Newly diagnosed with LC, needing some guidance

[tex]

You're right, zucchini is a problem for some of us.

I'm not sensitive to eggs, so my recovery diet was basically pork, occasional deep-fried catfish (coated with cornmeal/cornflour, eggs (for breakfast, only) potatoes, broccoli, green beans, and corn tortillas.

If you're looking for carb substitutes, rutabagas, turnips, cauliflower, quinoa, amaranth, sweet potatoes, yams a possible options. Although white potatoes show up on EnteroLab results sometimes, few of us actually react to them.

Tex

[jbrohlr]

Leena,

My staple is lamb (cuts, not ground). I eat it with as much fat attached as I can tolerate. I'll eat turkey if I can find it without preservatives and since my second Enterolab results showed no reaction to pork and tuna I have reintroduced pork in small amounts and infrequently. I also eat sweet potatoes but in small amounts since when I am not in remission I cannot digest carbs very well, and I have recently experimented with turnips.

Supplement-wise I use D3 and topical Magnesium. I will take very small amounts of Mg (around 10 to 15 mg) orally on occasion to see whether and how much I can tolerate. I would like to introduce vitamin K2 since it is supposed to help with D3, but I'm having a hard time finding K2 without any suspicious ingredients.

In my experience Leena, unless you have been in remission for a while, fatigue and weight loss are a fact of life. They're both alarming. And I have set myself back occasionally trying to desperately regain weight (e.g. the rice fiasco). I should have taken my bathroom scale and buried it in the backyard.

John R.

[lotus_03]

@Tex - This is very helpful to know, thank you. I think my next steps will be to do some cautious testing to find some more safe veggies to include in my recovery diet. I'll focus on the ones you have mentioned so far in our discussions.

@John - Thank you for the information! I am taking Pure Encapsulations D3 5,000 IU daily. And as for magnesium, I did purchase magnesium salts from Ancient Minerals to try doing foot soaks. I am taking things one step at a time right now, to not change up too many variables at once.

You make a good point about the weight loss and fatigue. I will try not to focus on it too much, and simply be OK with the healing process. On that note, I did recently find that I had gained a few pounds over the past month as my symptoms started settling down.

Regarding the vit K2, I am not too familiar with what the forum has to say about it. My initial thought is - are there any safe food sources we could possibly try?

[lotus_03]

A few questions I have been wondering about…

What exactly am I observing for to know that a food is absolutely not safe for me during recovery? Is it watery diarrhea? Is mushy, soft stool still OK?

Removing the jasmine rice has totally thrown off my BMs (mushy stool, but no watery diarrhea), so now I feel like I’m starting from square one. The only time I've ever had a clear "NO" about a food was when I tried 1/4 cup of salmon a few months ago, before finding this forum, and immediately had severe abdominal cramping followed by burning diarrhea the next day.

I'm wondering if I try adding any safe foods to my recovery diet, whether they are potentially harming things or not?

[Gabes-Apg]

there can be a mixture of symptoms that can indicate inflammatory ingredient

- gerd / reflux
- histamine symptoms. itchy tongue, throat, runny nose etc
- stomach pains
- gurgling
- urgency with bm
- joint pain
- foggy brain / fatigue

my experience is that
things like pains, urgency with BM, histamine will happen quickly after exposure
things like joint pain and foggy brain/fatigue will build slowly ie you eat something for a week

that is why we recommend only trying one new thing at a time so that you can observe changes over a couple of week
hope this makes sense

[lotus_03]

Hi Gabes! Thank you so much. This is very helpful info.

I have been re-testing sweet potato the past few days and so far I haven't noticed any alarming symptoms like the ones you mentioned. So I believe it is OK for me. The resistant starches from re-heating sweet potato leftovers seem to cause me issues, so I've been only eating freshly baked so far.

I'll continue to look out for any of those symptoms as I progress.

Thanks again,
Leena

[lotus_03]

Just wanted to give an update. Well, it looks like I definitely cannot tolerate sweet potatoes. I tested small amounts this week (1/4-1/2 cup) of baked sweet potato - stool was basically mushy, but no WD. So I thought I just needed to give it more time. Then yesterday I tried some boiled sweet potato, and after eating dinner 8 hrs later I had a sudden episode of nausea, feverish feeling, abdominal pain, and WD. I believe this was the response from eating the sweet potato with my lunch meal earlier in the day.

So yeah, sweet potato is out for me. In case anyone else doesn't tolerate it, you're not alone!

The only other "safe" items I am considering are:

lamb
venison
liver

apple
banana
broccoli
cauliflower
carrots
spaghetti squash
avocado

Questions:

1) Is this an indication that I can't tolerate the oxalates in the sweet potato? Should I be avoiding carrots in that case?

2) Anyone have experience trying out liver? Beef and chicken are out, so maybe I could find some alternative liver options.

[tex]

1) Is this an indication that I can't tolerate the oxalates in the sweet potato? Should I be avoiding carrots in that case?

That's difficult to say. Sweet potatoes contain a lot of insoluble fiber, and we each have a limit on the amount of insoluble fiber we can consume before we have problems (while we're recovering).

2) Anyone have experience trying out liver? Beef and chicken are out, so maybe I could find some alternative liver options.

These are uncharted waters. I don't recall anyone ever posting that they were eating liver while trying to recover from MC.

Tex

[jbrohlr]

Leena,
When you say liver, do you mean beef liver? I noticed you had a 2+ on beef on your Enterolab scores, so beef liver is going to cause problems.

I believe that I was exposed to gluten 4 1/2 months ago and the ability to digest carbs is only slowly returning. I can only eat about a third of a sweet potato without loosening my stool considerably. Same with banana. I can eat a half of a green banana a couple of times a week, otherwise it shows up in my stool.

