Remission only when eating carb-free - anyone else experience this?

For me, whether something is considered inflammatory or not definitely matters, but even more so if it has any significant carbs/sugars. I can't even eat something like a sweet potato just because the carbs turn into sugar in your body. It's like my body cannot handle glucose at all. I will automatically start with smelly gas, and will have blood in my stool in the following days. I should also mention that my disease is primarily distal, meaning that it is the very lower part of my colon and rectum that seem to be affected. When Im inflamed, I feel as though I'm walking around with a baseball in my rectum. Constant urgency, pain, fatigue, irritation.

This is why for the longest time I've thought I had some type of bacteria since I'm so sensitive for sugar. But I've been tested with bloodwork and biopsies and seem to be clear of such things.

otaneresp

Don't know if this will help you but going gluten-free stopped my bleeding and later keeping high fiber out (called "low residue" by medical people) has also been very helpful. Try it one at a time for 4 weeks and see if bleeding lessens. You could also suspect a small hemorrhoid.

i might be wrong, but my belief that you can have both food allergies and food sensitivities in the same body -

i.e., that is, some foods may give you symptoms in as little as a few minutes, while other foods may take days or weeks -

LuckyLindy said...
Hellokitty - I tried raw foods diet for a few months, and while I had lots of energy I was in the bathroom ALL the time. I cannot tolerate any fruits, beans, starches, etc., which means that I can't possibly get enough calories on the raw foods diet without downing a few cups of oil per day (I even have problems with nuts - again, too many carbs).

LucasJ - I eat lots of chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, some red meat, liberal use of olive oil, and low carb veggies (broccoli, spinach, lettuce, some green beans/peppers). Not a great variety, but it works. When I've eaten like this for a while my colonoscopies have shown no sign of UC. When I was on carbs, the damage was severe enough that they wanted to remove my colon. But even though I have a clean colonoscopy while on the diet, I'm back to have D 10-20X/day within 24 hours, minor bleeding within 3 days, and severe bleeding within 7 days of going off the diet. I've gone a full 7 days completely off the diet 3 times since I started it 5 years ago, and all 3 times I became anemic enough that they wanted to give me blood/iron transfusions. Instead, I started back on my diet and the bleeding quickly subsided, and a few months of 6 FE pills/day nixed my anemia.

Again, I am EXACTLY like this except I cannot eat egg, beans or peppers. I was hoping there was some type of underlying cause that you came across. Have you ever been tested for H. Pylori? I tested positive a few years ago but supposedly I am clear of it now. I am currently on Humira but I cannot tell if it is doing much or not.

My diet is chicken, turkey, fish, grass-fed beef, olive oil, animal fats like duck fat, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, brussel sprouts. I keep thinking that if I repair myself long enough that I will be able to try new foods in the future but no matter how long I abstain I'm right back to square one the second I try something new.

Corn is supposed to have all kinds of issues for UC, as I recall. I forget the term they use, and I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me will answer better. Corn on the cob was my favorite veggie, but I gave it up years ago. I miss it. And fritos. ;-(

I have a headache from all these different diet suggestions! I've been looking/searching about this and have read about Perlot's "Raw food diet" McDougal's diet; last night someone told me about the GAPS diet...

I'm open to understanding the nutrition angle... having allergies my whole life, I understood that for some reason my body looks at harmless things as attacking the body - which is what causes a body reaction (inflammation) so when I first was diagnosed with UC - it seemed logical to think there was something similar going on with the gut in terms of an allergic reaction. My allergist said "I can understand why you'd think that..." and that was it - didn't agree or completely disagree with it.

I suppose the wide variations in diets could still support an allergy-type cause/effect. One person responds favorably to raw food diet over another just like I might be allergic to dust and you're not...

Perhaps we have to start with an elimination diet and add things and see how our body reacts to each thing?

brucen36 said...
OP, this is pretty much what happens to me. Except that I am okay with fructose and glucose foods. It is the the foods that actually cause my UC symptoms. When I take away starch, sucrose, etc, my symptoms disappear. If I cheat, symptoms return. Don't know how to get rid of this.

brucen36, when you cheat and the symptoms come back----do they go away when you cease eating the offending foods, or does it take meds to get back into remission?

Thanks, iPoop.....I am always in search of a miracle and tend to believe in magic. It's genetic ;-)

I know you're right though. But there HAS to be some common veins to this for some of us. I was just curious if he could get himself back into remission sans meds (not really about which foods he can or can't eat).