As I troll the posts looking for help and info, I've noticed a lot of references to raw veggies and fruit being a problem. All my (pre-LC) life I've enjoyed fruits and veggies especially broccoli, sweet potatoes, zucchini, carrots,spinach, apricots, berries. Since I've been sick, I've found even cooked broccoli a source of pain and D. Ditto cabbage. I can still eat carrots, sweet potato and some others provide they're cooked. I steam veggies usually except for a stir fry now and then.
On Friday evening I had a plain supper of fish, sweet potato, zucchini, and a glass of water. I had bought some lovely strawberries despite my SO saying maybe you shouldn't do that, so be careful. I had 5 for dessert. They were delightful.
The man was right ... I shouldn't have. Late that night I had terrible griping bellyache that had me doubled over, and I had D to beat the band. I spent a big part of the small hours wrapped in a blanket in the bathroom as I daren't go more than 3 feet away. Sometimes I just finished washing my hands and I had to go again.
Surely it had to be the strawberries? I washed them very well. Everything else I had that day I have eaten before without such symptoms. I don't know the transit time for things I eat. I had the berries around 5 pm and started with the pain around midnight and the D started an hour or so later. I was poorly all Saturday and part of Sunday.
My meals Sat and Sun were plain and simple, nothing that has previously caused problems but I was still on the go with the D - is this because my colon was inflamed so anything I put through it caused a problem, even stuff that usually is ok?
Why do I sometime get the D without the spasms, and other times the pain is dreadful? Can I take anything for the pain? It's all in the gut. I know NSAIDS are now 'evil' but would a Tylenol help the spasms?
Today's Monday and I've been relatively ok although I notice now that some things are coming out the other end undigested, at least I think that's what it is. They are small whitish pellet-y things .. I think of them as my vampire mini-stools.
Thanks all!
Strawberries - were they the culprit for me?
Moderators: Rosie, Jean, CAMary, moremuscle, JFR, Dee, xet, Peggy, Matthew, Gabes-Apg, grannyh, Gloria, Mars, starfire, Polly, Joefnh
My money is on the strawberries!
Try eating some probiotic yogurt, it settled my spasm down in about 90 minutes...
And you poor dear, you sound so much like me during a flare up. Sheeesh!
During my recent flare up last month, well actually in July more like, anyway, I was sore inside for about a month, but the probiotic yogurt has been a LIFE SAVER for me.
Deb
Yeah you can take Tylenol, but I don't know if it will help, your intestines need to heal up on their own, atleast from my experience.
Try eating some probiotic yogurt, it settled my spasm down in about 90 minutes...
And you poor dear, you sound so much like me during a flare up. Sheeesh!
During my recent flare up last month, well actually in July more like, anyway, I was sore inside for about a month, but the probiotic yogurt has been a LIFE SAVER for me.
Deb
Yeah you can take Tylenol, but I don't know if it will help, your intestines need to heal up on their own, atleast from my experience.
Hypothyroid 06/01
LC 12/06
Dwell on the positive.
Happiness is a result of a decision to be happy.
LC 12/06
Dwell on the positive.
Happiness is a result of a decision to be happy.
Wish I could take the yogurt, Deb, but it seems to make the D worse. I tried various sorts, from Danone to Activia, and a few names I didn't know at the health store. Every single one did me in - heartbreaking as I love yogurt and Activia make a prune one that is (was) my fave.
Overall I seem to be better without dairy. I've always had lactose problems and for years have drunk lactose-free milk. (We have a brand called Natrel that was scrumptious and so 'normal' that my SO would use it without complaint.) Now even that seems to give me trouble. I've changed to rice milk. It's a bit thin but is ok for most things including baking. If I want a glass to drink, I buy the vanilla. Rice Dream seems to be the best tasting I have found so far, although rice milk itself has taken some getting used to.
I did try soy for a while but drinking it as I used to drink milk again gave me D. Out it went, sigh ....
