Flare Triggers?

I'm trying to decide whether diet has an impact on my UC.

Two or three weeks ago, I began eating the occasional meal without strictly adhering to a gluten-free, reduced-carb diet, as I thought my UC was inching closer to remission.

Yesterday, I began to notice some bloody mucus again.

Coincidentally, during this time, I've also been under increased stress from work and not getting enough sleep.

For those of you who use diet modification to control UC symptoms, do you ever go off your diet, and if so, how soon after do you notice symptoms returning?

Is diet alone the greatest factor in controlling your UC symptoms, or do you still need to be mindful of other triggers like stress, sleep, etc?

I'm trying to decide what to do next.... I am currently taking Uceris, Apriso, Rowasa, Canasa, Curcumin, VSL#3 DS, Metamucil, and vit D3, daily.

Thanks!

Stress and illness are my biggest triggers, although diet does play a role. I would clean up my diet and make sure Your are taking the max dose of your meds for the next few weeks, nightly rowasa if you aren't already doing that for sure. As much as I had them, rectal meds work better for me than anything else!

For me, stress is the key factor to any flare I had. Food triggered the symptoms already there.

I'm in remission, been in remission for over a year now.

Stress seems to be my biggest trigger. I find that food (save for obvious things like overly greasy, saucsy, spicy etc.) in general doesn't trigger me, but food compounded with stress will often get me on a path to starting up a flare. I stick to my meds, increase my water consumption, and try to force myself to be more physical(even if it hurts). I've found that I have been able to delay or shoo away flares doing this.

If you are going to have conversations about eating, foods, diet, nutrition, or supplements, some vocabulary helps.

the distinction between a flare (start/increase in inflammation or ulcers) and symptoms (D, mucus, blood, cramps, constipation, urgency) is important. Typically foods that disagree with you affect symptoms. The underlying flare is often ongoing.

Many foods can manipulate gut microbes and thus symptoms. Some manipulations can even affect flares. Some food sensitivities are temporary when flaring (i.e., gut microbes that aid digestion are all out of wack). Some may be genetically based allergies that would not be an issue except you are flaring, and some may have been allergies that helped develop your UC.

Some nutrition (e.g., fibers that promote butyerate fermentation, anti-inflammatory ingredients, prebiotics that help good microbes...) can moderate inflammation or otherwise affect healing.

Same for some supplements and probiotics. It is always good to think whether you are targeting symptoms or underlying inflammation.

Some things like greasy or overly processed foods may introduce too much salt or might be likely to upset anyone's stomach - but this is stomach - not colon. It may also have bulk that is undesirable when you have D, because more D. Low residue is best when flaring.

Eating (anything) activates motility, which can be painful if ulcerated, or increase D, or bring on urgency.

Anyway, of these distinctions are sorted, there will be less confusion in diet discussions, and less consternation over docs saying diet does not cause UC. Most would agree it often modulates symptoms.

When I have a hot flare, I benefit from eliminating gluten. I can tolerate lactose - but not with sugar, so ice cream will do me in. Never had a casein problem.

Ginger and tumeric help my symptoms a lot. Sometimes I got by on a white rice with a little ginger and tumeric in butter.

VSL helped me short term, but then did not give much benefit after my gut rebalanced.

good luck to everyone trying to sort this out and get better UC management.

All food triggered symptoms when I was flaring. What goes in must come out.

(LOL!)