Vegan = normal life and no meds

I was diagnosed with UC back in February, spent a week in the hospital, got out and was on Prednisone and Asacol. My doctor kept me on the Pred for about a month. After I got off, I asked him how long I needed to be on Asacol. He said "indefinitely", and he might take it off in a year.

I said to hell with it. There has to be a cure out there. Being on medication everyday and losing my hair because of it is not normal. Don't get me wrong, I was very grateful to take it when I needed to take it after leaving the hospital, but I knew that the cause had to be my lifestyle.

Long story short, I'm a vegan now, stopped taking my meds and feel amazing every single waking day.

If you have questions, ask away.

Glad you're feeling better, and hope it lasts.

I was vegan when I was diagnosed with UC this summer and had been vegan for several years at that point. No processed anything except store bought almond or hemp milk. Sadly for me, I have done better adding white meat and fish back into my diet although I don't eat it daily. I am glad being vegan works for you and I certainly encourage people to try the entire vegan lifestyle. Any way to get off of meds and heal yourself with diet is great!

I was vegan before I was diagnosed so I will NEVER do that again. I completely blame veganism on being sick to be honest.

BUT, I will say that everyone is different and there is no right diet. just do what works and stick to it.

I was a happy vegetarian when diagnosed and had to add meat into my diet to survive this horrible disease.

Now that I'm much better I can go meatless a day or 2 a week but definitely my gut likes meat, probably because it is so easy to digest. I love veggies but quite a few veggies are still not tolerated well such as broccoli, onions, tomatoes (raw or cooked) and nothing raw except veggie juice. And not many fruits either boo-hoo on that one.

The part of vegetarianism that caused me most problems was pasta, bread and milk products.

Everyone has to find what their gut can tolerate. We are not all the same.

I would try it at some point, I am willing to try anything. But I blew it yestersday and had one leaf of lettuce and didn't do meds and today has been miserable! I blame the lettuce(raw veggie) for me are so bad!

ya 52, I have no idea why you came here unprepared - as gary suggested, you really need to read ALL of those tens of thousands of posts , which clearly illustrate that eating vegans, contrary to popular opinion, will not bring peace and harmony to most colons -

This thread provoked a couple wild thoughts on this,genetics,trigger events aside.

Depending on what you are, say vegan,you will have a different microbiome type than a lacto-ovo,or a strict meat eater.  So if you were a strict meat eater and you switch to vegan then the microbiome will change types.

If an omnivore then going either vegan or strict meat eater you will again change microbiome types.

As you can see on this thread,there are vegans who started to eat meat and got better,and vise versa.

If omnivore then perhaps you need to go one way or the other.

For instance I am omnivore,but SCD where I ate lots of meat did not help,perhaps for me I should try and go vegan. I normally eat a lot of red meat anyway.

There seems to be some pattern to this.

I know there is at least one pre illness diet study,have to look for it.

We may even have a survey on this site,or we need a new one,just to see if there is anything to this.

Old Mike

Here are some,but they don't really address this observation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21468064

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9245929

 

Post Edited (Old Mike) : 9/22/2013 7:26:38 AM (GMT-6)

Beachy you need to keep doing what you are doing. It may or may not be the vegan stuff but it's not worth changing anything right now. You may want to write down exactly what you are eating, vitamins, or anything else.

This UC is strangely elusive and although you may feel like you're getting attacked in here you're not. It's just that many of us "hardcore UC'ers" have tried and seen it all.

Personally I think something else is going on in our bodies - like some kind of virus - that science will get a better handle on in the near future. I'm saying that because UC acts and behaves like an illness. At least for me it does.

Good luck.

What StealthGuardian said, and: keep doing EXACTLY what you are doing/taking now. Just supplement with D3 and B12. This disease is so individual so if you found what works for you then you've hit the jackpot.
Hope you stay well...

Post Edited (Conquer UC) : 9/22/2013 8:38:03 AM (GMT-6)

I also wonder if Vegan means "lactose free". Many UC'rs have a lactose intolerance and by eliminating the lactose you could get a lot better, maybe even achieve remission with the help of some short term meds like the pred and asacol. It is possible she had a lactose intolerance only and that theoretically she could eat meats and be lactose free and mistakenly claim remission by going Vegan.

Oh, I love when people who have had this condition for, like, 30 minutes come here with the solution to the problem for everyone. I congratulate everyone who gets a spontaneous remission which they may then attribute to whatever they wish. I was never lucky enough to get a remission spontaneously or any other way until I got well up the medication tree. And I would never suggest that my solution to the problem would be anyone else's.

Sure, whoever originally started this thread was a newbie to this forum and perhaps the disease. I'm certainly not and I gave my experience and 2 cents.

I KNOW a low fat vegan diet put me into remission as my body has been that of a laboratory experiment, like most of us here. We all know doctors are grasping at straws trying to understand what and why is exactly happening in the bodies of those with ulcerative colitis. Many different theories, MANY different medicinal/diet approaches and all throwing darts at a board with a blindfold on. Sometimes they hit the bulls-eye and a particular medication works...and I'm not knocking that, it's great as I know what suffering with this disease is like and any relief is almost miracle-like.

I advocate a low fat vegan diet and have been doing that for a long time on here (search: vegan cure, 30 bananas a day for 30 days); to much chagrin. We all come from different schools of thought and experience.

I do know that Ulcerative Colitis is a fairly "modern" disease and considering that humans have been around some 5 to 7 million years and lived primarily on a frugivorious diet until the past 200,000 years or so, it just makes sense to me to revert back to the original eating habits of our species. The more we have intensified our intake of animal products (the past 50,000 years), the more mankind encounters a plethora of new diseases and plagues.