Everything takes a long time with MC. I stopped the worst of the diarrhea pretty quickly but there's always reminders that my gut is still inflamed and when I screw up I know it will take months to get back to normal.

John R.

[lotus_03]

@Tex – Noted, thank you! Perhaps trying liver during the recovery phase is not the best idea… It may not be the most viable option anyways, since it’s difficult to find anything besides beef liver or chicken liver locally.

@John – You’re correct that beef is a problem for me. I was looking into other kinds like turkey liver, duck liver, etc. But it looks like I would have to order online products if I wanted anything besides beef or chicken liver.

I may have been overdoing it on the sweet potato and that’s what flared up my symptoms. Since I also eat a small portion of peeled zucchini/squash with my meals as well.

[jbrohlr]

I'm definitely a liver and onions lover so I was pretty distraught about beef being off the menu. I have tried to find lamb liver but so far I have only found it online. Scared to pull the trigger on shipped meat.
John R.

[Catieu]

2) 2) Anyone have experience trying out liver? Beef and chicken are out, so maybe I could find some alternative liver options.

Hi Lotus,
I did try liver during this phase (I’m still in it). I tried goat and duck liver. Even though I regularly eat both animals, the liver didn’t agree with me at all. My symptoms worsened—goat liver was worse than duck liver, but I couldn’t tolerate either.

Big hug
Marta

[lotus_03]

@Marta - Ah, I understand. Thank you so much for your insight. There may be something about the high concentration of certain nutrients in liver that makes it a potential irritant to our guts during the recovery phase, or more difficult to digest properly. I'm sorry you had to experience that reaction.

@John - I think as Marta pointed out, it would be best to steer clear of liver, unfortunately. I was considering it as a potential source of good nutrients, and since it falls under the meat category, I thought maybe it would be similar to trying the safe proteins. But maybe I'd be better off trying safer veggies/fruit instead.

[lotus_03]

Hi all! I'm here with a lengthy update and some questions.

First off, I've been doing better since the last time I posted and had several breakthroughs.
- successfully added in ground lamb
- very carefully tested white rice again and had no issues
- was able to reach consistent normans again (with diet of turkey, ground lamb, white rice, half-peeled zucchini and yellow squash, coconut oil)
- reached my weight pre-MC, the highest I've been in a year!
- switched my toothpaste to unsweetened Earthpaste
- started using fragrance free Kirk's castile soap
- started using 100% pure lanolin oil for moisturizing - thanks to the advice from Gabes and others on different posts. I was in desperate need of a lotion after having side effects from both soy-containing magnesium lotion, and organic shea butter (it gave me dermatitis)
- got my own set of cookware and cutting boards to avoid cross-contamination with my family in the kitchen

I also continue to have my menstrual cycle back after having lost it from June to October last year. I suspect this was due to the weight loss I was experiencing previously. I went from 130 lbs pre-MC down to 117 lbs at the time they did my colonoscopy back in the summer. I felt like I was gonna blow away in the wind... I am now maintaining 126-129 lbs.

In the past few weeks, I've had normans 90%+ of the time. I notice hiccups happen with a return of loose stool, and I can usually pinpoint what triggered it. I've only had two instances of WD in the past month - once after not digesting dinner enough before bedtime, and another during day 1 of menstruation. I notice that my hormone changes seem to really aggravate my gut.


Then I hit a wall this week when I started feeling ambitious and tested carrots again. Six months ago, I was able to eat carrots regularly and was having solid BMs most of the time. Though this was back when I was still eating triggers for me like eggs, beef, chicken, fish. I tested very small amounts this time, literally ~1 tbsp. I noticed my stool change slightly, but things were still solid. I could tell there was some discomfort/unease going on in my gut, though. I only tested for 3 days and stopped. But on day 5, even after returning to only safe food for a couple days, I had WD with nausea last night after dinner.

I'm wondering if my mistake was testing the carrots with my usual meals. I've read in Gabes' other posts that she had difficulty combining too many veggies at once, even if they were safe foods individually. If I remember correctly, I was able to eat large amounts of carrots back then without any WD. But that was also when I was eating NO rice... My suspicion is that carrots are not a trigger necessarily, but that they don't agree with the rice, OR that I should not be combining more than 3 plant foods at a time in any one meal, if that makes sense.

My questions are basically:
- should I only be testing new items without too many other plant foods in the meal? how do you guys usually test your new ingredients?
- what do you look out for to know when you are ready to start testing new foods, or even new items like oral magnesium?

My goal right now is not variety. I am only trying to introduce another item to help cover my main deficiencies at the moment (vitamins A, E, and K), so that I can stick with this diet for many more months and stop having so much anxiety about it.

I am trying to stay positive and not get too discouraged, taking baby steps to move in the right direction. I literally have to give myself pep talks that this phase of healing is not forever, and many of you all have been able to heal with enough time and have more stability, and eventually introduce some variety back in.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Having the opportunity to talk with people who understand and have been through it too has been an immense blessing.

-Leena

[tex]

Hi Leona,

Did you overcook the carrots so that they were easier to digest? You might just be having problems digesting them. Or the problem might be the zucchini. I can't provide much help on testing various new foods, because I have never tried to add very many foods. I have serious histamine issues, so that severely limits my food options. I just eat more of the foods that I can safely tolerate, and take vitamins to cover any nutritional deficiencies that I figure I'm likely to have.

You've only been a member here about a year and four months. Did you read the October newsletter published by the Microscopiccolitisfoundation? It described why the intestines heal so slowly. Those of us who have more severe cases than most MC patients, may need more healing time.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Tex