I don't know that I'm dairy intolerant, I just know I have fewer bouts of D with it removed from my diet.
The strange thing is that I did have some peach slices earlier in the week, from a jar (Dole fruit slices) so I guess they're raw but processed somehow? I ate and digested them without any problem. Go figure.
Overall I seem to be better without dairy. I've always had lactose problems and for years have drunk lactose-free milk. (We have a brand called Natrel that was scrumptious and so 'normal' that my SO would use it without complaint.) Now even that seems to give me trouble. I've changed to rice milk. It's a bit thin but is ok for most things including baking. If I want a glass to drink, I buy the vanilla. Rice Dream seems to be the best tasting I have found so far, although rice milk itself has taken some getting used to.
I did try soy for a while but drinking it as I used to drink milk again gave me D. Out it went, sigh ....
I don't know that I'm dairy intolerant, I just know I have fewer bouts of D with it removed from my diet.
The strange thing is that I did have some peach slices earlier in the week, from a jar (Dole fruit slices) so I guess they're raw but processed somehow? I ate and digested them without any problem. Go figure.
Maxine
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Teagirl, Reading your post sure brought back some awful memories of my gas and bloating days when I first had the MC symptoms. Just when I thought I was done on the potty, and back in bed, the urge would hit me again and I would find myself sitting on the potty another 30 minutes with explosive D.
I think we all have been through this and it usually happens in the wee hours of the night. I really feel that when we are in this state, almost any food will cause a negative reaction. It makes it so difficult to figure out what we can safely eat. Yogurt never helped me but some can do well with it.
As gas bag suggested, it is best to stick with the basics of blaaaa food for now. Until you stabilize, you won't be able to evaluate the effect of your food choices. Eliminating my food intolerances helped me the most, however, until I went on Entocort, I was constantly having good and some bad bm's. I am a big proponent of Entocort. (elimination diet for 9 months and on entocort for 6 months) I wish I had started the Entocort sooner.
This approach does not work for everyone. Hopefully you will get some other opinions and you can chart your own course to remission. Good luck!!!!
Hotrod
I think we all have been through this and it usually happens in the wee hours of the night. I really feel that when we are in this state, almost any food will cause a negative reaction. It makes it so difficult to figure out what we can safely eat. Yogurt never helped me but some can do well with it.
As gas bag suggested, it is best to stick with the basics of blaaaa food for now. Until you stabilize, you won't be able to evaluate the effect of your food choices. Eliminating my food intolerances helped me the most, however, until I went on Entocort, I was constantly having good and some bad bm's. I am a big proponent of Entocort. (elimination diet for 9 months and on entocort for 6 months) I wish I had started the Entocort sooner.
This approach does not work for everyone. Hopefully you will get some other opinions and you can chart your own course to remission. Good luck!!!!
Hotrod
Thanks, Hotrod. The more I hear of Entocort, the more I want it. Thursday is d day and my SO will be with me - he's under strict instructions not to let us leave the GI's office without Entocort being given to me. I'm concerned that if I have a bad evening and night (like yesterday and overnight) I'll be tired and lightheaded and not able to handle/counter the GI's points and diagnosis.
It's said that Inuit know a hundred+ different kinds of snow while we think of one or 2. It seems D is like that. I am flabbergasted at how many different kinds of D my body gives me from will-it-ever-stop-coming watery stuff, to the explosive bleach-the-toilet kind. What I find most awful is when I feel like passing gas, I have to go to the bathroom as I never know what's going to come out.
This weekend we have tickets to the opera. Middle of a row so I'm going to phone the house manager and see if I can have a seat near the door or something. Apart from disturbing everyone with having to get up maybe, I'm scared I might not make it. It's Madama Butterfly so that's enough tragedy at the opera!
cheers
It's said that Inuit know a hundred+ different kinds of snow while we think of one or 2. It seems D is like that. I am flabbergasted at how many different kinds of D my body gives me from will-it-ever-stop-coming watery stuff, to the explosive bleach-the-toilet kind. What I find most awful is when I feel like passing gas, I have to go to the bathroom as I never know what's going to come out.
