I started the SCD after unsuccessully trying a few prescript
ion drugs/rectal meds. I was spending several hundreds of dollars on each trip to the pharmacy, followed my more hundreds of dollars on each visit to the Dr., followed by more hundreds of dollars on more lab tests, etc. And I just wasn't seeing any improvement, just worsening of symptoms and weird med-related side effects.
So I bought the "Specific Carbohydrate Diet" book and went on the SCD. I tried it for about 4 months (while still finishing up my meds that I had started). I didn't really notice any sort of dramatic improvement, but everything seemed to level off basically at one daily poop with bright red blood in it, very few other symptoms, if any. (occasional cramping mostly) But I still had some healing to do, obviously. I did www searches every night before bed, read everything I could find about UC and the myriads of theories out there about it.
I bought the book "Self Healing Colitis and Crohn's" by David Klein. Rather a different theory than the SCD, but worth trying or at least experimenting with. I put myself on a juice diet for 3 days, found a cheap used juicer and made lots of fresh fruit and veggie juice. *that* was actually what seemed to be the beginning of the end of the daily bleeding. After the juice diet for 3 days, I very slowly/gradually started adding back soft cooked gentle neutral type foods. (I totally eliminated grains and dairy and nuts for several weeks, I guess kind of like starting over with the intro SCD diet, only slightly more restrictive, I think).
I was keeping a detailed food journal during all of this, writing down everything I ate and how I felt. Other than a little low on energy, I was feeling pretty much okay, and the bloody poop got better, but there was still some mucous. A definite improvement, but still now 100%. I cautiously added back the SCD type dairy and didn't notice any changes for the better or worse, so I am assuming a little dairy doesn't bother me.
Then I had this amazing craving for Indian food. Went out to heat and pretty much decided I'd eat whatever I wanted to. I ate some rice and some fermented lentil/rice dishes ("idly") and for the next two days after that, I had totally normal looking poops. Yippie! So I decided I'd try a little bit of starchy carbohydrates here and there. I have had occasional rice, sweet potato, white potato, and haven't noticed any ill effects with any of them. There have been just a couple of times I ate something (once pasta with gluten, another time chocolate and some other grain) that afterwards I would have really really bad gas, like totally bloated feeling and really ugh. But otherwise, I have been pretty good about eating all natural, gluten-free, SCD dairy (I've focused mostly on raw milk cheese and homemade yogurt), and very limited intake of certain grains (rice, quinoa, sweet potato).
During my experimentations with diet, I went to see the naturopath/chiropractor. She treated me for parasite infection in the GI tract. I also more recently started seeing someone who does acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and she ordered a stool sample which came back positive for 1 unknown parasiite, H. Pylori bacteria, and C. dificile bacteria, so still working on herbal remedies for those buggers.
Overall, with all these things I am trying all at once, I have felt just fine, I see very occasional tiny bit of blood in my poop, and there's a little big of mucous which seems to come and go. So I'm still not 100% back to normal, but it seems awefully close at this time.
I hope that helps someone...