seasoned salt and pepper and after put a little lemon juice on it.  I also use Soymilk and it agrees with me.

 I drink a lot of green tea because my Arthritis doctor recommended it, he said to drink at least 4 cups a day to fight inflammation.  (but not the bottled ones cause those are more sugar than anything.)  I drink Gatorade occasionally and also Sprite seems to be ok once in a while for me.  I don't think there is that big a difference between the amount of sugar in vitamin water vs. gatorade if you read the labels.   I have most trouble after eating out, which is probably very tough for you as a college student.  The only places I can safely eat out are Subway and sushi places.  It is different for everyone.  It takes time and trial and error to figure out what will work for you individually.  But you are off to a great start. 

You might also check out Breaking the Vicious Cycle and Listen to Your Gut for diets developed specifically for IBD patients.

What about salads, uncooked food...does that work?

Thanks Blueclassring
Hi Charmin here. Just wanted to thank you for the advice of finding a doctor -- i was the undiagnosed / untreated person with "night time bathroom trips" . I had 12 days of hospitalization - morphine (lots) and failed 10 days of IV steroids. Fulminant (sp) pancolitis. Just discharged yesterday. On 40 prednisone and ramicade. Did not tolerate asacol, probably because flare was too bad. almost needed surgery, but made it without a blood transfusion.

Ok so just wanted to say thank you ( I know some didn't think your steroid suggestion was the best). And I also want to know about the SCD diet. I'm on short term disability, so I have time to try to find it on line. I'm a nurse,

I will also end here, because I'm not exactly sure how this forum works and if you will actually see this note.

All the best,
Charmin

Thanks a lot.

blueclassring said...
i have great results with diet and am off drugs. that is just my experience!

Hi, I was diagnosed with UC in Aug 08 and I am in remission now, no symptoms, on 2 Lialda a day.
Although my Dr. says that my diet doesn't really matter, I do feel like the diet I have chosen has helped me.

Right after my diagnosis, I was on Rowasa and Lialda, but after the symptoms disappeared (took 2 months), I was ratcheted back to 2 Lialda daily.
I feel like Lialda was a miracle drug for me. In the beginning they put me on a soft diet, no raw fruits or veggies for 2 months.

I have always tried to follow a healthy diet, I haven't eaten red meat since I was 18- I just turned 30. I became a vegetarian after my diagnosis and I limit my fiber intake.

My diet mainly consists of
2 cups of coffee daily
fruit (apples and oranges)
a lot of protein (tofu, veggies burgers, fish, beans)
nuts (a handful of raw almonds or cashews)
dark chocolate
and my vice- on the weekends, some vodka or wine
hummus
limited amounts of yogurt

I think one of the most important things I try to do is eat small meals, so that my body doesn't have to work too hard to digest the food at once.

Besides that, I try to do aerobic activity 5 times a week.

The only problem that I have from time to time is that I have to be careful to drink a lot of water or I'll get dehydration headaches.