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Does eating bad food make inflammation worse ?

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Posted 12/31/2015 1:39 PM (GMT 0)
Obviously some foods are pro inflammatory, but how important is diet and how much can it influence your degree of inflammation? Have you ever made your inflammation worse by eating certain foods? I am talking about the times you weren't very familiar with the disease and only later realized that you have more problems when eating certain food.

This question can't be clearly answered.

I probably made my symptoms worse by eating pasta soup, thinking it was safe. I started having liquid stools. I ended up in the hospital. I am not sure how much of it was glutens fault. I feel dumb because of it. This is just speculation ofc.
Posted 12/31/2015 1:46 PM (GMT 0)
Many of us find that a food diary can help to isolate those select foods that can cause problems.
Posted 12/31/2015 2:11 PM (GMT 0)
i don't consider any food bad per se - but there can be bad foods for you - the trick is to find out what they are if indeed there are any -

it can be extremely difficult to figure out, especially when you're flaring - all food can be bad at that point -

I had food allergy testing done - some folks don't believe in it - i do ! testing can make the task of nailing down what foods are a problem a lot easier -
Posted 12/31/2015 2:36 PM (GMT 0)
There is no concensus of what a "bad" food is, it's something your gut is the "decider" on.
That's why doctors are so reluctant to talk about food in relation to IBD, it's all over the place. They order tests and tell you the results.

Even gluten-free is not definable for me since my celiac test came back negative. So for years I continued eating wheat products, but when I finally quit them my gut stopped bleeding and I started to get better.
My gene-test says I have a high probability of being celiac but I quit gluten before I had that test and believe what my gut says more than anything else. Same thing with dairy, test says I'm not lactose intolerant, gut says "gasser up".

Diet modification is probably the hardest thing I ever did in my life (except for starting a business) but it got results I didn't get with RX meds. Good luck with your diet.

Inflammation foods: red meat is listed everywhere as inflammatory but it was the one thing my gut could handle with no problems when flaring was at it's worst. It is inflammatory by all measures but it's also easily digested and has vitamins. So there's that additional gotcha to deal with. I only eat 4 oz red meat per meal and only 1-2 times a week now but my gut loves NY strip, (shrug)?
Posted 12/31/2015 3:25 PM (GMT 0)
Yes!
Posted 12/31/2015 3:28 PM (GMT 0)
I have first hand experience with confirming that certain things are

Extremely bad: smoked meat, fat, gluten (undigested bread, pasta cooked, even small amounts of pasta in soup bother me, flour in certain foods)

Bad: corn (corn bread with pieces of cheese)

The good thing is, I seemed to not have any problems with meat. I only eat chicken, I also had a little bit of pork, but I evade it at all costs.

juststud said...
i don't consider any food bad per se - but there can be bad foods for you - the trick is to find out what they are if indeed there are any -

it can be extremely difficult to figure out, especially when you're flaring - all food can be bad at that point -

I had food allergy testing done - some folks don't believe in it - i do ! testing can make the task of nailing down what foods are a problem a lot easier -

That's smart. I thought about doing that. What kind of tests did you do ?

Post Edited (emilp89) : 12/31/2015 8:33:53 AM (GMT-7)

Posted 12/31/2015 3:36 PM (GMT 0)
I additional question... How about WILD MEAT ? I mean the easily available meats, which are usually red, wild boar, deer, etc. They are red, but are they pro inflammatory ?

Anyone have any first hand experience with this ?
Posted 12/31/2015 3:55 PM (GMT 0)
Well, I recently learned that veterinarians switch their animals with IBD to wild meats. Their thinking is pretty logical - the idea is that the animal (cat/dog mainly) has never had this protein source before and therefore cannot have an immune reaction to it. Whereas in the animal with IBD has a 'leaky gut' and may have developed tolerance issues to common foods in their diet.

Inflammation and tolerance issues seem to go hand in hand, both in animals and in humans. So it might be worth it to try switching to wild meats if you are having tolerance issues with regular cow products etc.

As for if meat in general is pro-inflammatory, I'm sure you can find ample information to support both sides of the argument.
Posted 12/31/2015 3:57 PM (GMT 0)
No. I have no uc issues at all that I can relate with any specific food. I tried food diaries, eliminating gluten, dairy, all the usual suspects. I gave a change a month to work, if it would. Nothing changed for better or worse with my uc symptoms. So, I try to eat healthy as a generalization but do eat fast food and soda as occasional treats, I drink alcohol. My gut seems to like junk food better... less bms.

Uc is very individual.
Posted 12/31/2015 4:02 PM (GMT 0)
One contributing factor why red meat is considered inflammatory is because most cows are fed corn at the feedlots. Corn contains pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats. To make things worse it is probably GMO corn. In nature cows don't eat corn but are grass fed with more healthy omega-3 fats.

