Are you sure, absolutely, positively, SURE, that food has nothing to do with your UC?

I think food triggered my UC. Thirty-four years without a bowel symptom, some bad shrimp (I think), six weeks of diarrhea, a year of doctors dorking around, and finally a UC diagnosis.

I've been 'in a flare' since I got my first symptoms, so I really have not had a good test of food. I reduced functional symptoms by limiting FODMAPs. Otherwise, it really doesn't make much of a difference what I eat. I'm flaring.

NCOT is probably right about most people who modify their diet also take some meds. On the other hand this forum is full of people who modify their diets by avoiding eating plums, or gluten, etc., and that allows them to take far fewer meds or avoid some big gun meds altogether.

pissed because you're off meds?...lol...

Your responses and a few others' are a bit more pissed and condescending than most.

I still believe food doesn't cause flares or heals them. If food is an issue, it's a food-related issue, not a UC issue.

But...it's great you're doing well. Maybe you feel guilty that you are?....nah
q

By the way...you didn't answer my query in the " experimented" thread.

Envy...sure to a point about health...but I have more anger and frustration toward myself .

Regarding people not listening...I get a good amount of flack, rudeness and obvious lack of empathy at times....it's noted..but i move on.

Food cause/ non-cause is right up there with politics and religion. There will never be full acceptance of only one path to the concept .
q

My father has an auto immune disease, Ankylosing spondylitis, sometimes UC can have a link to this. Food doesn't trigger that so why would food trigger an auto immune disease in my colon. Surely changing food can just help you heal but not cause it.

Lolzers. Imagine describing me and quincy as being defensive and having an attitude, when this was written by mindoverbutter:

You know what you did to make you sick you just don't want to admit it.

Wanting to have your cake and eat it, probably quite literally in this case. No, it's not "envy"; why on earth would I want to be tied to a restrictive diet for the rest of my life? To me, that's no better than being tied to meds for life; no worse, in fact. I would have been quite happy to have stayed on Remicade indefinitely had it worked.

If I'm envious of anybody, it's people who have gone into remission for years on meds. Or people who can have a j-pouch. Don't get me wrong: I don't want them not to be in remission; I'm glad for them that they are. But it still doesn't stop me from being mad as hell sometimes that Remicade didn't work for me or that I can probably never have my ileostomy reversed.

But on the other hand, I do get to drink beer (very welcome in the hot summer we had this year) and eat things like Asian ramen (mildly addicted to the stuff). If I go out, which is not very often because I'm a total shut-in, I can join in with what everyone else is eating and have a nice meal. To me, I can't imagine anything more joyless than reducing food to "healthy" fuel, optimised down to the very last sunflower seed to give the best bang for its buck. That approach probably makes perfect sense for world-class atheletes, but there is a reason I'm not a world-class athlete. Otherwise, I don't see the point. I don't even need to run for the bus any more. I like the old adage, 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die', even if I'm more miserable than merry.

Bottom lineis for those of you that have found diet to be succesful, you aren't smarter, stronger, or more devoted than those of us that haven't.

You are lucky that you have either found your trigger, or are independently enjoying a remission in the natural up/down cycle of UC.

I am happy for all of you, and hope you continue to have success.

"Bottom lineis for those of you that have found diet to be succesful, you aren't smarter, stronger, or more devoted than those of us that haven't. "


Heather - this is the kind of "attitude" I was referring to !

My oh my is this thread getting testy. I think we all have our beliefs, know what works for us, and for the most part we're all tactful in these posts. I'm a big pharama guy (only the meds have worked for me) but I still encourage people to try diets, try anything that isn't harmful and all. I just always add the caveat that diets don't always work for everyone which, at least to me, seems fair enough. Perhaps everyone should say try the meds and the diets and let each individual determine what works for themselves. Cheers!

Yes, I think I'm very, very lucky. Sure, I'm very "devoted" to taking my oral meds daily and my butt meds twice weekly. But there have been many people who've tried the exact same thing I have and had no luck.

I got pretty irritated with a "diet pusher" once (I can't remember who it was) who told me that I should still modify my diet and was incredibly rude about it. I mean, REALLY? How exactly should I know how to modify it, given that I have zero symptoms? If I were to eliminate everything that the various diet plans say to eliminate, I'd have very few foods left to eat. And there's no way I'm going off my mesalamine to see if I can control my UC with diet. Given the excellent safety profile of mesalamine, that'd be stupid.

And the original question in this thread irritates me a bit, too, if I'm being honest.

I think one can only see if diet has any effect on UC over a long period of time. My lifelong diet has been pretty good overall- little "junk" or highly processed foods, basically zero red meat, not particularly dairy or carb heavy... When I was diagnosed in 2002, it was ulcerative proctitis, only a few cm's. Started Rowasa enemas nightly, cleared right up. After a month or so, I switched to Asacol- 8 tabs/day, stayed in total remission for the next 5 years. So I decided to quit my meds, thinking I didn't need them. Well, that turned into a 6 year flare that has seen me on pred 3x, various other enemas, biologics, etc. Still not in remission. Since day one of my diagnosis, my diet hasn't really changed. I have over the years gone gluten free, high protein, organic, tried countless supplements, etc. Nothing helped, some in fact hurt. What else am I to conclude about my diet, except that nah, it doesn't have an effect on my UC. Interestingly enough, I've also had numerous other immune system disorders thruout my life- which reinforces my personal belief that UC (& other inflammatory disorders) is driven by a faulty immune system.

And one more point.
Many of us ate whatever we wanted all the years leading up to our UC.
If diet was/is such a contributing factor why didn't UC rear its ugly head sooner?

In my case 30+ years.