How many of you have trouble with onions? I want to add them back so much. And how about small amounts of lemon juice--do most of us have trouble with citrus? I am just feeling my way here. I have tolerated yogurt and small amounts of cheese--does that mean that maybe I don't tolerate lactose but can handle the other dairy? How many in our group can handle raw vegetables?
Right now my symptoms have stabilized after following the elimination diet for about a month and I want to be careful. Thank you, Suzanne
new and trying to figure out what I can add back
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Hi Susanne.
I'm glad to hear you are doing so well, but be very careful. One month is not a long healing time.
Having said that, I could always eat cooked onions and garlic. I didn't add small amounts of lemon juice until after 6 months of healing, but seem fine with it.
I also can eat raw veggies now ( after a year, I started adding them in) . I can have a dinner salad, but if I try to eat a huge meal salad, things tend to get "soft".
Yogurt has lactose, so if you are tolerating that, then maybe you are Ok with dairy…. but I know Tex can eat some, but he chooses not to because the Enterolab tests show that he still is producing antibodies to it.
Tread carefully and good luck
Leah
I'm glad to hear you are doing so well, but be very careful. One month is not a long healing time.
Having said that, I could always eat cooked onions and garlic. I didn't add small amounts of lemon juice until after 6 months of healing, but seem fine with it.
I also can eat raw veggies now ( after a year, I started adding them in) . I can have a dinner salad, but if I try to eat a huge meal salad, things tend to get "soft".
Yogurt has lactose, so if you are tolerating that, then maybe you are Ok with dairy…. but I know Tex can eat some, but he chooses not to because the Enterolab tests show that he still is producing antibodies to it.
Tread carefully and good luck
Leah
Suzanne- I have also been able to eat onions with no problems. I have not tried raw vegetables yet but I have been trying to resolve some tricky motility issues and don't want to complicate things. I have been able to put lemon juice in a recipe with no problem. I am almost 3 years post dx.
Do go very slowly when adding things back. Add only one thing for 3 consecutive days so you can be sure it's safe.
Carol
Do go very slowly when adding things back. Add only one thing for 3 consecutive days so you can be sure it's safe.
Carol
“.... people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
Hi Suzanne,
I couldn't tolerate onions when I was recovering, but they don't seem to bother me now that I've been in remission for years. Citrus made me so sick that I was afraid to try even traces of it, back when I was recovering. Now it's OK, of course.
Yes, it's possible that you might be one of the lucky ones here who are not sensitive to casein. Everyone is sensitive to lactose if/when their intestines are inflamed, but their ability to digest lactose will be restored after the inflammation is controlled. That doesn't happen with casein — if we're sensitive to casein, then we will always be sensitive to casein.
There are a couple of other possibilities, however. For example, the ability to tolerate dairy products may mean that your immune system is still concentrating on gluten antibodies in your system, and so it hasn't gotten around to noticing the casein yet. For many of us, after we adopt a GF diet, it takes a month or so for our immune system to stop focusing on the gluten antibodies, and notice that casein is also a problem. Or, it could mean that you're using Entocort, and the budesonide is masking your symptoms.
I would guess that less than 1 % of us can tolerate raw vegetables (other than bananas) before we are in remission, but that's strictly a guess, not a statistical verity. After we're in remission, and our gut has had sufficient healing time, most of us are able to eat raw vegetables again, without problems.
Congratulations. Good for you, for successfully using the elimination diet to achieve remission. Be very careful when testing foods and adding them back into your diet, because we are all different, so we each have to proceed by our own personal rules. Whatever you do, don't try any iceberg lettuce for a while, because it seems to be the most difficult-to-tolerate vegetable ever created. If you can't resist trying lettuce in the near future, try romaine, or a similar variety — they're much easier for us to digest.
Good luck with your diet and your food testing, and please keep us posted on your progress.
Tex
I couldn't tolerate onions when I was recovering, but they don't seem to bother me now that I've been in remission for years. Citrus made me so sick that I was afraid to try even traces of it, back when I was recovering. Now it's OK, of course.
Yes, it's possible that you might be one of the lucky ones here who are not sensitive to casein. Everyone is sensitive to lactose if/when their intestines are inflamed, but their ability to digest lactose will be restored after the inflammation is controlled. That doesn't happen with casein — if we're sensitive to casein, then we will always be sensitive to casein.
There are a couple of other possibilities, however. For example, the ability to tolerate dairy products may mean that your immune system is still concentrating on gluten antibodies in your system, and so it hasn't gotten around to noticing the casein yet. For many of us, after we adopt a GF diet, it takes a month or so for our immune system to stop focusing on the gluten antibodies, and notice that casein is also a problem. Or, it could mean that you're using Entocort, and the budesonide is masking your symptoms.
I would guess that less than 1 % of us can tolerate raw vegetables (other than bananas) before we are in remission, but that's strictly a guess, not a statistical verity. After we're in remission, and our gut has had sufficient healing time, most of us are able to eat raw vegetables again, without problems.
Congratulations. Good for you, for successfully using the elimination diet to achieve remission. Be very careful when testing foods and adding them back into your diet, because we are all different, so we each have to proceed by our own personal rules. Whatever you do, don't try any iceberg lettuce for a while, because it seems to be the most difficult-to-tolerate vegetable ever created. If you can't resist trying lettuce in the near future, try romaine, or a similar variety — they're much easier for us to digest.
Good luck with your diet and your food testing, and please keep us posted on your progress.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Leah, Carol, Tex
Thanks so much for your advice--what would I do without this site? Suzanne