If you're gonna flare make it a good one!! - diet question/advise

changing diet and quitting meds are not the same topic

try some changes, or maybe try probiotics

good luck with remicade

Start by eliminating one food at a time and keep a food diary to make notes about symptoms.
I agree don't do two big things at once (quit meds and do big diet changes) or you will never know what worked. Use rectal enemas if you have bleeding.

Sometimes it can take several tries to figure out what foods aggravate your colon. I asked my GI if he thought my food intolerances were IBS and he said No, his opinion it was all UC related.

I didn't know that fibrous foods (nuts, bananas, etc) were a problem until way after my gut started behaving. In the beginning of my diet mod (several tries with it) almost everything was causing problems but slowly began to see patterns.

Gluten-free is an important factor for me and it was not immediately detectable because gluten and other grains make my gut slow down to C (which seemed good right?) but after the D was under control then I could work on C (constipation). So very complicated to figure it out.

Good luck. Even if diet mod. does not help you it's good information for your records.

FSLondon said...
Do not stop your medication.

I don't think eliminating one thing at a time works well for UC, since if food bothers you there are likely to be many foods that make symptoms worse, so eliminating one food won't show much difference. The much harder, but clearer approach is to simplify your diet very much for 3-5 days (the SCD intro diet is a good example) and add back in one thing at a time starting with things that you suspect you tolerate well. Regardless of anything else I would recommend cutting out carrageenan, guar gum, etc.

SCD works for some. For others it is a real disaster (both doesn't work and leaves them with not enough energy). The helpful thing about it is it provides a clear template to follow. That said, most will agree that trying diets requires some tinkering.

I generally agree with this post. The part of SCD that probably helped me the most was eliminating all foods and then introducing them back in one at a time. But it's a very big commitment and many times it was a step forward and half a step backward, probably because so many legal SCD foods/drinks did not agree with my gut.

But any attempt to find what foods/drinks cause symptoms is a step in the right direction.
Doctors advocate a "low residue" diet to give the gut a rest, but even that would not be OK with my gut because gluten is allowed on low residue.