Need help. just diagnosed with ulcerative collitis

I'm a 18 year the r old male I play hockey and am a very active and usually more healthy individual. The problem is I'm away for college 8 months out of the year and eat a lot of fast food and dorm food. My life has completely switched around on me and on top of this, I have ulcers in my stomach and got celiac disease as well so no gluten. Any advice or what places to eat at or avoid? scared and have no idea what to do.

I’m so sorry for your diagnosis! I was also older and thankful to have been spared the diagnosis when I was young.

That said my best advice is to find a good GI that specializes is IBD and get to remission as soon as you can. There are lots of options out now for medications. What are you currently taking?

As far as food — when I was ill (I’m in remission now and eat whatever I want) I found some natural beef sticks without additives on amazon. I don’t remember the brand now but do a search. Those were easy to carry around (for a while —long term they need refrigeration I think). There are lots of nut based gluten free crackers. Fast food I found Taco Bell or del taco to be better than burgers or fries. Luckily there are options even in fast food for gluten free. If you’re in an active flare try to avoid sugars and sugar substitutes, and a lot of the additives. Salads — depends on your flare if you can tolerate raw veggies or not. Get a small blender and make your own smoothies with bananas and nut butters. There’s some powder proteins that are not wheat based. You might give Vegan diet a try , but do keep track of your food. I found beans to be too much fiber for my gut but that was me — your mileage may vary!

It’s not quick or easy but it is manageable. Luckily being vegan or health food conscious is not looked upon as being weird anymore.

Thank you so much for these kinds of messages. I'm currently still in the hospital and haven't been put on medication yet. My stomach was like a trampoline and eventually, it couldn't bounce back anymore and it broke creating a hole of issues. The ulcers are created by a lot of foods unfortunate. I'm currently able to grill chicken and some smoothies with rice among other things. It is just very scary in my case. Since the doctors told me I can't eat 75 percent of all foods and on top of my other allergies I have to avoid all fast food and greasy foods on top of milk and lactose things with gluten and soy. What I'm struggling with is finding snacks and other things. For the last 18 years, I was able to eat anything I wanted to and now I can. They said if I continue to eat like crap it could kill me and it scares me knowing I have no choice in this matter. I am also allergic to most medications so it's going to be a challenge to find one that works. The positive side is that all of this will make me extremely healthy for hockey.

Hi welcome to the forum. Ulcerative colitis is not caused by diet but when we are flaring then it's common to become intolerant to many foods. I found i couldn't stomach any insoluble fibre (that included many vegetables like cabbage and spinach as well as whole grains and legumes like lentils), foods with trans fats (chips, fried things) and anything processed with additives were also a no-no, and I'm intolerant to dairy most of the time anyway. I think when i was really bad I was pretty much living off chicken, white rice (basmati and sushi rice easiest to digest), pumpkin, bananas, eggs and sweet potatoes. I found ripe bananas easier to stomach than green ones, and was snacking on nut butters (try to find organic ones with just the nuts and no additives). As my gut healed i could slowlt introduce more and more foods and now i can eat pretty much anything. I do try to avoid processed foods as they are full of additives that can be pro inflammatory and not good for any health condition. But sometimes I cheat because life is short too and it can get exhausting to hyper analyse and worry over every mouthful of food.

Welcome, and hope you’re feeling better soon. A good source for eating advice is on sites like Crohn's and Colitis Canada, celiac.ca, celiac.org, Crohn's and Colitis foundation.org. Most of these sites have a link for 'newly diagnosed’ which can be very helpful, as well as links to help for eating well with the disease.
While you’re in hospital you might also ask if there’s a dietician you can speak to about diet advice for your particular needs. (Depending on where you live there may be a charge for that service so worth checking first. Insurance also may cover the cost. A good dietitian can point you to other resources for eating to support your issues)
Best of luck!

Next Thursday I will be sitting down with a professional diet person and also find out my meds and how I can figure this out. They said my condition was very severe and my flare-ups ended up in the hospital since I passed out and threw up or had blood in my stool. Thank you all for the great advice and I will consider it. There is no Whole Foods near my college so getting easy things will be hard but I will contact my school and see what I can do about it. Are any snacks or foods that are very safe to eat with Ulcerative Colitis? Currently, until Thursday I'm eating no fiber no gluten no beef or meat besides chicken. And no dairy on top of a few more things. So currently eating very scarce. My diet is vegan, and I'm seeing what I can and cannot eat. I've been told I'm basically on a brat diet. I'm sacred about all these new changes knowing I cant eat a lot of food for a long time or lifelong. But it will make me more healthy overall.

Nolan,

I hope you are feeling better.. What are you eating while in the hospital? Did your symptoms have a sudden onset or was it gradual?

My disease came on suddenly. I could not keep anything down and I had sever diarrhea. For some reason things I can eat when I am flaring are natural homemade jerky.. no additives or added things..., SCD bonebroth chicken soup, and puffy Cheetos. I was so relieved when I could keep a Cheeto down. I know it's junk food... But it's the only thing I could keep down for about 4 months.....

My son, had a mini freezer/refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven, and a crockpot in his dorm. I wonder if you could have something like that set up in your room? You may have to get prior approval before doing that..

Please let us know how you are doing.

Clo