which food is the culprit

My body is very sensitive to foods; so it's easy for me to tell. Although it may take a long time for the body to digest certain foods, the body starts digesting them right away. I can hear my body digesting the food when it is something I can't tolerate. Try listening for any sounds. It doesn't take long. Usually one or two hours later I'll start hearing noises coming from my abdomen. The more sounds, the harder it was to digest the food. The more liquid the diarrhea, the faster it goes through the body. It's hard to give a set time on how long it will take though, because everyone is different. But I can always tell what gave me the diarrhea because of the noises.

If you aren't hearing sounds and aren't getting diarrhea, then nothing is bothering you. If you are getting sounds and diarrhea after everything you eat, then everything is bothering you. The worse the flare, the more foods I can't tolerate. The longer I'm in remission, the more foods I can tolerate.

I would suggest eating very few foods at first to get an idea of what you can eat. I usually wait at least a couple of hours between meals so that I can get a sense of what I can and can't eat.

Here is an sample from my food diary:

Flaring for awhile, medicine didn't work, trying anti-inflammatory diet:

Day one through four:

White rice with butter and turmeric added. Ate small portions throughout the day.

Evening Tension Tamer Tea from Celestial Seasonings.

Diarrhea gradually changing to small, hard poo. Still have lots of blood and blood clots.

Day five through ten:

Wake up: Spinach sag (without the cheese)

White rice with butter and turmeric added. Ate small portions throughout the day.

Evening Tension Tamer Tea from Celestial Seasonings.

Poo getting slightly bigger. Still have lots of blood and blood clots. Hurts when going because poo is getting bigger.

Day eleven through thirty:

Wake up: Banana with sunflower seed butter or toast with butter and cinnamon.

Lunch: Spinach sag (without the cheese)

Dinner: White rice with butter and turmeric added or white rice with mild chicken curry.

Evening Tension Tamer Tea from Celestial Seasonings.

Poo getting only a tiny bit bigger. However, blood and blood clots starting to get less. Still hurts when going but not as much.

Day thirty-one through forty-five:

Wake up: Banana with sunflower seed butter or toast with butter and cinnamon.

Lunch: Spinach sag (without the cheese)

Dinner: White rice with mild chicken curry or chicken hotdogs with garlic and turmeric.

Evening Tension Tamer Tea from Celestial Seasonings.

Poo keeps getting bigger until having really large poo. Blood and blood clots getting less until all gone. Pain during bowel movements going away. Still have issues with urgency.

Day forty-six and on:

In remission. Poo normal size. No diarrhea, no blood or blood clots. Urgency issues gradually getting better.

Try a new food every once in awhile and see how I react.

Oops. Ate milk with Cheerios and one banana without the Lactaid. Had loose bowel movement that afternoon.

Oops. Went to my sister's house and had tuna fish with mayonnaise (no HFCS) and Wheat Thins. Came home and had diarrhea. I checked the ingredients for Wheat Thins. They contain HFCS.

Oops. Bought chicken wings at a fast food place. Got diarrhea. Checked the Internet. They put HFCS in their chicken wing sauces.

Oops. Ate milk with Cheerios and one banana without the Lactaid. Again, had loose bowel movement that day.

Ok now. Ate milk with Cheerios and one banana without the Lactaid. No loose bowel movement or diarrhea.

Oops. Ate out. Got diarrhea. Don't know what I ate that gave it to me. Perhaps it was the broccoli with cheese sauce?

When I had a bladder infection, I tried drinking one tall glass of cranberry juice in the morning. I was okay until about the fifth day when I heard noises in my abdomen and had diarrhea. I still drank cranberry juice for a couple more days, the infection went away, and so did the noises and diarrhea when I stopped drinking the cranberry juice.

This makes sense. I was always confused because I was once told that if I ate something, it wouldn't bother me until a day or two later when it reached my colon. I was never sure when I felt discomfort and/or had diarhea if it was something I ate with that meal or something 2 days ago. I kept a food diary, but had a hard time narrowing it down because of this.

I am assuming by your responses that if something bothers me, I will likely know withing a couple hours? if not, maybe it's a safe food?

Right now I am afraid to eat SO many things...all red meat, too much cheeses, pizza (even without meat), chicken wings, pasta (except rice pasta) BBQ sauces....all my favourite foods...it's soo hard. Oh and Pasta sauce w/ ground beef....

Prepared sauces can indeed be the culprit. You usually can't see the spice in red sauces, for example, black pepper or oregano. Both of those bother me. Sometimes mashed potato contains white pepper, which can also cause problems in the gut. As for red meat, my innards find it harder to process than roasted poultry or broiled fish-- so I seldom eat it. I don't really miss it! The Swiss cheeses Emmentaler & Gruyere generally agree; they are lower in fat & salt than most domestic cheeses. (When food disagrees & upsets my colon, I usually feel the discomfort on lower left side-- that's where my UC has its headquarters-- LOL. It can also come as pain right below the lowest left rib. ) After my GI tract eliminates the bothersome stuff it generally calms down within a day. People have different transit times for food from mouth to colon, though. I get relief from eating Pillsbury farina and/or plain boiled white rice whenever my gut is riled. Not a taste sensation, but safer than chemical solutions ...! Trial/error is the way we learn how to best help ourselves via diet. / Old Hat (30 yrs with left-sided UC ... [etc.])

Some of us are not triggered by food, and there's no scientific evidence that food can cause a flare. I find there are certain foods the will greatly increase my discomfort when flaring - namely high-fiber, high-fat or very spicy foods.

If food you eat is causing frequent or loose stools, it's likely you have some degree of IBS along with your IBD.

