nopal?

Wondering how everyone that is using nopal juice is doing?

I am doing well too. Been drinking it for over 2 months. Currently symptom free except for a tiny bit of blood just once in the last 3 weeks. I'm still taking Asacol along with the nopal and don't plan on changing that since it's working so well.

It's been a slow steady improvement once I stopped being so impatient and stopped focusing on the day to day and started looking at how much better I was than when I started.

I have a scope scheduled for May so hoping for a good report.

It sounds like you did it properly. No blender. The water gets gel-like, by the bottom of the pitcher, mine was very thick. Unfortunately nopal didn't do anything for my symptoms but it seems like a lot of people are having luck and I wish you the best!

Thank you so much. Hope it will work. I started this morning with 4oz, just to play itsafe, since my son is only 12. I really dont want to start him on Humira.

No such luck for me, but I am going to keep trying. I am on week 3 now. The first week I thought I saw some improvement (bowels becoming loosely formed) but by week 2, bowels were normal again (completely unformed).

Although Nopal hasn't done much for the UC, I have noticed it works as an appetite suppressant for me... which is good after all the weight I gained from the Uceris.

Hopeful ... if you don't start to see improvements within 1-2 weeks (or your son gets worse), it's probably not going to work so don't keep hoping this will help your son instead of drugs. I am not an anti drug person and if this didn't work so well for me I would be on a biologic or methotrexate by now. My symptoms weren't horrible when I started drinking it and I started to see some improvements within 3 days. But since then it has been a very slow progression. If I had been badly flaring, I don't think this would have worked so well for me.

Yup, I hate to be a negative nelly but i've seen a lot of natural treatments come and go. Whatever happened to the spinach sunflower seed diet, the black cherry concentrate or the clay worshipers? I haven't seen anyone touting those methods lately. Is it because they don't work? I can't say for sure. It seemed like some people were having luck with them...

I would say, the most likely natural treatment is probably SCD diet. I will also say, it didn't help me, i got sicker and malnourished, but it has helped some. If I were going to try anything, it would be that, and I did without luck...

It's good to try different things. You never know what's going to work. On the other hand, if black cherry concentrate were the answer, we would all be drinking it and there wouldn't be a forum.

I also think if your poor child is really sick, in pain and unable to do normal daily activities, please listen to your doctor and not the internet.

yes, the cactus pad, not the fruit.

CCinPA - appreciate you sharing and staying on to report. You take Asacol and Rowasa so what leads you to conclude nopal helped versus the others? Also, if you say nopal was the benefit, how long would you think one would be able to notice an improvement before moving on? The original user said a couple weeks.
Also, did you change anything in your diet during this time? Did you have less stress or reduce activity of some sort (I know many had a spring break for instance)? Can you tell me how the nopal felt after drinking (did you drink it with food; how did it pass through in that did you notice right away difference in bm's as far as texture like what psyllium does?? Thanks

Burli -- I credit the nopal because Asacol alone wasn't doing it and I had a couple rounds of Uceris with a round of pred in between them that never got me as well as I am now. This flare started in June 2014 after I had switched to Apriso while on vacation in May. As soon as symptoms started I immediately switched back to Asacol because the same thing had happened about 6 months prior when I was on Apriso -- I started to flare and switched back to Asacol and things got better. I was originally prescribed Asacol when I was first diagnosed in Jan 2013, but in May of that year my dr said I could switch to Apriso because it was easier to use. I was ok for a while but in Dec that year I started to flare on the Apriso and switched back to Asacol. When I went back on Asacol in June 2014 I gave it a couple weeks but things seemed worse -- more BMs (anywhere from 2-4 or 5x/day), softer & looser and most worrisome to me was more blood. I called my GI and he put me on Uceris at the beginning of July. By the end of July I was no better and was seeing even more blood, so called the GI again and was put on a 6 week course of pred. The pred got rid of the blood and I was back to just my normal 2x/day BMs but they were still soft and only semi formed. The blood came back 2 weeks after I finished the pred. GI scheduled a colonoscopy and after the inflammation he saw he started me on Azathioprine along with Uceris in October. I had started Rowasa just a couple weeks prior to the scope and it cleared up my rectum because there was no inflammation there -- the inflammation was higher in the decending colon to the mid transvere. In Dec my liver enzymes were elevated and he had me discontinue Aza. I stayed on Uceris for another couple weeks to get me through the holidays without a major flare, but stopped taking it at the end of Dec. During the entire time I was on Uceris (Oct-Dec) I never had solid BMs -- they were always soft, loose or only semi formed. The only time I had diarrhea was when I was first diagnosed so this was never a major flare, but it has been a long time. In all that time and all those meds, I haven't been as well as I am now since ... well probably since before I was diagnosed. My dr was talking about Humira and I wanted to see what I could do before I went down that path.

