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How long does it take a "bad food" to affect you?

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Posted 3/20/2016 12:53 AM (GMT 0)
So how long does it take a "bad food" to affect you? Is it a few hours, 12 hours? A day? I'm just curious. Anyone know any science to back it up? Does the food only affect you once it hits your colon or before?
Posted 3/20/2016 2:31 AM (GMT 0)
If you see it in the toilet when you go to the bathroom your body probably hasn't tolerated it well.
I'm not so sure about specific foods, it changes all the time. This is why Elaine says on scd that if you don't tolerate something try again later. I literally don't know what I don't tolerate, then again I'm on scd. When I was severely flaring I remember beans were bad, balsamic vinagarette was terrible

Anyway, focus on what is generally known as good instead.

For instance: gelatin, avocado, scrambled eggs, well cooked carrots, slow cooker chicken, bananas, squash all VERY GOOD
Posted 3/20/2016 12:01 PM (GMT 0)
Some have a bad reaction almost immediately, sometimes it takes hours, and sometimes it takes until the next morning until it's noticed. It depends how severe of a reaction you have to said food. I've only experienced next morning in the case of a spicey food or a few too many alcoholic drinks.
Posted 3/20/2016 1:40 PM (GMT 0)
The reason it took me so long to figure out what foods/drinks affected my gut negatively is that they react differently, some immediately (caffeine/chocolate) and others could literally be days. Gluten and fiber make my gut come to a halt with C which can last for days if overdone, then bleeding follows the C.

Milk products and fructose usually create gas overnight. So reaction time is all over the place. Maybe because different bacteria that "handles" different food/drinks are in different areas of the gut?

As my gut has gotten better it is able to handle foods/drinks not possible before. Coffee and caffeinated tea are tolerated now (yay) almost like a normal gut. Chocolate is an every-now-and-then treat. Fiber tolerance is getting better.

My gut doesn't know science and my brain makes up excuses for gut's behavior and tries to talk me into eating/drinking something the brain wants and lets the gut pay the bill haha.
Posted 3/20/2016 8:13 PM (GMT 0)
what is "bad" varies greatly. I suspect it depends a lot on composition of gut microbes, location of inflammation, and individual autoimmune components.

as such there is no science, because it is not a thing - it is many individual triggers.

But anything within an hour or so of eating has should lean towards IBS, or other issues with peristalsis, or alergic reactions.

Things that show up 12+ hours may have altered the climate of the gut (e.g., food for microbes) and result in gas, bloating, pain, and maybe diarrhea.

If symptoms worsen 2-5 days after including a food/nutrition in your diet, this may be a slower effect on gut microbes, or may be proteins that your immune system has formed antigens to. When the mucasal lining leaks, food proteins get where they should not be, and antigens can be formed. SO in addition to antigens to your own tissue, you can also become much more sensitive to certain proteins.

IMO, a lot of the microbe associated symptoms can be countered if you can hit on the right combination of probiotics, and also nutrients that promote mucosal healing. In combination with an anti-inflammatory like 5-asa, this is enough for many. But, no guarantees. We each have unique genetic side of IBD.
Posted 3/20/2016 8:38 PM (GMT 0)
Well for me, while flaring, if you define "bad food" as "anything I put in my mouth", it can take about 10 seconds to effect me. I wouldn't even make it through a meal without having to run to the toilet :)
Posted 3/21/2016 11:05 AM (GMT 0)
It can take me as little as 15-20 minutes if I eat crab, I haven't even left the restaurant yet and I'm in agony. Creamy pasta is also bad, as is chilli foods
Posted 3/21/2016 6:16 PM (GMT 0)

DBwithUC said...
But anything within an hour or so of eating has should lean towards IBS, or other issues with peristalsis, or alergic reactions.

Things that show up 12+ hours may have altered the climate of the gut (e.g., food for microbes) and result in gas, bloating, pain, and maybe diarrhea.

It's all so confusing. How do you know that the apparent 'quick' reaction isn't simply a delayed reaction to the meal of 12 hours ago? Time and time again I see people on here say that they eat something and then they're running to the bathroom 5 minutes later. But that's peristalsis triggering the intestines to move the food along and evacuate the meal you ate several hours ago or even a day or two ago - it's not physically possible for any food to travel from mouth to anus in 5 minutes.
Posted 3/22/2016 12:57 AM (GMT 0)
I share the frustration voiced in this thread! I'm currently flaring, on prednisone, and working with a registered dietician to re-introduce different foods into my diet. She said that, like so many other things with this blasted disease, it's different for everyone. Some people react right away, and for others it can take up to a couple of days.