Wild game also avoid corn. I don't know the exact numbers but grass fed beef should be much less inflammatory than conventional beef. I don't know if eating lots of any red meat is safe but grass fed should be better than corn fed.
Posted 12/31/2015 4:59 PM (GMT 0)
Everyone is different. What foods may irritate one person may not irritate another. It's all trial and error to see what you can eat. Dairy was my nemesis.
Posted 12/31/2015 5:01 PM (GMT 0)
but do irritation and inflammation go together ? Some things may not bother you, but cause inflammation ?
Posted 12/31/2015 5:57 PM (GMT 0)
I think inflammation can occur very slowly so it is hard to know if those cheeseburgers are worsening your condition. That is why a food diary helps pinpoint triggers over time. For me, the only extremely bad foods are corn and wheat. I can eat tons of dairy but that seems to not be the norm.

Coffeemate - that is interesting about the cows being fed corn. I also seem to do poorly if I eat too much red meat over time and now I wonder if it is the corn they are fed. Corn is definitely my nemesis.
Posted 12/31/2015 6:28 PM (GMT 0)
I kept a food journal many times over the decades of being sick...I've also done the Low FODMAP no fructose diet to see if any specific food groups bother my guts and nothing was conclusive (for my IBS, as my CD was already in remission) so stress is what drives my IBS for me, not food, and sometimes I wonder if the same thing happens with just having IBD as well, not written in stone of course but I wouldn't be surprised if when a person is stressed it will aggravate their digestive system not to mention our immune system is basically in our gut so if our immune system is messed up then foods will have a negative affect more often than not.

I found that sometimes it seems like certain foods will bug my gut more than usual and other times it has no effect on my gut and my gut will behave better, it's like there's not a lot of rhyme or reason when it comes to the actual food but maybe the stress level is playing a bigger role than the actual foods are? After all, when you're stressed (any degree) cortisone is released by our immune system isn't it? I don't know, it's just a thought anyway.
Posted 12/31/2015 6:36 PM (GMT 0)
I don't know if it is the cortisol or whatever, but stress has been shown to change your gut's microbiome by releasing chemicals that kill good bacteria and leave bad bacteria intact.
Posted 12/31/2015 6:47 PM (GMT 0)

Coffeemate said...
I don't know if it is the cortisol or whatever, but stress has been shown to change your gut's microbiome by releasing chemicals that kill good bacteria and leave bad bacteria intact.

In that case I need to leave home and become completely independent ASAP. Not a good environment for me.

I ofc already planned this for a couple of months.
Posted 12/31/2015 6:54 PM (GMT 0)
I see you're already on meds...maybe something else is going on....
Have you had stool sampling done?

No, pasta soup wouldn't have made your flare worse to lead you to the hospital. Something is going on....methinks flare is worse, not under control or you didn't recognise symptoms were getting worse anyway.
or you picked up a gastro intruder and that would be a separate issue, but not good for your flare in general.

q
Posted 12/31/2015 7:26 PM (GMT 0)

quincy said...
I see you're already on meds...maybe something else is going on....
Have you had stool sampling done?

No, pasta soup wouldn't have made your flare worse to lead you to the hospital. Something is going on....methinks flare is worse, not under control or you didn't recognise symptoms were getting worse anyway.
or you picked up a gastro intruder and that would be a separate issue, but not good for your flare in general.

q

I didn't mention that it wasn't exactly the normal pasta soup, it was just pasta soup for quick preparation (don't know what you call it). It was also the first and only thing I ate in the morning. I've found that an irritant is much more irritating when not mixed with other things.

I did a bunch of stool tests in March, parasites and whatnot. All came back negative, but that was a long time ago.

The last thing I've done is Calprotectin and C diff. Calprotectin gave the result of >10000, yea very high. C diff was negative.

I said it's my second flare, but it was two months after I stopped taking Prednisone and I got diarrhea 1 week before the already planned visit to my GI. So I doubt I was out of the woods. I was on Asacol the entire time.

EDIT:

I had some other symptoms, before the flare... acid reflux during the night, dull upper abdomen pain when eating meat (lasted 6 hours one time), vomiting 3 times a day (when taking probiotics before sleep), all these things happened one by one, basically I had one of these problems every 2 weeks.

My first GI told me to get hospitalized (but I had to wait for the space to open up at their clinic), so I went to a hospital where my second and current GI told me Colonoscopy isn't necessary yet and he started treating me.

Post Edited (emilp89) : 12/31/2015 12:32:23 PM (GMT-7)

Posted 12/31/2015 7:30 PM (GMT 0)
so were you also on rectal meds at the time?

