(No Subject)

My husband and I met with a health coach, who is also a friend of my husband's. She was concerned about the amount of yeast that may be present in my body since I was eating sweets, breads, etc. So since I am the one with Ulcerative Colitis, I needed to start a new non sugar diet called Candida diet, which can be found online. It was working very well, but the past few days, my urgencies have escalated.I tried to explain to the health coach that its difficult to stay on a candida diet where the diet is consists mostly of vegetables, meats, and nuts. I basically have been having nuts and coconut chips as a snack. For the past few days, I have been in the bathroom non stop in the morning. In addition, it feels like the areas in my large intestine where I have the UC is inflamed. Should I stick on this diet and see what happens? Should I continue eating nuts? Bring back sandwiches and fruit? I need to lose weight too, which is the other reason I went on the diet. What should I do? It's really confusing.

Heather

Heather, first off, you should do what you want to do. You shouldn't feel pressured to do something. Of course UC all by itself puts pressure on you to want to do something but nobody, anywhere has the answer for any one particular individual. Your doctor may not have the answer, your husband doesn't have the answer, your husband's friend doesn't have the answer, and we don't have the answer either. I don't want that to sound discouraging but the truth is there is only one answer for each individual and nobody anywhere knows the answer for you because the answer is something different works in everyone. It is all trial and error. It would be so easy if we could all just listen to a health coach, change our diet, and poof - our UC is gone. There is no doubt in my mind that diets of different kinds can help or even cure certain individuals with their UC but some health nuts think that this solution is the cure all for everyone who is sick with anything and that just isn't true. Health related treatments will work on some but others are just truly sick and will never be helped by just living healthy and eating healthy. There are many who have UC that were already living and eating a healthy lifestyle but came down with UC anyway.

I am personally intensely researching the same avenue you are going down now but I have some real problems with parts of it and I don't think it's a catch all answer. I already know that generally meats don't give me any problems and most cooked veggies don't either. I can't eat raw veggies and nuts give me severe problems. I suspect that's what's happening to you. Nuts are very hard to digest and our colons have enough problems already without having to digest something that is hard on our systems.

I always find it interesting when people like you are trying stuff like this. By "people like you" I am referring to the fact that your signature indicates you are on Humira. You take a dangerous drug like that because you want it to help but if it is doing so poorly that you have to do a Candida diet and you are having the problems you mentioned, is it worth doing at all, given the bad side effects that could happen?