How long did it take you to figure out food triggers?

It's very daunting. I know what's safe to eat for me when I'm not well, but as far as food causing a flare well, I don't know. A functional medicine doctor put me on grain free, dairy free low lectin. It may have helped pull me out of one. I couldn't keep the grain free up with up with my budget/really not a meat eater so we adapted it to gluten free and I was doing awesome for several months. But then I still went into this current horrible flare up.

It sucks to say you will have to trial and errorr. There are many stories about people having g great success with one diet, then stories of people doing best completely opposite kind of diet. Some people seem to say it doesn't make any difference to them.

I looked for answers to this since the day I was diagnosed several years ago. No simple answer.

Thanks you two <3

I consumed a bunch of raw veggies & fruits yesterday via smoothies and today....no good. Butt on fire. I am going to have to use the elimination approach mentioned , iPoop. Something really upset my system.

I am now thinking that in addition to eliminating dairy (my favorite food in the entire world) maybe it's time to try the gluten, too?

I have rosacea right now that appears to have gravitated to my eyes. This is new since my UC diagnosis in Oct. Something is upsetting my immune system these days like crazy. If I don't get a handle on it......I feel like this will all overpower my optimism. This all kind of feels like being drowned without the water at times.

The raw veggies and fruits are usually discouraged because it is a lot of insoluble fiber which can irritate the colon. Even if you turn them into smoothies, they don't necessarily lose their fiber. Seeds are very harsh on your system (as are nuts). When I had my ileostomy, the surgeon told me the first couple of weeks no raw veggies and fruits for this exact reason that it could cause blockages or irritate the stitches. After my Jpouch surgery I had some blood, again caused by eating too many nuts that irritated the connection point.

Fruits also have a lot of sugar which hurts some.

And once again.....people who don't have UC or inflamed colons would have loose stool, diarrhea or even constipation from some of those foods. You're talking fibre......there are many kinds that are taken to change, improve, slow, quicken peristalsis, stool transit, etc.

...and the term trigger, is it meaning flare or symptoms that freak one out or cause distress, or that they believe that everything ingested causes a flare....etc?

It's a multi-fasceted issue, but if the rectum especially is inflamed to the point of bleeding, or you have hemmies or a fissure and bms are many....does that not say flare or an issue there that can be exacerbated by the type of stool or frequency?

I'm just saying that its really easy to get hung up on the food issue.....we all do it....but if you don't understand what's going on about UC, the flare, meds, etc....yiu will just drive yourself to the point of confusion.
If you micromanage, you will miss important symptoms that could have you understanding the process of healing.

Or continue with food journaling, avoid foods that are known to exacerbate discomfort, and note the fluctuations of flare symptoms.

There are those who have had colons removed, ileopouch, eating, rectum left intact and still bleeding, tenesmus, etc.....like a snake with the head removed. Food removal and stool passage has not changed that fact.

Another opinion,

q

Ok, I guess by 'triggers' I meant something that makes symptoms worse and not better. So I suppose irritants would have been a beer choice. I think it this case, I now understand that it must just be the fiber unsettled any healing I had going for me?

This is just it......I get a little healing going and my ignorance about what's happening causes me to make poor decisions. As I stated, my previous doctor denied any food connections to this what-so-ever. He was wrong. Food CAN affect this a great deal (for me).

I have been avoiding the obvious things for awhile now, but as I move forward I am having to eliminate more and more. I suppose that's the learning process !

@quincy, yeah, I do get hung up on things sometimes. To the point where I miss what's going on. Working on that.

It can be "all about immune" AND have dietary triggers of symptoms because both are connected by gut microbes.

unless you have some food hypersensitivities, diet is likely just manipulating you gut microbe populations.

I'm still trying to figure it out!...

How I did it is a bit different perhaps. There are some specific foods that I knew I could eat even while in a severe flare that had minimal effects. In other words, what came out the other end was still mucus, blood and diarrhea, but going in, or eating them didn't cause a bloated or odd/painful feeling in my gut. They felt 'right' for lack of a better term. For me these safe foods were very specific and simple - Chicken, hard boiled or scrambled eggs, home made chicken soup (no veggies), protein powder, grapes, apples, apple sauce, bacon and a few other items.

I committed myself to eating from these foods only. Then, over time I would add an item like say cooked carrots and wait. If my gut became uncomfortable, or mucus/blood increased over a 24/hr period, I would go back to a day or two of only safe foods till things normalized. And I would repeat thing over and over. Sometimes I would just skip eating altogether for the day to allow things to settle down and then make a meal of my safe foods.

It was very difficult. And of course I cheated an payed, but I would always return to my safe foods to recover.

As I added medication I continued to do this. Over time things improved, especially with the meds. Once I started to have solid stool I could really fine tune what foods caused me issues as the effects where that much more noticeable. I began to actually learn what foods caused me to produce mucus only bowel movements (wheat and most raw veggies), what foods caused blood (wheat and milk), what foods triggered immediate diarrhea (spring mix salad and garlic) etc etc etc.

It took forever but it helped me understand what I could and could not eat.

Side Note: I have very recently discovered that I can grind up (think baby food) a lot of foods that cause me issue before and as long as they are ground up I seem to be fine - but I am still experimenting with this. However maybe try and play it safe and do the elimination type approach first.

Again it was the combo of meds and diet that eventually worked for me.