Feel free to discuss any topic of general interest, so long as nothing you post here is likely to be interpreted as insulting, and/or inflammatory, nor clearly designed to provoke any individual or group. Please be considerate of others feelings, and they will be considerate of yours.
First of all, I have no trouble going through a 1 lb. of peanut M & M's by myself....well, I do if I think about all the calories, but I try not to do that too often.
I sometimes get constipated....and while I don't often view that as a problem ...it does make me curious as to why that happens. It only happens sometimes.
Actually, a lot of MCers have a form of the disease where the symptoms alternate between D and C, myself included. Also, if you are talking about milk chocolate, (rather than dark chocolate), some of us experience C from the casein in the milk, (while others get what we refer to as "battery acid" D from it). Many of us who are casein intolerant, (which rules out milk chocolate), can't eat eat dark chocolate either, because the soy derivatives in it cause terrible D.
Before I was able to achieve remission, dairy products caused D for me, but now they often cause C, instead.
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.
I've had both reactions (battery acid, I like that name for it!). I'm interested to see what the tests tell me. Knowing my luck, I'll have to give up soy and dairy....no chocolate at all!!!
I'm on the fence about the dairy. Seems if I eat it outright, like a bowl of ice cream, I really having some pain. If I sneak it in, like cottage cheese with chicken and rice, then I have no obvious problem with pain. It's hard to diagnose with potty behaviour b/c D is the norm. It's when the C hits that I notice.
BTW, to me C is 1-2 days. That's not really C, is it? My GI told me that was "normal", but as nice as it is not to have to run to the potty, the payback is worse. KWIM???
Thanks for your input. I'm also thinking that there may be a connection with my coffee and how I feel. I drink about 3 cups of half-decaf...but I know when I get the same mix at Starbucks, whoooeee. Trouble. My DH, the chemical engineer, thinks the process they use results in beans that are overextracted, so the coffe has more acid. I've also noticed that when I drink coffee from there, I gain weight. No kidding. Like 3-5 pounds overnight. (Same thing with anything salty.) Wonder if coffee beans are GF? Seems to me I read somewhere that there was an issue with some sort of beans..anyone know?
There are a few varieties of dark chocolate that are actually free of soy, but one has to be very careful in selecting them. One of our members finally tracked her severe diarrhea problem down to an incorrect label on a type of Lindt chocolate that she was eating every day. She discovered that the European, (German), version of the label, (if I recall correctly), listed soy lectin, whereas the American label did not, but it was the same product. When she cut it out of her diet, within two days, she was in remission, and has remained so ever since, (as far as I am aware).
You might be reacting more to the sugar in ice cream than to the casein. Many of us have problems with various sugars until our gut heals. Cheese has very little lactose, (milk sugar).
Your GI doc was probably referring to the fact that some people have "normal" BM schedules of once per one or two days. However, D, followed by one or two days of C, is definitely not a typical pattern for someone in the general population - it is a "normal" pattern for some of us with MC, though.
Coffee beans are GF, but maybe Starbucks is putting something in there besides coffee beans. The "contamination" issue you read about probably involved some coffee from Brazil, if I recall correctly, being "contaminated" with corn. As I recall, Carrie brought that to our attention a couple of weeks ago, when she was doing some detective work on ingredients.
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.
...it does make me curious as to why that happens. It only happens sometimes. 
JJ