Starting the Specific Carbohydrate Diet!

Do you have the book?

Thanks to both of you. I ordered the book, it will be here in early July from amazon. I have been visiting the main site that represents the book, and have been referencing my food choices from their legal/illegal list. The main things I am cutting out of my diet are the grain cereals, breads... well actually a lot of things. I'm starting with things such as: olive oil, eggs, sugar free nut butters (peanut butter, almond, sunflower seed), chicken, green beans, lettuce, kippered herring (canned), apples, apple cider diluted with water etc...

I don't have the book yet, and haven't got into the yogurt thing. It says that commercial yogurt is banned, so that pretty much determines that I need to make my yogurt myself. I'm supplementing presently with VSL3 probiotics. Just started those again recently.

badslinke, I'm sorry to hear that your UC is so troublesome right now.  I've been there many times.  Last year at this time I was easily going ten times per day, with blood and many trips where there was nothing but little fragments of who knows what... and blood covering them.  I know how frustrating it is, trust me.

In an effort to avoid Remicade I have been pushing alternative treatments for myself.  Starting in January I began pretty close note taking on what I ate and the supplements I was taking.  Stopping milk brought my number of BM's down from about 6 to about 4 per day. 

I also have been taking turmeric root and Natren probiotics, both of which I give some credit to lessening my urgency and number of BM's.  I think the turmeric root actually deserves more of the credit.  I've also been taking olive leaf extract and wild oregano oil off and on, and have experienced several die-off reactions.

I was actually down to an average of a little over 2 BM's per day a few weeks ago.  Things have been creeping back up somewhat, so I am taking this SCD effort pretty seriously.  I believe healing is possible.

Good luck with getting out of your rut, and thanks for your reply.

i agree with everything imagardener2 has written here.

i prefer raw foods because they seem to cope better with my gut, but here we all are different.

my diet is more drastic than other people with SCD - even if my UC was not so bad, the side effects like AS or Fibro were worse - but i've never had seccond thoughts about it.
no more abdominal pain or burns, no more disconfort (off course, if i keep my diet), no more joint pain, no more fatigue.

at this momment i can enjoy about 1 kg of sour cherries/day, or strawberries, besides my limited diet - it's their season here.
i am sure that with time i will be able to difersify my diet, but i will never again touch pasta/bread/or any kind of processed food.

good luck in your jurney! be patient and listen to your gut and your food journal !

if you need the book e-mail me and i will reply with it in pdf format.

Well... I'm on day 15 of this diet, and feel that I'll need quite a while longer before I consider myself as being adjusted to it in a way where it will make a difference. I am only through maybe a quarter of the book, so I am only following the legal/illegal list thus far in my approach to the diet.

For the most part my diet has consisted of chicken, cheddar cheese, eggs, fruits (blueberry, pineapple, occasional apple, bananas, raspberries once, etc...), snap/snow peas raw for the most part, cooked recently, butter, apple cider diluted with water, occasional cooked veggies (like green beans, zucchini, spinach), canned sardine type fish called kipper snacks, honey once in a while, and recently I added in almond nut flour to begin making muffins.

***I am pretty sure I should be beginning with a more bland version of this diet, and I will get to that point. Right now I have simply made the adjustment of cutting out all the grains, starches and refined sugars. I'm so busy with things in my life that I am doing the best I can with this... but intuitively feel that more adjustments are needed, and that diet will help but not be the sole reason I heal.

The first five days my frequency of BM's went: 3, 4, 3, 4, 3. After that I had a couple days at 2 due to taking Lomotil after having pain and urgency (and wanting to go out with friends). In the last 9 days the frequency of BM's has been almost unanimously stuck on 3/day, with the BM's per day going 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3.

I have had pain on many days, tonight being one of them. It's always in the upper left portion of my colon... and it burns! No blood though, for almost the entire time. A few days in something went wrong and I had a horrible flakey bloody movement with not much there... but that was it. In the beginning my stools tended to be formed pretty well (medium at least), but now they are loose... as I refer to them as mush.

A couple notes:
-I felt a wave of health come over my body in the first few days of the diet. I just felt great overall, and do feel it was a result of the diet.
-I experienced a very sick like feeling around a week into the diet, that lasted for 4-5 days. Mornings were terrible to try to get out of bed. I felt very weak, tired, and just sick all over.

My supplement use while on this diet has been sporadic, but I am now beginning a regimen that is more dedicated, as I had done earlier this year.

There have been times within the last few months where I have had small streaks of better digestive health than I am having now, but they were not long lasting... so I am giving the SCD a shot. I am very thorough with my alternative healing and learning, so I hope to at the very least become one more research participant that has tried many ways to heal, and can possibly encourage or at least educate someone else who is searching for answers. Thus why I am updating this post.

badslinke said...
Interestingly, the VSL 3 packets are SCD illegal, because they have maltodextrin in them. This is where the SCD gets really difficult, because almost everything in a given supermarket has an illegal additive in it.

