Confusion on Recovery Diet - Please Help!

[lbirk]

Greeting!! I am seeking to faithfully adhere to the recovery diet - but have questions on the difference between a list I copied from Tex and from the Guidelines for Recovery listed by Gabes - and I think my confusion may be based on geographical differences on names of food or availability, and so would appreciate help in correctly understanding -

- Is it only shellfish that are "safe" or "seafood"

-Is Pork safe?

This is not a difference in list question, but I typically keep the bone broth simmering for way more than 2-3 hours - which is the guideline to avoid histamine issues. How would I know if this is a problem (sorry if this is a dumb question.)

Many thanks, Lisa B

[tex]

Unless you were allergic to shellfish before you developed MC, you should be able to safely tolerate shellfish now. Regarding seafood: some of us react to some species of seafood, and others don't.

Some of us react to pork, although most of us don't.

If you react to high histamine foods (such as ripe bananas, fermented foods, and especially fermented hot sauces), you have a histamine problem. Most of us who react to histamine develop a rash, or hives, and itdh like mad.

Re: bone broth, you might be interested in the newsletters at the following two links:

https://www.microscopiccolitisfoundatio ... h_2023.pdf

https://www.microscopiccolitisfoundatio ... 892303.pdf

Tex

[lbirk]

Hi Tex - thank you for your response, I very much appreciate it. But what is confusing to me is that I have never, to my knowledge, ever had a reaction to any food at all, until now. And since I am on Budesonide now any reactions would be masked. As I understand it, the recovery diet is intended to include only those foods that most people can eat safely and that are non-inflammatory. Since I don't know what I react to until I have the test results (I reached out to Enterolab today), I can only rely on what works for most people.

So given that (and also that I have eaten every form of fish and shellfish my entire life, and pork), what do you think? I really value your wisdom and don't know where/how to draw the line, and want to have my best shot at putting this in remission.

And also, thank you for the two articles! I am excited to read them now. Best regards, and many thanks, Lisa

[tex]

="Lisa" Since I don't know what I react to until I have the test results (I reached out to Enterolab today), I can only rely on what works for most people.

That's correct. That's exactly what the elimination diet is designed to do. Unless we happen to have test results from EnteroLab, the elimination diet specifies that we should eliminate all of the foods that typically cause (any and all) MC patients to react. Although we don't all necessarily react to casein, soy, and chicken eggs, enough people react to the "big 4" that an elimination diet should avoid All 4 of those foods (gluten, casein, soy, and eggs), in order to be sure that we're eliminating all of the foods that are causing us to react. Why? Because if we eliminate 3 of them, and we're still reacting to the other one, we will never reach remission. The other 11 antigenic foods (such as beef, pork, cashews, walnuts, etc.) can cause us to react, but they're usually on a lower level of inflammation. It's always best to also avoid those with an elimination diet, for the speediest recovery, but sometimes they won't keep us from eventually reaching remission, if we don't eliminate them. Some of us can tolerate those foods on a rotation basis, for example.

Here's the deal. If we're using the diet to recover from MC, then our diet is our medicine, and how we take that medicine is critically important. Why take a chance on following less than a squeaky clean diet if we're trying to put our disease into remission? There's absolutely no advantage to taking any chances that might delay or prevent us from ever reaching remission. Few of us enjoy dealing with diarrhea umpteen times per day, so why wouldn't we want to do everything we can to get out of that disgusting habit?

All that said, if you order the EnteroLab tests (the A1 + C1 test panels), and you intend to follow their recommendations based on your test results, all you need to eliminate initially is gluten (because gluten takes so long to get out of our system). Most other food sensitivities have only a five or six day half-life, so they can be eliminated from our system in a matter of a week or so. After you receive your test results from EnteroLab, then you can fine tube your diet based on their recommendations.

So taking our best shot at reaching remission would be using the EnteroLab test results to fine-tune our diet. The next best choice as outlined above (eliminating every known MC allergen). We tend to react to the foods that we have eaten all our lives, so safe selections for a recovery diet include wild -type foods that we seldom eat, including turkey, lamb, goat, rabbit, duck, goose, emu, pheasant, quail, venison, antelope, etc.

Unless we were previously allergic, to the best of my knowledge, none of us react to shellfish, and the wild type meats listed above. As to whether you might react to beef, or pork, or anything else, I have no way of predicting that, because we're all different. For example, I react to beef, but I can eat any form of pork, and in fact, pork is the only type of meat that I eat, and I eat a lot of it every day.

I hope this helps,

Tex

[lbirk]

Thank you Tex - I think I'll stick to the recovery diet for the most part, given that the protein helps the healing, and I'm not all that interested in the carbs. I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Fine, he returned my call asking a couple of questions, and I received your book today, so I'll be busy.

Best regards and good wishes, Lisa