What's the definition for a flare-up?

[Cran3]

Hi everyone,

My healing journey has had its ups and downs recently, and I've been learning what foods can put me out of commission if I'm not careful. For example, popcorn, raw nuts, seeds like flax, chia, etc. If I ate gluten or milk in the past, I never felt as bad as I would with some of the items I just mentioned.

When I eat those, sometimes I experience excruciating pain for several days, and my abdomen gets very tight. I can barely twist or turn either. I'm not sure if this is what a flare-up is, or if this is just a "super" flare-up? Haha. If someone could let me know what sensation this is, that would help me a lot. Thank you!

[Kilt]

Hi everyone,

My healing journey has had its ups and downs recently, and I've been learning what foods can put me out of commission if I'm not careful. For example, popcorn, raw nuts, seeds like flax, chia, etc. If I ate gluten or milk in the past, I never felt as bad as I would with some of the items I just mentioned.

When I eat those, sometimes I experience excruciating pain for several days, and my abdomen gets very tight. I can barely twist or turn either. I'm not sure if this is what a flare-up is, or if this is just a "super" flare-up? Haha. If someone could let me know what sensation this is, that would help me a lot. Thank you! :grin:

I'm also not sure what various posters mean by a "flare" or "flare-up". Some use it to refer to a sudden return of MC diarrhea, but it probably can be used to describe an attack of any sort of bad gastrointestinal symptom.

Have you been biopsy diagnosed with MC? If so, those foods I've highlighted may be giving you problems because they are high fiber, which should be avoided by people who are inflamed with MC. Eating high fiber foods when you have an inflamed gut is like dragging sandpaper over an open wound.

I've been on a budesonide taper for MC-L since July and have stayed away from high fiber foods the entire time. I can eat anything else on budesonide without diarrhea, and could also eat anything on loperamide before the budesonide. That's not to say I should, but I'm in the dark as to whether I actually have any food intolerances. It seems unlikely, so I doubt it, but I'll probably find out when I finally taper off the budesonide after 10 months or so.

[Gabes-Apg]

In the various discussions previously, flares are different things for different people, but best summary of all that the
- a flare is ongoing symptoms for slightly extended duration ie longer than 48 hours.
- where symptoms continue despite reverting back to simpler eating plan
- where you start taking meds again/increase dosage of current meds to calm symptoms.

[tex]

Hi Stephen,

Those are probably symptoms of some other problem, rather than an MC flare. What you describe could be caused by diverticulitis, but it's not likely that you would have developed any diverticula yet at your young age, so diverticulitis might not even be a possibility for you.

I have experienced similar symptoms from eating peanuts or almonds in the past, but In my case I eventually discovered that they were causing ileus (verified in an ER visit), so I had to stop eating them. But that's probably only a remote possibility for most people.

Tex

[Cran3]

Thank you for your replies, everyone.

My dietician told me that extreme pain I experienced could have very well been due to the rough composition of the nuts and seeds when they're raw VS when they get soft after being cooked, as well as the high fiber scraping across my intestine. It happens so rarely but it's just one of those things I had to stop and ask other people just to make sure I'm not the only one experiencing it because once that happens, I really need to stay in one place or the cramping gets really bad.

I am able to eat roasted almonds, as I make some homemade granola which does wonders for me, but I had a handful of raw almonds alone one day and within an hour I was down for the count.