To be honest, the only time I really got better was when I was doing the SCD to my best (but not fully, cuz it is f'n difficult) and taking super massive doses of VSL 3 DS (3.6 trillion a day, the amount used in clinical trials). Currently I'm really considering going back to that regime, but unfortunately I don't have insurance so getting the DS is too expensive.

I'd never try a diet that forbids probiotics. Maltodextrin is made out of rice, or potato or corn starch. If those minuscule amounts are causing the diet to fail, I seriously question the diet.

Also, I could not live without peanut butter, or rice, or ... the illegal list ...

BTW, I'm taking 4 sachets of VSL#3DS daily as well.

Anyways, good luck to the OP.

badslinke said...
Interestingly, the VSL 3 packets are SCD illegal, because they have maltodextrin in them. This is where the SCD gets really difficult, because almost everything in a given supermarket has an illegal additive in it.

i do take medications that contain starch or complex sugars - i do not believe that a small amount from a pill will put me into a flare.

regarding the supermarket stuff - i only buy raw products and cook them at home. it's the only way to avoid a lot of things that can make me feel worse. and i do believe that it's a lot healthier way to live, even for normal people.

a small amount of something will not triger a flare, but combining a lot of aditives&complex sugars for sure it will. For example this monday I've forgot to take from home my daily lunch and had to buy some bacon from a store nearby - soy protein, maltodextrin, sugar, carageanan and some other stuff inside. I've added it to my carrots and my peppers.

one day after my back started to hurt, had a lot of gas and 2 BM's more than usual. a good lesson for me, to remember taking to work my homemade lunch :)

jonill... I have that book as well. One thing at a time I suppose, but I'm open to anything

Alinus... I keep a food journal of every food I eat in one of those lab notebooks, along with the number of BM's and any feelings (pain, lethargy etc...). Then I also list out about 25 different things regarding which supplements I took and my symptoms (pain, mood, sleep hours, work hours ect... ) in a spreadsheet every night. I am keeping good records.

Alright, unless there are other questions I will probably check back in to this thread in a couple weeks.

cjgk: no easy answer for sure, lol. This diet is not simply a switch of a few foods, it is life altering... and I think you have to be in a good place in your life in order for this to work. It takes so much time and dedication that it will become much too stressful if it is being "fit in" in between a busy schedule.

If anything my pain in my colon is worse lately, and my frequency just slightly higher. Eating mostly the same foods I have had days with two formed stools and days with 4 non-formed stools.

I think it's okay to look at the diet realistically, and to be honest with yourself if you feel a continual decline in your health while on the diet. You can always try again at a later date.

May I suggest trying a couple supplements to help with your blood and D? L glutamine mixed in water on an empty stomach, 1 tsp 3 times a day may help you out there. Also turmeric powder mixed in water... I take mine on an empty stomach. The turmeric powder helps bring down inflammation. Both can be purchased at whole foods. The turmeric powder is now 7.99 a pound in their "help yourself" type canisters where you take as much as you want. The L-glutamine is more expensive at whole foods than on the internet by a bit, but it's still not that expensive. On amazon you can get a pound for around 20 bucks, but I think 6-8 ounces at whole foods is around 12 or 14 bucks.

Good luck.

Hey

For SCD to work it needs fanatic adherance for quite some time. Thats because it is so generous on what you can eat.
Im myself am quite impaceant so I decided to go more strict than scd and I was symptomfree within 3 months.

Taking illegal things like vsl#3 will not only cause you improvement to stall it might give you bifilus overgrowth.
Stick strictly to the SCD or you can never say you atleast tried.

Theres another book, (life without bread) that talks about limit your carb intake to 70 daily.
I believe these both have a good point, for me going zero carbs made fast extreme improvements but now when Im in a more maintainence fase I would never go above 70 carbs a day.

I believe things as cucumber juice and citrus juice is essential when eating many acid producing food to keep the body in level.

Since last month I also do 8 ounces (2dl) of colloidal silver a day.

If you have white tongue that means you are yeast infected and should not consume and dairy or honey.
You might want to open a capsule bromelain onto the tongue to clear the candida/yeast off but in the long run it has to be done with diet.

You will probably be recovered within a year.

I'm on the SCD Diet, haven't been as strict as when I first started but I'm also on Remicade. Will be taking my 3rd infusion in four weeks. Started the diet June 17th 2011, Have noticed some improvements but also noticed gas is my major downfall. wakes me up during the night to go to the bathroom and sometimes during the day. bm's are 4-6/day mainly at night. I think almond flour is not tolerated well right now. I'm going to try pecan flour.
Any thoughts on Remicade or gas?
I also do 1-2 ounces of wheat grass juice in the morning on am empty stomach.

I'm getting a lot out of this thread. thank you.

Nuts and even nut flour can cause problems when you first start the diet - especially since we tend to overeat nut flour baked goodies if we're craving forbidden foods they replace. Try reducing or stopping the nut flour for a while and see how your symptoms react. Out of all nut products, nut butters would be the easiest to digest, then nut flours, then whole nuts.

I'd also try stopping the wheat grass grass juice and see if your symptoms improve. Here's some info that may be helpful:
pecanbread.com/p/tanya/grassjuice.html