Your Doctor Might Not Know Crap About Nutrition

Meet Robert:

51 year old male diagnosed with U.C. Married, two kids. I am not a medical doctor but have studied much over the years about health and nutrition. I am frustrated in general about how most doctors do not spend time connecting sickness and poor nutrition. Instead they see medicine as the answer. I have worked in Central Asia for almost 10 yrs. with Small Ngo s trying to help people improve their own health and finances by improving the agricultural techniques.

Some more background:

I like to garden, live in Switzerland, love chocolate and cheese, and Colitis is changing the way I think about feed. Aaaaaaggggghhhhhhh……………

Robert’s Symptoms Right Now:

Pain, bloating, inability to eat certain foods, weight loss, weakness, anger, frustration etc.

Robert’s Story Colitis Venting Story:

Most doctors don`t know crap about nutrition. Or at least they choose not to tell you what they know for some reasoning that I don’t understand. Yesterday, at age 51, I had my second colonoscopy. This came after 48 days of abdominal pain, bloating etc. The Doctor confirmed Ulcerative Colitis and showed me on a diagram where he took the 19 biopsies from my colon. 19? Excuse me? To make sure we looked everywhere, since you have a family history of cancer, he said to me.. And then I did it; I brought up the D word. I asked him if there was a specific diet, or at least a good reference list to get me going in the right direction as a new U.C. patient. Diet? He looked at me, showing very little emotion; Well, up until now no one has come up with a standard diet that will consistently help U.C. patients. And when I asked if I could be referred to a nutritionists when my biopsy reports came back, he said yes, of course.

The next morning as I sat on the toilette, producing blood clots from my bottom which woke me up immediately, I began to wonder……..

Why does it seem like only the tree huggers, naturopaths, and esoterics seem the get the real connection between nutrition and total body health?

In the end, he gave me a new prescription for a slightly different form of Salofalk. Take it every morning till you die, he said in so many words. If you have a flare up, just double it. It`s fairly safe. The risks of getting cancer far outweigh the risk of the medication, he told me. I did not like the options he was giving me. Do you like your medical options? Do you? I think the doctors are doing their job. They are well qualified, most of them, to treat patients as they have been taught. Sorry to get so philosophical. So to finalise……I just want to say that we have to research this stuff on our own, not accept all of it as true, and find what works best for us. And for some of you, welcome to middle age. lol

Previous Treatments:

The BRAT diet till I lost 20 pounds.

written by Robert

submitted in the colitis venting area