This weekend we have tickets to the opera. Middle of a row so I'm going to phone the house manager and see if I can have a seat near the door or something. Apart from disturbing everyone with having to get up maybe, I'm scared I might not make it. It's Madama Butterfly so that's enough tragedy at the opera!
cheers
Maxine
Maxine,
We are all different but it sounds to me like you got an over load of fructose. Just think back to pre MC. If you ate way too many peaches(you fill in the blank) did you get D or very loose stools? Some of us are just less able to absorb fructose which is the main sugar in fruit and some veggies. If you ingest too much it cannot be absorbed through the small intestines and it goes on down and the normal bacteria have a large picnic on it and they expel gasses like methane and along comes more water with it and voila! D occurs and pain from the gasses. Gas X helps - it is not a cure but it does help. It is called Fructose Malabsorption if you want to look it up. That's my theory anyway because it is my problem too.
Pat
We are all different but it sounds to me like you got an over load of fructose. Just think back to pre MC. If you ate way too many peaches(you fill in the blank) did you get D or very loose stools? Some of us are just less able to absorb fructose which is the main sugar in fruit and some veggies. If you ingest too much it cannot be absorbed through the small intestines and it goes on down and the normal bacteria have a large picnic on it and they expel gasses like methane and along comes more water with it and voila! D occurs and pain from the gasses. Gas X helps - it is not a cure but it does help. It is called Fructose Malabsorption if you want to look it up. That's my theory anyway because it is my problem too.
Pat
Maxine,
I remember Lucy told me, when I was first healing, to try canned peaches and pears as a fruit. I was able to tolerate both of them. I think the ones in the jar that you ate are more processed that you think. Even though I've been in remission for several months, I still can't eat many raw fruits or veggies. My first thought was that it was the sweet potatoe. Some of us have a problem with fiber. You might think back on what you had earlier in the day to see if there was other fiber that the sweet potatoe on top of it made it too much.
Good luck in the puzzle game of figuring out which piece set you off this time.
Jan
I remember Lucy told me, when I was first healing, to try canned peaches and pears as a fruit. I was able to tolerate both of them. I think the ones in the jar that you ate are more processed that you think. Even though I've been in remission for several months, I still can't eat many raw fruits or veggies. My first thought was that it was the sweet potatoe. Some of us have a problem with fiber. You might think back on what you had earlier in the day to see if there was other fiber that the sweet potatoe on top of it made it too much.
Good luck in the puzzle game of figuring out which piece set you off this time.
Jan
While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart. - Saint Francis of Assisi
H Pat, you might be right about the overdose. I've not had a lot of raw fruit over the last few months, so perhaps 5 large strawberries was too much. I can't compare it with pre-MC days as I have never eaten too many of any fruit - very restrained! I'll wait until I'm more stable then try maybe one berry.
Jan, I agree, I thought those Dole slices might be processed/preserved/something that took away their rawness as I have eaten then now and again over the last few weeks with no ill effects. I've also tried their pears and again, no ill effects. Mind you, I'm only having 2-3 small pieces each time.
Sweet potato is no bother, thank heavens as I love it. But celery had to go ... I never really thought about celery, and although I haven't eaten it raw, I've had it in stir fry, and I use it in all my homemade soups. After another bad day, I realised I'd had celery again earlier so I stopped. Result? A reduction in pain, and slightly firmer bms.
It seems I'll be working out what bothers me one item at a time. Every week, though, I am a little better than the week before, baby steps but oh so welcome. Right now I am gf and df and avoiding soy except in small amounts, and I'm down from my all time high of 27 visits in one day with explosive D, dreadful cramps, and water running out of me, and now at 4-6 visits daily with no real D, and firm-ish stools.
