Posted 10/22/2015 5:33 PM (GMT 0)
Long time reader, first time poster. I've had some success with eating pomegranates recently and thought it might be worth sharing. But first I'll give you some background to establish some context.
I'm 36, male, and have had active UC for about 6 years now. I went undiagnosed for the first few years and was in and out of the hospital. I have proctitis which seems to be stable. I've had several scopes in the last 4 years, and the ulcers seem to stick to one spot, which is pretty lucky as far as I'm concerned.
After diagnosis, I started taking Asacol, and then generic mesalamine. I don't feel it did much of anything one way or the other, and eventually I stopped. Fortunately for me, hydro-Cortisone enemas do the trick if I start flaring badly. That's it for meds. I've primarily relied on my diet to keep things under control. Meticulous food journals and elimination experiments have led to the elimination of the following from my diet: gluten, nightshades, dairy, fruit, nuts, garlic, onion, alcohol, carageenan (and additives in general). I also watch my carb intake. These are general guidelines, meaning that if I have a little bit of something here and there, its not the end of the world. In any case, my dietary restrictions makes it very difficult to eat out, and consequently, I primarily eat at home. Before my UC, I was a really adventurous eater; you know, THAT guy who would try anything. I would also eat to excess, and even though I was never overweight, I've lost 25-30 pounds since coming down with UC. Now that my weight has stabilized, I think the weight loss is probably for the best. Aside from avoiding the above foods, the only "medication" I take is my homemade coconut yogurt. I eat it religiously, partly because it tastes great, but also because I've found that it keeps my UC under control--i..e, from spiralling into a full blown flare. I also eat a lot of fish, for what that's worth. I don't know if it helps, but I just like fish, and it certainly doesn't trigger any symptoms.
Although I've been able to manage my UC so that I can live a somewhat normal life, I'm still suffering, and I've never been able to fully get in remission. For the most part I only have 1-2 bms per day. Sometimes there's mucus, sometimes there's a bit of blood, sometimes the stool is loose, sometimes I have urgency, sometimes I have really bad, painful gas, sometimes I have bad cramping, sometimes I have horrible heartburn, sometimes I'm really fatigued. And sometimes I feel totally fine. As I said I've controlled for food-but also controlled for stress, sleep, and thus far, I cannot see any patterns. It just seems totally random at this point. As I said, its manageable, but I can't seem to avoid periodic "disturbances" if you will. Knowing what many of you are going through, I have absolutely nothing to complaint about and consider myself pretty fortunate that my case is pretty mild.
Since I'm strong believer in the pro-biotic/pre-biotic thing, I recently read about akkermansia which is (allegedly) a beneficial bacteria that lives in the colon, and is found in reduced numbers in IBD patients. Apparently, akkermansia likes pomegranate extract. see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26189645. I don't like supplements, so I just got some pomegranates, pulled out the seeds and ate them. Well, I didn't really eat them--I chewed them up, ingesting the flesh and juice of the seeds, and spit out the mash of the seeds. Inevitably, however, I'm also ingesting some the fibrous part of the seeds. In any case, I've been eating these seeds a couple of times a week, maybe the equivalent of half a pomegranate a week (my kids eat the rest), for about three weeks. Almost right away things started to get better. All symptoms are gone except for some gas. My BMs are perfectly formed--just like the ones my kids have (I'm secretly jealous of them; so sad). No urgency. Its crazy. I've even gotten a little bit lax with my diet--drinking wine here and there with dinner, etc--and things seem to be stable. This is the only time that I have been 100% symptom free in the last 4 years other than the time I was using hydrocortisone enemas daily. The only difference in my life or diet that I can attribute to the change are these stupid pomegranate seeds. I know that the disease is so individualized, what works for A doesn't necessarily work for B, (and in fact, could seriously injure B). However, its a pretty low risk, low cost option, so its worth considering. Does anyone else out there have any experience with pomegranate, good or bad, that they can share? I'll continue with this regime and let you all know if the good times persist.
Sorry for the excess verbiage. Had to get it all out for my first post.