Nopal intrigued me because when I researched it I discovered that it has a lot of anti-inflammatory properties and thought I would give it a try since I couldn't find any negatives at that time. (Now there are some people here who didn't have any success, but when I started no one here had used it much). I didn't change my diet at all, I drink 12 oz in the AM and 8 oz in the PM and take my Asacol every day. Nothing major happened in my life that reduced my stress ... in fact the winter probably cause more stress lol.

It took 3 days before I saw the first effects from nopal -- my BMs were suddenly more firm than they had been for 6 months. The rumbling started to quiet down. I can't say it's been anything dramatic or fast, but since I was seeing marginal improvements I kept drinking it. Now I am pretty much symptom free. I say "pretty much" because I am not quite believing this myself and have had times in the past 6 months when I would go over a week without blood and then it would appear again. Since the beginning of March I have only seen 1 tiny spot of blood almost 2 weeks ago and I have really been inspecting things (I have bamboo skewers I use to poke around) because I want to be sure there isn't anything hidden. My BMs are 1-2x/day (once in while maybe 3x, but the norm is 1-2) and are always fully formed. I haven't quite returned to my normal schedule of 1BM in the AM & 1 in the PM -- usually both are in the AM, but I feel good so if this is my new normal I can live with it. I haven't been using Rowasa for the past month except maybe once or twice because I noticed that the days I was using it, my BMs were looser the next day so I just stopped using it so often (I had started using it only a couple times a week instead of daily and now it's only a couple times a month). I may have a problem with the sulfates in it -- don't know.

I would say that anyone who tries it should commit to 2 weeks (unless they have problems with it). If they haven't seen any improvement at all in 2 weeks it's probably not going to do anything. But if you see even a tiny bit of improvement keep drinking it. I've been drinking it for about 2-1/2 months now and have no symptoms at this time, but it's been a very slow process for me. The scope in May will either show substantial healing (hoping for totally clear) or it will show that while nopal helped symptoms, it didn't really help my body heal anything.

I have seen people trying this with commercial nopal products -- either nopal water or supplements. I have no idea how well they work. I have also seen people here dismiss this and then later say that they didn't follow the original directions to make the water. Again I don't know if that is why it didn't work.
This is how I make it:
1) either 1/4 pound of already cleaned pieces, or 1 whole pad that weighs about 4 oz
2) clean and cut the pads into large pieces and then split the pieces down the center so the inner flesh is exposed
3) Throw the pieces into a 2 qt pitcher and fill with water
4) Let it soak overnight before drinking and let the pieces in the water until all the water has been consumed.

The original poster also added chia seeds to the water but I haven't done that so maybe that's why it's taken so long to work for me.

I am sure nopal is what worked. It surprised me that it did. And I nearly gave up on it because it wasn't working fast enough. I am glad now that stayed with it.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to try it. Just saying what worked FOR ME. If there is one thing I have learned in my brief time here it's that every single one of us is different -- different levels of severity, different triggers, different responses to meds, supplements & diet. This works for me now. How long that will last no one knows -- the same can be said by every single person here who is in or near remission. None of us knows how long something will work so my motto is "Enjoy today!"

*editted to change "inflammatory" to "anti inflammatory" in the 2nd paragraph

Finally just got some in today, been waiting for Wholefoods to order them in for the past 3 months. I've been using the cactus fruit for the past 2 months and haven't really seen an improvement. I'll update everyone on what the pads do. They're pretty thin, I was surprised, not easy to cut!

I started this morning. 4oz. I'm starting to badly flare again (have been in various degree of a flare for more than 1.5 yrs) so I figured now's the time.

Here's hoping. Cheers!

good luck rbartolo! I generally drink 12 oz in the AM and 8 oz in the PM. Good to start with a small amount, but you might want to drink more as long as you don't have any problems with it.