Maybe I can get down to one or 2 visits and Norman. I started the Pentasa at the weekend and wil be watching to see how that affects me.
A discovery about the Pentasa which I'm going to tell my pharmacist about.....
They kept getting stuck in my gullet. I'd wet my throat, take them, and they would stick,. I'd then try to wash them down, and they'd still be stuck, it felt really awful with me taking 2 4 times a day. Then one lunchtime, I made a small meal and put the 2 Pentasa on the side of the plate well away from my lunch. I realised one of the Pentasa was melting down into an oozy pile and I realised that there must have been water splashed n the plate.
Light bulb!!! They melt down in water. No wonder they stick in my throat - I've been taking them with water as no one said not to! So I took 2 with rice milk and they slid down easily. Since then I've had them with rice milk and they are no problem at all. No sticking, no indigestion, no sour taste.
Now why wouldn't that be on the label or told by the pharmacist?
Jan, I agree, I thought those Dole slices might be processed/preserved/something that took away their rawness as I have eaten then now and again over the last few weeks with no ill effects. I've also tried their pears and again, no ill effects. Mind you, I'm only having 2-3 small pieces each time.
Sweet potato is no bother, thank heavens as I love it. But celery had to go ... I never really thought about celery, and although I haven't eaten it raw, I've had it in stir fry, and I use it in all my homemade soups. After another bad day, I realised I'd had celery again earlier so I stopped. Result? A reduction in pain, and slightly firmer bms.
It seems I'll be working out what bothers me one item at a time. Every week, though, I am a little better than the week before, baby steps but oh so welcome. Right now I am gf and df and avoiding soy except in small amounts, and I'm down from my all time high of 27 visits in one day with explosive D, dreadful cramps, and water running out of me, and now at 4-6 visits daily with no real D, and firm-ish stools.
Maybe I can get down to one or 2 visits and Norman. I started the Pentasa at the weekend and wil be watching to see how that affects me.
A discovery about the Pentasa which I'm going to tell my pharmacist about.....
They kept getting stuck in my gullet. I'd wet my throat, take them, and they would stick,. I'd then try to wash them down, and they'd still be stuck, it felt really awful with me taking 2 4 times a day. Then one lunchtime, I made a small meal and put the 2 Pentasa on the side of the plate well away from my lunch. I realised one of the Pentasa was melting down into an oozy pile and I realised that there must have been water splashed n the plate.
Light bulb!!! They melt down in water. No wonder they stick in my throat - I've been taking them with water as no one said not to! So I took 2 with rice milk and they slid down easily. Since then I've had them with rice milk and they are no problem at all. No sticking, no indigestion, no sour taste.
Now why wouldn't that be on the label or told by the pharmacist?
Maxine
Hiya teagirl,
Glad to hear you are slowly making improvement. Sounds to me as though soy might a problem for you. Why not leave all of it out for a few weeks, at least, still leaving off all molecules of gluten and dairy, of course.
If you eat eggs, don't eat them every day. If you eat them twice a week, spread out the distance between when you eat ANYTHING with eggs in them --say, just on Sundays and Wednesdays, for example. That way, if you notice that you have a bigger no. or quantity of D about twice a week, it may give you a clue that eggs are a problem. Hopefully not.
Are you, at this point, mostly doing everything from scratch when you eat?
If so, you can avoid having to check with manufacturers on so many products right at first, and eventually, add one thing you want to try back in at a time (after you call them), especially when you are much better. Remember, things won't always be like they are now -- variety will come. Right now, you just want to help that gut to heal, and keep it from further injury.
Hope I'm not way behind on how you are doing. I'm having a hard time keeping up with everyone's progress. By the way, I like the word progress.
I think just about everyone who's joined our group has gone through a period of frustration, even when things got better. There's just something about beign sick like this that makes one want to see complete rather than partial results. I remember how impatient I was, even when things weren't all that bad by my old standard.
