Need to go into remission

I have just finished my Architecture degree but I have been suffering from a flare-up the past 6 months due to a combination of high stress levels and lack of time to meet doctors to discuss how I could go into remission. I plan to ring my consultant tomorrow, however he is one of those guys that only likes to deal with the medication side of things - not lifestyle/diet. Therefore, as I am due to start my new job in a couple of weeks, I desperately want to be well on my way to remission ASAP!

I am willing to try anything - diet overhaul, vitamins/supplements/alternative therapies/any suggestions on medication to speak to my consultant about. I have never tried anything other than medication in the form of Pentasa suppositories and steroids (which I despise) in the past. Please help!!!



Female, 21 years old, Pentasa oral x8/day, Pentasa suppositories x1/day, lead a healthy lifestyle (exercise regularly, don't smoke, perhaps drink too much on nights out)

Flareups:
-age 14, hospitalised, severe, lasted 4 months
-age 16, hospitalised, very severe, lasted 5 months
-age 19, mild-moderate, lasted 5 months
- age 21, moderate, lasted 6 months and counting...

Unfortunately I react badly to Azathioprine and vomit less than an hour having taken it, despite trying taking half a tablet twice/day. Thanks for your advice on the probiotics and multivitamin, the only 'extras' I take at the moment is iron.

I have tried the foam steroids, they just do not work for me which is frustrating, I just get the urgent need to go straight after. The fact that alot of meds don't agree with me is the idea behind the change of diet (asacol causes hair loss and is another one I can't take)

I was looking into the low residue diet which seems, to the perhaps uneducated eye, to be the complete reverse to the two diets you mention as that one seems the most similar to my current diet. My typical daily diet at the moment consists of cereal for breakfast, sandwich/pizza/soup for lunch and meat (usually fish) and some veg and a potato for dinner. Although I do have a sweet tooth for chocolate :P As I never eat pasta I imagine the difficult parts would be replacing the bread, curbing my sweet tooth and find a replacement for milk and my numerous mugs of tea. I havn't really researched this before, but it does seem just after tonights research, there is a fair amount of 'standard' diets with meal suggestions I could try which is encouraging.

I am in the U.K. :)

The low residue diet tends to be used for strictures or guts which are too compromised to tolerate fibre and other rough, scratchy foods. You can, however, always try it. If you have a lot of BMs a day, then it can help to reduce the frequency by 'binding' up your stools. A stricter variation is the BRAT (banana, rice, apple sauce, toast) diet. Google will give you more info.

You should know within a few days if a low residue diet is gonna do anything for you or not. Diets like the SCD tend to be more of a long-term project. Sometimes people can improve rapidly on them, but other people report being on them for several months before they saw an improvement. To be honest, going from your current diet to the SCD would be a huge change. Before changing your diet that drastically, I think it would be worth trying something a bit simpler first; gluten-free or dairy-free, for example. That might be all that's needed. Alternatively, you can attempt to pinpoint 'problem' individual foods by keeping a food diary for a few months. Again, that would obviously be a long-term thing, but might help for future flare-ups.

I'm sorry; this is basically the exact oppposite of what you want to hear right now, but there's no established way of getting out a remission quickly. For a quick'n'dirty remission, there are steroids... and, well, steroids <_<. Every other drug takes at least a few weeks to start working. By the way, I would ask about Remicade. I'll be honest; with UC you stand less of a chance of getting it than you do with Crohn's. But nevertheless, I have heard of some UK folks with UC who're on Remicade; it literally is a postcode lottery. Ask your consultant about it; stress the fact Pentasa and azathioprine haven't worked for you.

Good luck...

I should try taking my own advice sometimes :p

I've tried gluten-free already (albeit a few years ago), so can't say I feel inclined to try that again. Dairy would be the next obvious group to cut out, but I honestly don't know how I'd live without cow's milk in my tea. Or milk chocolate. Or cheese. Etc.

I am on very good way to get into remission myself.

For me the biggest problem was the gas. I have strong muscles enough to keep inside even water (I have tried water enemas with some probiotics in, and I could keep it 12 hours). But add gas to it and visits to the toilet will be frequent. As probably most here, I got the skin worn out, because of the frequent bowl moments.

I do not yet know if my diet change is what is slowly getting me into remission, but one thing is sure: It takes away the gas problem, making it a lot easier to live as I do not have many bowl moments a day anymore. My diet is simply to follow some food combination rules based on the "Hay diet". It is not about excluding food items, more about what food items can be combined with other food items.

In the very beginning, I followed the most strict sets of rules I found on this site: http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/digestive-physiology-and-food-combining/ (Those rules works very well, but there are other articles there too, which I do not agree with, for example that D-vitamin supplements are not needed). Nowadays I follow a slightly more loose set of rules, which adds a bit gas too, but I have been getting firm enough poop to allow a bit of gas.

The next day after I begun with the most strict rules, I did not have even one bowl moment, as I was slowly starting to fill up an empty intestine, and no gas pushing out everything in advance.