I meant stool samples while in hospital to make sure it wasn't something else as well....

q
Posted 12/31/2015 7:42 PM (GMT 0)

quincy said...
so were you also on rectal meds at the time?

I meant stool samples while in hospital to make sure it wasn't something else as well....

q

Currently not on rectal meds. They gave them to me in the hospital. Then the GI did a quick Colonoscopy without prep. Took biopsy and said that the rectum looks good and that we don't know what's going on further down the colon. Biopsy results confirm UC. Since it looks good, I don't need rectal meds, but I am going to put them today because I felt more pain, in the lower left part of the abdomen, than usual, it's better to take them. A lot of my pain (besides lower left) is in the lower right part of the abdomen.

No they didn't take stool samples.

EDIT: I was only on Asacol during those 2 months. If that's what you mean.
Posted 12/31/2015 10:42 PM (GMT 0)
I'm confused...so your scope was a c-scope? and the doc said that above the rectum looked how? meaning farther up, not down.
Did looking good mean no inflammation or no bleeding?


do you have a copy of your biopsy results?
awfully rare if ever one would have rectal sparing unless there's obvious structural signs of very long-term inflammation.

UC as a diagnosis seems off unless what the doctor said meant not severe.

Try not to make it all about food...you will drive yourself crazy and tend to focus on that aspect and not understand what's going on in your colon.

Do you have a regular GI doc?

Hope you do start to feel better soon. The first 2 years for me had lots of ups and downs emotionally before I got the hang of what was going on.

q
Posted 12/31/2015 11:19 PM (GMT 0)
It was just a quick colonoscopy without prep, he said that the part that he managed to see looked good, no bleeding, that there were only traces of inflammation.

My guess is that this is because of, first a couple of days rectal suppositories use, and then three weeks of Salofalk Enema use.

Yes I have a copy, but it's in another language. It is ofc filled with medical terms that are difficult to translate.

It's not severe, 2 watery BMs a day, but it probably spread to the entire colon. It spread once, now that it can't spread anymore (I hope) I fear it will get worse in the future.

What do you mean by "regular GI doc" ?

Thanks. I am feeling pretty bummed out now. It usually happens when I have this dull abdominal pain (I hope this is the result of me eating something bad and not the result of something bad happening). Being alone on NYE doesn't help, I should focus less on the web and the forums. Doesn't affect me well when I focus on the disease too much.

EDIT: Now, I obviously have mucus in my stool. I've probably always had, probably just smaller amounts.

Post Edited (emilp89) : 12/31/2015 4:47:33 PM (GMT-7)

Posted 1/1/2016 7:15 AM (GMT 0)
In my experience, no food has ever made my flare/inflammation better-but plenty has made it worse. Excess dairy and sugar kills me. As others have said, I would advise keeping a food journal. Sadly most of this disease comes down to trial and error
Posted 1/1/2016 8:23 AM (GMT 0)

MarsRover said...
In my experience, no food has ever made my flare/inflammation better-but plenty has made it worse. Excess dairy and sugar kills me. As others have said, I would advise keeping a food journal. Sadly most of this disease comes down to trial and error

How do you know whether the last food you ate bothers you and not the one you ate before? I know that a couple of hours are necessary for it to pass through the bowels, how does diarrhea influence this?
Posted 1/1/2016 2:13 PM (GMT 0)
How do you know whether the last food you ate bothers you and not the one you ate before? I know that a couple of hours are necessary for it to pass through the bowels, how does diarrhea influence this?

A food diary is essential for diet modification. You cannot immediately trace some foods to gut reactions whereas some foods make their reaction fairly fast.

So you remove the foods that are immediately identifiable and continue your monitoring. In my case there were quite a lot of different problem foods so it took a lot of sorting out and frankly took years. But all along the way my symptoms got better so I knew I was on the right trail.

Some foods caused D and some caused C. And some foods caused multiple solid BM's which I don't call D, I believe this was IBS causing the reaction to trigger foods.And during my worst flaring my gut was just so inflamed it was a question of only a few foods being tolerated but once things started calming down due to diet modification it became easier to identify which foods still caused reactions.

For me gluten was the very hardest food to link to gut reactions because it would shut my gut down (not a bad thing when you're running to the toilet every hour or less). But it also caused bleeding so once I knew that it is out permanently.

Also, after my gut calmed down some previous problem foods are now able to be eaten in small quantities. So do not despair that you'll never be able to eat "food XYZ" again, maybe you will. Or maybe you'll know what reaction will happen and eat it anyway knowing the consequences. I did that yesterday by eating ice cream ha.
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