By the way, some of the restaurants where I'm able to eat now (which I rarely do, actually), serve vegetables, like zucchini and alot of other barely cooked (heated?) vegetables --so many that if I eat them all in one serving, I'll get diarrhea, even now.
If I eat a normal serving size and take the rest home, I'm fine, both meals, so it's not really the content but the quantity. I recently decided I'm just going to tell the chef or restaurant manager that I HAVE to have thoroughly cooked vegetables or I can't order anything.
The reason I know I wasn't gluted was because these episodes of D come right after I eat too much of the almost raw vegetables, unlike my food sensitivities which occur the next day in my case.
I think the reason I never noticed this before is that I've never been one to eat this many raw vegetables all in one sitting in my entire life -- this is only something I've done recently. I think it was because these particular restaurants couldn't find me anything else to eat -- they've already ruined the potatoes with butter, etc.
Actually, I would've done better with just a green salad. I have no trouble with salads for some reason. Also, the same vegetables cooked til they are reasonably soft don't EVER bother me, so that reinforces that it's the fiber, not the specific vegetable.
Anyway, my recent over-raw-veggie eating episodes have helped me to understand folks who have had trouble with ALL vegetables in the beginning.
This can be so complicated, I know.
How do you do with summer squash cooked very soft? If you tolerate a little onion, maybe you could spice 'em up with a little bit of onion? Maybe you are already doing this.
Hope this makes sense.
Yours, Luce
Glad to hear you are slowly making improvement. Sounds to me as though soy might a problem for you. Why not leave all of it out for a few weeks, at least, still leaving off all molecules of gluten and dairy, of course.
If you eat eggs, don't eat them every day. If you eat them twice a week, spread out the distance between when you eat ANYTHING with eggs in them --say, just on Sundays and Wednesdays, for example. That way, if you notice that you have a bigger no. or quantity of D about twice a week, it may give you a clue that eggs are a problem. Hopefully not.
Are you, at this point, mostly doing everything from scratch when you eat?
If so, you can avoid having to check with manufacturers on so many products right at first, and eventually, add one thing you want to try back in at a time (after you call them), especially when you are much better. Remember, things won't always be like they are now -- variety will come. Right now, you just want to help that gut to heal, and keep it from further injury.
Hope I'm not way behind on how you are doing. I'm having a hard time keeping up with everyone's progress. By the way, I like the word progress.
I think just about everyone who's joined our group has gone through a period of frustration, even when things got better. There's just something about beign sick like this that makes one want to see complete rather than partial results. I remember how impatient I was, even when things weren't all that bad by my old standard.
By the way, some of the restaurants where I'm able to eat now (which I rarely do, actually), serve vegetables, like zucchini and alot of other barely cooked (heated?) vegetables --so many that if I eat them all in one serving, I'll get diarrhea, even now.
If I eat a normal serving size and take the rest home, I'm fine, both meals, so it's not really the content but the quantity. I recently decided I'm just going to tell the chef or restaurant manager that I HAVE to have thoroughly cooked vegetables or I can't order anything.
The reason I know I wasn't gluted was because these episodes of D come right after I eat too much of the almost raw vegetables, unlike my food sensitivities which occur the next day in my case.
I think the reason I never noticed this before is that I've never been one to eat this many raw vegetables all in one sitting in my entire life -- this is only something I've done recently. I think it was because these particular restaurants couldn't find me anything else to eat -- they've already ruined the potatoes with butter, etc.
Actually, I would've done better with just a green salad. I have no trouble with salads for some reason. Also, the same vegetables cooked til they are reasonably soft don't EVER bother me, so that reinforces that it's the fiber, not the specific vegetable.
Anyway, my recent over-raw-veggie eating episodes have helped me to understand folks who have had trouble with ALL vegetables in the beginning.
This can be so complicated, I know.
How do you do with summer squash cooked very soft? If you tolerate a little onion, maybe you could spice 'em up with a little bit of onion? Maybe you are already doing this.
Hope this makes sense.
Yours, Luce