MICROSCOPIC COLITIS SUPPORT

Thank you, Wayne.

Any thoughts about tea made only with fresh ginger root? As mentioned earlier, I am new to MC, and wary about anything I eat or drink. I expected to have resolved D, after a week on bland diet, but then I now understand healing could take weeks and even months. Still, I am curious about your thoughts about the fresh ginger root tea. Thanks, again!

I've never used it personally, but many members feel that ginger helps to tranquilize or stabilize their digestive systems. There might be a handful of people who can't tolerate it, but I believe that it's generally well-tolerated.

Yes, a lucky few recover in a few days after they begin the diet, but for most of us, the journey back to health is much longer, requiring several months, and many of us need even more time. The inflammation that causes the disease usually builds up for several years before reaching the point where symptoms become impossible to ignore, and so reversing all the damage takes time. Compared with most types of injury, intestinal inflammation damage heals relatively slowly — much more slowly than even most gastroenteroligists realize. We can reach remission in 3–6 months in most cases, but total healing (return to normal intestinal mucosal cellular histology) requires at least 2–5 years for most adults. Kids almost always heal completely within a year. Increasing age slows down the healing process because we normally tend to accumulate inflammation as we age.

Tex

Thank you, Wayne.

Bear repeating, this web site, the group chat, and your book are changing my health for the better. A blessing, truly.

I'm guessing that the 3 oz. of premier canned wild-caught salmon triggered two bouts of blow-out D, early this morning. Because, the only other food I ate yesterday was a small handful of cooked organic spinach plus a bowl of hot gluten-free, organic rice cereal with rice milk, which I have been eating about three weeks now with no problem. What do ya'll think?

Some of us are sensitive to tuna and salmon. Was the salmon packed in water or oil? If it was oil, it was probably soy oil, which is a no no for most of us. It's somewhat rare to be sensitive to rice, but a few of us are.

Tex

Salmon is packed in water and per consumer report this brand safest with regard to mercury. This past evening I had 2 tablespoons of same salmon because I had eaten only hot rice cereal all day and was very very hungry. I had no other safe food in the house.

Another question. Could the recent issue flare up have had anything to do with the cooked fresh spinach I had with the 3 ounces of canned salmon. I think I read on this site that foods with ocalic acid were not safe for MC sufferers.

Salmon was a "red food" for me, according to the blood tests that I had done when I was in a flare. I stay away from it. I eat tuna, haddock, cod, shrimp, lobster, etc. with no issues whatsoever.

Thanks, Cathy!

Which grains other than quinoa do folks find safe, meaning don’t trigger flare ups? Thank you
Sherryann

I'm not sure that any grains are truly safe for everyone. Rice is probably the least likely grain to cause issues. Unfortunately, quinoa has sometimes been plagued by cross-contamination issues, and some members of the forum here seem to react to even pure quinoa. Most of the so-called "ancient grains" are members of the same plant family as wheat, and even though they are weaker allergens, then still cause reactions.

You might try amaranth. That's not a grain (it's a small seed), but it should be safe. It's not a very popular seed, so it may be difficult to find. As I recall, Bob's Red Mill used to offer amaranth or amaranth flour. Maybe someone else would have some better suggestions.

Tex

Sherryann wrote:Could the recent issue flare up have had anything to do with the cooked fresh spinach I had with the 3 ounces of canned salmon.

My first thought was that the likely culprit is the spinach and not the salmon, because cooked spinach is pretty high in fiber. While fiber is usually good for people with healthy colons, my doctor and most other medical authorities recommend staying away from all high fiber foods while recovering from microscopic colitis, simply because fiber can further irritate an already-inflamed colon. Here's the low fiber, low lactose diet I've been following for the past five months while on a long budesonide taper:

https://www.unitypoint.org/cedarrapids/ ... 202013.pdf

You can see that cooked spinach and other greens are specifically not recommended. In addition, I avoid caffeine, artificial sweeteners and NSAIDs. While I personally don't believe for several reasons that my MC is related to food intolerances, I nevertheless stay relatively low on gluten, simply because gluten seems like an unhealthy thing to eat, in general, no matter whether one has a bowel disease or not.

Kilt wrote
While I personally don't believe for several reasons that my MC is related to food intolerances,


This is part of the complexity of attaining remission in MC world, each person's primary triggers /cause of MC is different.

For some food is major inflammation causation
For some it is mostly medication causation, food secondary
For others it can be histamine/mast cell primary and other items secondary.
For some stress is primary
And for some it is combo of all of the above type thing

That is why what works for one may not work for another, and each person has to listen to their body and figure out what works for them...

Thanks everyone for responding to my posts!

Hi, a little backstory, I was diagnosed with CC August 20, 2017 and given 3 months of budesonide, but it was the first week of nursing school which was too intense and busy to try to fix things with diet. So I managed the last 1 1/2 years with lots of immodium, pepto, and Welchol. I graduated in December and have been working on the phase 1 diet since then but have only been really serious since January 1st.

I'm eating turkey, salmon, jasmine rice, pork, turkey bone broth, extra virgin olive, zucchini, carrots, sweet potato, salt, and pepper. After eating all three vegetables on Thursday and having many bouts of D in the early hours of the next morning and day I stopped carrots and sweet potato. I also drink lots of water and plain seltzer. I'm taking Vitamin D 10,000 IU, Magnesium L-Theronate 600 mg, Cymbalta, and Wellbutrin. I cannot stop the antidepressants and risk falling into another suicidal depression.

Now I feel weak, fatigued, my leg muscles started cramping last night, and even though I'm tired I have insomnia most nights. I think I must not be getting enough calories and/or nutrients. Most days now I have 1-2 BM's of watery but not propulsive diarrhea a day this is much better that 10+ when I wasn't completely medicated. I'm not hungry much of the time but I eat when I am. I am significantly overweight so weight loss is a good thing but not in place of the health of the rest of my body. I've lost 9 pounds since 1/1/19.

I bought and began reading the Microscopic Colitis book but am not far in it. It's difficult to concentrate. Please help, I start my new job as a registered nurse at a hospital on 2/25/19 and need to have energy, and a few foods that I know are safe to eat so I don't have issues during my shifts.

Thank you, Michele Malcolm.

Michele wrote:Now I feel weak, fatigued, my leg muscles started cramping last night, and even though I'm tired I have insomnia most nights.

That sounds like an electrolyte deficiency, due to the diarrhea. A quick blood test would verify this, but I'm guessing that you are potassium deficient, due to all the diarrhea. If it's not potassium, you're probably magnesium deficient, but that's more difficult to ascertain using a blood test. The serum magnesium tests used almost universally by doctors won't catch a cellular magnesium deficiency, and if you're taking any magnesium, it will always show a normal result because the body automatically regulates the blood level in the normal range. You would need the RBC blood test, and unless your level is in the upper part of the normal range, you are almost surely magnesium deficient. The normal range used by clinics is incorrect — because of the use of faulty data when it was established, the "normal" range is biased toward the low side.

Magnesium threonate crosses the blood/brain barrier to treat the brain, but I'm not so sure that it's the best choice for supplying normal muscle cell needs. Most of us take magnesium glycinate.

A banana contains a fair amount of potassium (for use in a pinch), and they're safe for us but, it might not be enough.

A magnesium deficiency will definitely cause leg or foot cramps and insomnia (plus night sweats) — been there, done that. My magnesium deficiency was so bad that I was losing 2 pounds every week, and I had to force myself to eat, but my doctors didn't have the foggiest idea what was wrong with me, even when I went to the ER.

Tex