Hi! This is my first time posting. I am so grateful for having found this site and I am learning so much from reading different posts.
I am trying to do the stage one diet, but I have been a vegetarian since 1994, recently re-introducing eggs and salmon. I am struggling to get enough protein without nuts and beans. I assume one day I will add back in over-cooked beans. For now I am using a hemp proteing powder in the morning (only ingredient is hemp) and then salmon in the evening. I was just wondering if anyone else has suggestions for veg. protein? (I saw a success story from a vegetarian on here at one point--so that gave me a lot of hope).
For some background--I am a 49 year old female. I was diagnosed with collagenous colitis in spring 2020 and put on Budesonide for 3 months and then mesalamine to maintain. The symptoms came back slowly and mildly. In the fall, they found a softball-sized cyst in my uterus. I thought "maybe that is pushing up against my colon and causing the damage..." so I had a hysterectomy. For whatever reason, after my surgery I was actually symptom-less. However, the colitis came raging back about a month later. My gastro doctor kind of scolded me for stopping the mesalamine on my own...and then she put me back on 90 days of budesonide and mesalamine. Everything was working great again until I stopped the steroids. Now I am in a huge flare-up. I just had some antibody tests done at everywell.com. I mailed in a blood test that tested 90 foods. It came back showing mild sensitivity to green peas, wheat and cow's milk. Thanks for reading!
Vegetarian protein?
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Re: Vegetarian protein?
Hi,
Welcome to the group. Controlling this disease by diet alone requires totally avoiding all the foods that are causing the inflammation that perpetuates the disease. Healing the damage that the inflammation does to the intestines requires relatively large amounts of protein. Because most of us are also sensitive to soy, this makes us sensitive to most legumes. Many of us are sensitive to chicken eggs, tuna and salmon, and many other fish. So getting enough protein with a vegan or vegetarian diet, is virtually impossible. I don't remember the details of the success story you mentioned, but I'm guessing that was posted by a member who apparently was not sensitive to soy. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
We have more than a few members who were vegans or vegetarians when they developed the disease. Unfortunately, I believe that almost all of them who have been successful in controlling this disease by diet changes, have found it necessary to add animal protein to their diet. There's even some evidence that vegan or vegetarian diets contribute to the initial risk of developing microscopic colitis (MC), but this hasn't been substantiated by research (as far as I'm aware).
Please be aware that this is strictly my opinion, and not supported by medical research. But be aware also, that the medical approach to treating MC offers only temporary relief, whereas the proper diet changes provide permanent relief of all symptoms for most of us. With the passage of time, the medications that are prescribed to treat this disease slowly lose effectiveness for us.
I hope you didn't pay very much for the blood tests, because blood test results are virtually worthless for determining the food sensitivities that are associated with MC. The offending foods cause our immune system to produce antibodies that subsequently promote the inflammation that causes the disease, but those antibodies are produced in the intestines, and rarely show up in the blood in quantities sufficient for a blood test to detect. Consequently, most blood tests yield so many false positives and false negatives, that they're virtually worthless for our purposes.
The only tests that we have found to be consistently accurate, are the stool tests offered by EnteroLab, and those test results are almost always surprisingly accurate. They totally blow the competition away, for determining food sensitivities. And for most of us, ordering those tests is the best money we have ever spent on our healthcare. They take all the guesswork out of trying to develop a recovery diet for MC.
So the bottom line is, if you're sensitive to soy and most legumes (as most of us are), I don't see any way for you to get enough protein to be able to stay in relatively good health, and allow your intestines to heal, without eating animal protein. In the event that you don't produce any antibodies against soy, then yes, you should be able to control this disease while following a vegetarian or vegan diet.
As far as I can determine, most commercially processed protein powders (whether they are vegetarian, or not), contain so many ingredients, that one or more of those ingredients are bound to cause most MC patients to react. There may be exceptions, but I'm not aware of any. The safest policy is to avoid all commercially-processed foods, and always to prepare our meals from scratch, using simple whole foods, known to be safe (not cross-contaminated).
I hope this helps. Again, welcome aboard, and please feel free to ask anything.
Tex
Welcome to the group. Controlling this disease by diet alone requires totally avoiding all the foods that are causing the inflammation that perpetuates the disease. Healing the damage that the inflammation does to the intestines requires relatively large amounts of protein. Because most of us are also sensitive to soy, this makes us sensitive to most legumes. Many of us are sensitive to chicken eggs, tuna and salmon, and many other fish. So getting enough protein with a vegan or vegetarian diet, is virtually impossible. I don't remember the details of the success story you mentioned, but I'm guessing that was posted by a member who apparently was not sensitive to soy. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
We have more than a few members who were vegans or vegetarians when they developed the disease. Unfortunately, I believe that almost all of them who have been successful in controlling this disease by diet changes, have found it necessary to add animal protein to their diet. There's even some evidence that vegan or vegetarian diets contribute to the initial risk of developing microscopic colitis (MC), but this hasn't been substantiated by research (as far as I'm aware).
Please be aware that this is strictly my opinion, and not supported by medical research. But be aware also, that the medical approach to treating MC offers only temporary relief, whereas the proper diet changes provide permanent relief of all symptoms for most of us. With the passage of time, the medications that are prescribed to treat this disease slowly lose effectiveness for us.
I hope you didn't pay very much for the blood tests, because blood test results are virtually worthless for determining the food sensitivities that are associated with MC. The offending foods cause our immune system to produce antibodies that subsequently promote the inflammation that causes the disease, but those antibodies are produced in the intestines, and rarely show up in the blood in quantities sufficient for a blood test to detect. Consequently, most blood tests yield so many false positives and false negatives, that they're virtually worthless for our purposes.
The only tests that we have found to be consistently accurate, are the stool tests offered by EnteroLab, and those test results are almost always surprisingly accurate. They totally blow the competition away, for determining food sensitivities. And for most of us, ordering those tests is the best money we have ever spent on our healthcare. They take all the guesswork out of trying to develop a recovery diet for MC.
So the bottom line is, if you're sensitive to soy and most legumes (as most of us are), I don't see any way for you to get enough protein to be able to stay in relatively good health, and allow your intestines to heal, without eating animal protein. In the event that you don't produce any antibodies against soy, then yes, you should be able to control this disease while following a vegetarian or vegan diet.
As far as I can determine, most commercially processed protein powders (whether they are vegetarian, or not), contain so many ingredients, that one or more of those ingredients are bound to cause most MC patients to react. There may be exceptions, but I'm not aware of any. The safest policy is to avoid all commercially-processed foods, and always to prepare our meals from scratch, using simple whole foods, known to be safe (not cross-contaminated).
I hope this helps. Again, welcome aboard, and please feel free to ask anything.
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.
Re: Vegetarian protein?
Hi Tex,
Thanks so much for taking the time to share all of that. That makes sense about the antibodies in the intestine..and I will look into the Enterolab testing as well. I do eat salmon and eggs so trying to sustain on that for a while. I also found a 1-ingredient protein powder that is striclty hemp. I guess time will tell if I am sensitive to hemp. I have learned so much from reading this forum over just the past 24 hours--so thank you very much!
Thanks so much for taking the time to share all of that. That makes sense about the antibodies in the intestine..and I will look into the Enterolab testing as well. I do eat salmon and eggs so trying to sustain on that for a while. I also found a 1-ingredient protein powder that is striclty hemp. I guess time will tell if I am sensitive to hemp. I have learned so much from reading this forum over just the past 24 hours--so thank you very much!