First, some background: I’ve been on the SCD since the middle of April of this year. I was also on a tapering schedule of prednisone when I started. Once I tapered off the prednisone I started having symptoms again (e.g. blood in stool, pain in lower left abdomen etc.) I believe that 1.) the prednisone, while reducing the inflammation, did not allow me to correctly judge the response my colon had on the various SCD foods I added and the schedule I added them and 2.) I believe I may have tapered off too quickly.
I’ve since been trying the rowasa enemas for about a month now and last week I tried adding the self-made vitamin E enemas that have been reported as being helpful. I’ve been using them for about 6 days now and really haven’t seen any improvement but I’m going to continue using them for a few more days just to see if they start to help.
Now, after the background, the original reason for my post… I’ve been eating strict SCD, and since the recurrence of my symptoms, I went back to the intro diet for a week and have been adding foods very slowly. I mainly eat ripe bananas, baked apple slices with honey and cinnamon, pureéd butternut squash for breakfast, and lunches and dinners consist of baked, grilled or sauteéd chicken, beef, pork and various fish along with ripe avocados, steamed baby carrots and other types of squash and gords (pumpkin, buttercup squash, etc.) Snacks are a tablespoon of almond butter and home-made jello made from Welch’s white grape juice.
The only thing that would really give my BM any bulk would be the beef I would think, and I only eat that once or twice a week. I have been avoiding roughage as I thought this would further irritate my colon since my main problem at the moment is bleeding (and I’m fairly certain it is in the lower colon, probably right inside the rectum and I don’t know what that part is called)
Anyway, I’ve been researching diet with UC a lot recently. I know the SCD is a very healthy diet and I don’t want to stray too far from it, as I’m pretty sure too many starches, sugars and I know gluten is bad for you (so I will keep potatoes, pasta, breads and sugary foods out), but I have also read that soluble fiber foods are good. They come in the forms of certain veggies and rice and some people say when they bind the foods together in your colon, it moves the foods away from the intestinal walls and allows the lesions to heal faster.
Since non-enriched rice does not contain gluten and seems like it would be pretty healthy, I was thinking of adding some long grain non-enriched brown rice to my diet and seeing if that adds bulk to my stools. I have been eating very soft veggies and fruits and they don’t bind together well to create a nicely-formed stool. What I was wondering is if anyone else has tried adding these things to the diet and if they saw improvement in their condition, or if anyone would suggest adding roughage like raw salads or steamed broccoli first.
I have a doctor’s appointment next week and would like to see some improvement before then. I do not want to go back on imuran or prednisone, but as a last resort, I was thinking of going back on prednisone and having a much longer tapering schedule, but if this can be avoided I’d love that. I have just been wondering if the SCD foods that I’ve been eating and not combining them with other foods like rice could be keeping me from getting better. I’m just so scared to eat a non-SCD food like brown rice because I don’t want to add diarrhea and gut pain to my bleeding problem.