I've yet to really pin down any "culprit" foods that make my colitis act up.  I say "act up" because some times for me they are not flares, but what I call "acting ugly".  I get tummy noise, gas, maybe some D.  I'm never sure what brings it on.  Most of the time it does not last long.  I may not be eating well or drinking enough water.  That is the first thing I try and change.  But some times things that didn't bother me yesterday bother me today.

Universal Colitis since 2003

Asacol 12 6 tablets per day

Mercaptopurine 1 1/2 1/2 tablets per day

hydrocortisone enema as needed (try not to use unless really, really needed)

Probiotic (lots!)

Fish Oil

Folic Acid (a must on 6-mp)

Iron (Solgar gentle iron - gentle on your tummy)

Multi Vitamin

Biotin

Lots of toasted french bread (especially when its actin up!)

Quiet time everyday to destress

It's a very frustrating thing to have. I have been eating well all week and thought I was doing pretty good at fighting this flare off. Then, this morning....just about to leave for work and bam....watery urgent diarhea...+ cramps...flare in back in full force.  :(

I had to take immodium to come to work today. I can't pinpoint anything that is doing this. The only thing I can think is Sunday night I had a sliver of key lime pie at a family dinner. It didn't sit well...possibly put me a step or ten backwards. I really want to fight this flare...i'm scared of more pred!!

I am in a wedding this weekend. That's not helping me not think about it. I'll be loaded up with immodium all weekend if it's not gone.

Back to the drawing board....

You'll eventually realise that you're dealing with an actual flaring or inflamed colon and food issues are actually separate entity with UC. It's not the food making you flare....it's because your colon is in a very fragile state and remember that people who don't have UC have food symptoms the next day or the day after as well.

Don't make it all about food and punish yourself about it....life is a long time to be frantic about the key lime pie or whatever....you didn't do anything bad...so you have some symptoms the next day, I might have loose stool as well..but that's not a flare.

q

Basilpuppy- That's pretty well what I did to get well again. The trial and error attempts of which foods did, or did not bother me, did not work. I had to eliminate all processed/chemical-laden foods and eat only whole, natural foods like fruits, veggies, beef, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts, some dairy. Reputable probiotics are also key, in my opinion. The funny thing is, the foods that I thought once bothered me (onions, fruits with peelings, milk, yogurt, tomatoes...) don't bother me at all now, now that my colon is healed.

I think factors like antibiotics (fungal poisons), exposure to mold/water-damaged environment, birth control pills, even certain foods containing mycotoxins (fungal poisons) like wheat, corn, peanuts, allow yeast/fungus to proliferate. The high-carb foods we eat (grains, sugar, high-sugar fruits) feed the yeast/fungus and perpetuate our symptoms. So, indirectly, I think what we eat is responsible for our symptoms. Now that my colon is healed, I do eat pretty well anything I want, in moderation.

Kim123, you are spot-on. I think that all prescription and OTC drugs are potentially very harmful. Antibiotics definately so, as you mentioned. Our doctors are causing chemical confusion in the masses. My colitis was originally caused by doctors. It took me years to fix it.

I agree that the big white grain/sugar thing needs to be addressed in our population, as well.

Basilpuppy said...
Chuck, have you tried George's Aloe Vera Juice? Also, my best tool has been one cup of water, one cored pear, one cored apple in the blender (skins left on) every morning. What kind of cardboard food are you eating???

Well..when I am flaring, which I currently am, I try to eat very basic.

I eat alot of tuna, salmon, chicken, rice, rice pasta, veggies (soft cooked), eggs, bananas, oatmeal, ensure shakes, yogurt.  This food is all good, but when really that is about all I eat...gets very blah very quickly. I used to love bananas, but can hardly stand the sight of them anymore.

I have never tried Aloe Vera Juice. I have heard it works. Also, that pear/apple things sounds ok. Does it taste good? i have been told to peel fruits as it's easier to digest? Is that true?

Chuck, to determine what foods I could eat I took two approaches -

- slowly eliminated types of foods, 1 per week, until symptoms got better
- started with a base of turkey only (and vitamin supplements), and added 1 type of food per week until I had symptoms

The first approach I took ~5 years ago, and spent 4 months "testing" my diet. I found that I was very sensitive to wheat/gluten, and somewhat less sensitive to sugar ... reducing sugar intake and going gluten free decreased my symptoms from ~20 bloody bathroom visits per day (anemia was bad enough that I couldn't walk up the stairs) to ~5 with only infrequent blood.

The second approach I started about 8 months ago when I decided to figure out if I could decrease eliminate my symptoms further. The approach seemed simple - start with one food (ground turkey + multi-vitamins), then add back in a single food (or food type) for 1 week or until symptoms flared up ... if I flared I'd take the food out until my symptoms subsided, if not I'd keep it in. Within a week of starting my test, my symptoms disappeared entirely, so I continued the test (note, I wasn't "flaring" real bad at the time - 5-6X per day with minor blood). First week was wheat (instant flare), then bananas (flare), then other fruits (flare), vegetables (no prob), eggs (no prob), red meat (no prob), etc. I did this for 3 months, until I found that I could eat all meats, almost any vegetables, a small amount of nuts, and no fruits (I cheat and have a couple berries once in a while). Basically Atkins diet.

While ridiculously restrictive, this second approach had the advantage of providing a concrete answer (as opposed to the first elimination approach, or just keeping a food diary, both of which keep you guessing).

This doesn't mean diet would work for you though. Everyone here is an advocate of their own approach. Some will say that the best approach is take lots of meds, others will say they've 'cured' their UC via diet or other natural treatments. I tend to fall into the second category, but I don't discount the notion that the condition is different for everyone, and that diet may not play a role for many sufferers.

Best wishes to you!

Post Edited (LuckyLindy) : 7/17/2009 9:37:24 AM (GMT-6)