Hello Teresa,
Welcome to the board. You're almost surely correct about the chronic stress that set you up for this disease. That's a common event that has led so many of us to digestive system disaster. It's certainly possible for us to get our life back as long as we avoid the foods that are causing the inflammation in our digestive systems. Starting slowly makes the necessary diet changes easier for some of us, but be aware that gluten is in a class by itself. It usually has to be totally avoided for at least a month or so in order for most of us to gain remission and allow the damage to our intestines to begin to heal. This is because gluten antibodies (anti-gliadin antibodies) have a 120-day half-life. All other foods to which we are sensitive have only a 5 or 6-day half-life. This makes for a convenient arrangement to get all the gluten out of your system while you're still taking the budesonide, because budesonide will usually mask the symptoms from most food sensitivities as long as we are taking it (assuming that it's effective for us).
But as I said, gluten is in a class by itself. Eating less gluten is worse than eating more. Eating only small amounts of gluten increases the sensitivity of our immune systems so that we will usually react worse to a gluten exposure than we did when we were eating normal amounts of it. IOW, if we're going to avoid gluten, we have to avoid it 100 %. Reducing the amount only makes our reactions worse. Most of us here didn't have any food sensitivities before we developed MC, but we have them now. And yes, we're all sensitive to gluten after we develop MC, regardless of whether or not we had any previous food sensitivities. So please avoid all gluten, even trace amounts. Your immune system will thank you. And cut it all out of your diet as soon as possible, as I mentioned above, because it takes a long time to get it all out, so that your intestines can begin to heal. If you wait too long, then when your doctor tells you to discontinue the budesonide, you'll suffer a relapse of symptoms. Without the proper diet changes, 85 % of MC patients relapse, when a budesonide treatment is ended, according to published research.
Avoiding any other food sensitivities early on is usually not urgent, for MC patients taking budesonide, and those foods can be cut out within about a week of ending a budesonide treatment. But avoiding all sources of gluten as soon as possible is critical to our recovery.
If coffee didn't bother you before your MC developed, then it shouldn't be a problem now. If a cup of coffee promptly sent you to the bathroom before you developed MC, then it will do the same now. At least this is true for most of us.
Almond milk is usually safe for most of us. If the commercial Brands cause you to react, that's usually due to the gums that are added as thickeners/emulsifiers. They're legumes, and most of us who are sensitive to soy are also sensitive to most legumes — that includes peanuts, beans, peas, etc. If that happens, you can easily make your own pure almond milk that should work just fine, and it's not so watered down as the commercial brands. Rosie has posted a good recipe (it's the seventh response)
in this thread.
Tex