She has me introducing each new food separately, and then tracking my symptoms for 2 days before deciding if it's a "safe" food or not. Slow, steady... and very annoying after 3 months on a severely restricted diet!
Posted 3/22/2016 1:27 AM (GMT 0)

jin said...
I share the frustration voiced in this thread! I'm currently flaring, on prednisone, and working with a registered dietician to re-introduce different foods into my diet. She said that, like so many other things with this blasted disease, it's different for everyone. Some people react right away, and for others it can take up to a couple of days.

She has me introducing each new food separately, and then tracking my symptoms for 2 days before deciding if it's a "safe" food or not. Slow, steady... and very annoying after 3 months on a severely restricted diet!


safe for now, or safe when you're not flaring and on prednisone ?

when i was on pred, everything was safe, and when i was in the midst of a flare, nothing was -
Posted 3/22/2016 2:46 AM (GMT 0)
I'm tapering right now, so my focus is making sure I'm getting the nutrients I need after a 3+ month flare and with these evil drugs in my system. Hopefully if my symptoms return as my dose decreases I'll have a few more I can try.

Like so many of us, I have very few foods that don't hurt when I'm flaring and not on prednisone. Sorry to hear that's true for you too.
Posted 3/22/2016 1:03 PM (GMT 0)

NiceCupOfTea said...
…...But that's peristalsis triggering the intestines to move the food along and evacuate the meal you ate several hours ago or even a day or two ago - it's not physically possible for any food to travel from mouth to anus in 5 minutes.

My gut sometimes reacts to the smell of coffee haha and has a reaction to caffeine in under 5 minutes. There is definitely a mind-gut connection to food/drink that doesn't require actual contact with gut, Pavlov proved that mental-physical connection yonks ago with salivating dogs.

I understand what your point is but the gut is a complicated mechanism and those of us who have food/drink intolerances know how hard it is to pin things down so we can make it easier on our guts and live semi-normal lives.
Posted 3/22/2016 3:25 PM (GMT 0)

imagardener2 said...
My gut sometimes reacts to the smell of coffee haha and has a reaction to caffeine in under 5 minutes. There is definitely a mind-gut connection to food/drink that doesn't require actual contact with gut, Pavlov proved that mental-physical connection yonks ago with salivating dogs.

I understand what your point is but the gut is a complicated mechanism and those of us who have food/drink intolerances know how hard it is to pin things down so we can make it easier on our guts and live semi-normal lives.

Well, caffeine is a drug rather than a food, which may make a difference. Is it just coffee you have a reaction to, or all drinks which contain caffeine?

I found an interesting article about the effects of coffee on the distal colon. Jump to page 452 for the discussion, if you don't care about how the actual study was conducted.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1378422/

As far as other food intolerances, e.g. lactose, are concerned, symptoms should appear about 30 minutes to two hours after eating. That includes bloating, gas, gurgling, cramps, diarrhoea, etc.

Basically, if you need to go 5 minutes after eating a meal, that's down to simple peristalsis and nothing else.

PS: I do sometimes get symptoms an hour after eating of bloating, feeling uncomfortable, stomach gurgling, etc. But so often the meal I had an apparent bad reaction to I've eaten without any issues before; which in turn leads me to believe it's a combination of that meal and the meal(s) before it which are causing a reaction. It's genuinely amazing to me that anyone disentangles this stuff at all. Sixteen years of Crohn's disease and I couldn't tell you what I'm intolerant to and what I'm not.

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 3/22/2016 10:00:41 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 3/22/2016 9:51 PM (GMT 0)
Coffee seems to have a faster action than caffeinated tea but I've never done a timed test ha. I drink more tea (2) than coffee (1) daily.

My test results say negative for lactose intolerance but my gut does not agree. It takes 12 hours/overnight to gas up with a bit of urgency the next morning. Hard cheese or butter are not a problem, just soft cheese, ice cream, yogurt and liquid dairy. So it may not be "lactose" but something my gut can't process. I've also tried lactose-free milk with no success. I suspect I'm missing some key bacteria and that it's not a DNA issue since pre-UC I had no food intolerances (except eating too many strawberries made me flush).

Because food/drink is such an important factor in my remission I have done years of testing on myself. Do I cheat? Yes, weekly but never to the point of flaring.
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