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Go To Foods During Bloody Bowel Movements

Adam iHaveUC guy

Adam, founder of iHaveUC.com

This is an email I opened in the ihaveuc inbox today:

From Sonya in Tennessee:

Adam, I am fairly new to your website but have really enjoyed it and found it helpful so far. Like you, I was diagnosed in 2008 and had problems for years prior. The reason I am writing to you is to see if you and your readers have [highlight]any tips on their go to foods when they are in a major flare and cannot eat much. [/highlight]I am in a bad flare and even with all the prednisone, I have no appetite and have to force myself to eat. Everything I eat is tearing up my stomach, let alone when I have my bloody bowel movements which makes me want to eat less to circumvent that awful pain. Sorry to bug you but any advice would be appreciated. – Sonya from Tennessee
Dear Sonya,
Thank you for bugging me, in-fact your question is maybe one of the most common questions we all have/had, so again, thanks for buggin:)
Here are my suggestions, and apologies if you are a vegan/vegetarian, as many of the foods I eat would not work for those types of eaters.  I’ve been treating my UC with diet techniques for 6 plus years now, there have been many good stories from food.
  1. Check out the Colitis Flare Beat Down Video, this shows several meals I ate once to get out of a flare, with very clear examples of exactly what I was chowing on back then.  here the link to that post – Colitis Flare Best Down Post
  2. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) has a great introductory PDF file – click here you can read, I use much of the thinking behind the SCD in the meals I eat daily, and this might work well for you as it has for thousands of other UC’ers.
  3. There is a section of this site which has meals I’ve prepared, you can take a look at some of those for further ideas, but the two links above is where I would start your journey to feeling better and getting symptoms to go down.  here is the full on food/meals section I mentioned: https://www.ihaveuc.com/category/colitis-stories/good-meals-for-ulcerative-colitis/
  4. Below is a cookbook which has been very popular for many years now on this site.  It is available through the ihaveUC Amazon affiliate link here:
  5. Good foods, I would suggest most definitely to give Chicken Soup a try.  Even if you went so simple to go buy some chicken and to boil it, add some salt and water and  eat that, you would very possibly be able to notice some improvement after just a day or two.  OK, yes, that alone for 6 straight meals would be very boring, and only drinking water along with that…yes super boring, but if you can see the improvement, I’m pretty sure you’d find it worth it too.  If you want to add in some cooked carrots to the soup, go for it.  I usually add in some zucchini, and maybe some other veggies, and I really have come to like it.
  6. Another idea, and I don’t know if you are a big breakfast person or not, but try some simple scrambled eggs in the morning, no MILK, just scrambled eggs.  Or, you can try eating 3 hard boiled eggs.  Stay away from adding in cheese, and any other dairy, and try to not eat any breads, you again might notice some positive changes after a few days.
  7. How about Good drinks… I would highly recommend sticking with water as much as you can.  If you are drinking coffee, cut that out for now.  My best runs of remission have been when I was OFF coffee.  I’m back on it, and yeah its great and tasty and all…but anyways…  If you want to try something new, how about Ginger Tea for a new drink? Here’s a story here on that: https://www.ihaveuc.com/ginger-tea/

So, besides recommended foods, I for sure would stay away from breads, grains, processed sugars, actually as many types of sugars as you can, no starches either during this flare up time, and stay with water for your liquids for now.  Too many tuff things to digest can be found when you start wandering down the drink isles at the grocery stories, coke, pepsi…absolutely no in my opin..

I like to move towards meats, fish, poultry, and some cooked veggies when symptoms are present.  Some people prefer to go light on spices during this time, other people don’t have issues with spices.

As for dairy, I would stay away from that as well when symptoms are present.  Diary is often very tuff for UC’ers to process when symptoms are active.

Lastly, you can get alot of good benefits from probiotics.  Maybe you are using some already, maybe not.  I try to get them naturally from foods I eat.  Foods such as sauerkraut.  Here is a final link on that: Sauerkraut and probiotics

Wishing you the best,

 

Adam