Intro:
I’ve had UC for nearly ten years. I’ve gone through the standard medicine cycle, from Pentasa to Methotrexate and Infliximab; the last two were the only medicines that had any noticeable effect.
As of early 2013, I’ve completely changed what I eat, and I’m currently following the SCD and am medicine-free.
Some more about me:
I work in IT and have been living in the Netherlands for the past few months. Before that, I lived in the UK.
Symptoms:
Good (not perfect, but good) BMs. Blood is very rare (once every couple of months or so).
Creating your own Colitis Diet
I’m currently following the SCD, with good results. I’ve been on it for a few months now, and I am medicine-free, I feel good, and I’m in much better shape physically than I was before changing my diet.
However, I started thinking carefully about my diet (with a lot of help from my partner :-) ) some time before starting the SCD. There were foods which I tolerated well (meaning that they didn’t make my symptoms worse), which aren’t allowed on the SCD. One example is rice. There are many other sources of information (mostly not specifically for people with UC) that tell you that certain foods are good for you, but these foods often turn out to be illegal according to the SCD.
What I was wondering was what other people thought about deviating from the SCD and eating foods on the “illegal” list. I’m interested firstly, whether people do stray from the SCD, and why, and also how you decide what “illegal” foods work for you.
In terms of deciding what works and what doesn’t, I can try eating a new food and seeing how my symptoms change a day or two later. My main worry is, though, if my symptoms are fine, does that mean I can assume that the new food works for me? That is, should that be the only indication? I guess what I’m concerned about is long-term effects of different foods — if a food doesn’t make my symptoms worse within a couple of days, could it still have some long-term effects that I would be unaware of (like feeding bad gut bugs?)?
More generally, are there people who follow individual diets that they’ve created themselves by trying different foods and seeing what works? (Maybe using SCD/GAPS as a guide, but not sticking to it religiously?) If there are people who do this, I’d be very interested to hear about your experiences! Does your diet work well for you? How do you tell what works and what doesn’t? Any useful lessons learnt from trying this?
Thanks!
written by Alex F
submitted in the colitis venting area
I’ve had UC for nearly ten years. I’ve gone through the standard medicine cycle, from Pentasa to Methotrexate and Infliximab; the last two were the only medicines that had any noticeable effect.
Hey Alex! I too follow SCD and after a year, I decided to add in a few illegals that include sweet potatoes, Boulder brand plain potato chips cooked in avocado oil w/ sea salt, and Garden of Eatin Blue Corn Chips (organic and non- GMO). But I eat these illegals very sparingly. Overall, trust your body and listen for if to react. You’ll figure things out with time. Best of luck!
I’ve been pondering the same thing.
I believe going gluten free has made an improvement to my overall health and energy levels. Other than that I think prednisone is the only thing that works.
Keep us posted,
Peter
Honestly – I think for most people, what is working with SCD is just a general improvement in their diet. Have tried it several times from beginner stage, and I never seen an improvement(but my diet was pretty healthy to begin with). It has been shown clinically that the ‘bad’ bacteria often implicated in colitis can survive off the intestinal mucus alone, and if you stopped eating they would continue to eat you! More veggie’s and nuts and less sugar, gluten and trans fats will help a lot of people. It’s probably all the(often overlooked) prebiotics in the veggies from SCD that are helping balance things out.
I would be inclined trying things out for a few days, and tracking the results in a spreadsheet in detail for a number of months. The correct diet for colitis really depends on what particular bacterial species is overgrown as a result of the inflammation. Just ordered some stool tests ubiome to see if I can answer this question.
Try and do a total detox from PUFAs that would be in your system. The start of scd is as much about this then anything else but once you drop your levels of PUFA n-6 then slowly introduce n-3 with green veg, EVO, oily fish… Once that is established then try and maintain a 1:1 ratio.