Feeling awful :(

I remember the days past when I looked in the fridge and couldn't see anything that was both "safe" and that I wanted to eat. And I did feel sorry for myself sometimes (OK a lot), but my symptoms got better so I stuck with it and eventually was able to eat more and more different food.

You sound like your symptoms have improved also. I know it's difficult to look at food in a "mindful" way instead of just eat whatever. And it's hard making the choice to stay with it every...single...time because it's not a one-time decision, it's every...single...time. People who've never done diet mod. have no idea what will power is needed.

All I can say is it's worth it to be free of terrible urgency and D and bleeding, all of which I had. And I can eat so many more things now without problems.

Pred taper makes it worse of course for you. Take it one day at a time and if you break down and have something on your "out" list-- guess what, it won't kill you. Been there, done that. Many times. My body forgave me.

Good luck.

Those blood tests for food sensitivity are worthless, in my experience- they would consistently find foods that I tolerate well to be allergenic while not flagging foods that can flare me. If you want to give a college try to any special diets, i would just ignore the blood tests for food sensitivities and simply follow the special diet for awhile while additionally eliminating or trial and erroring eliminations of anything that you find or suspect, based on experience, cause you problems. (of course, I am talking about the dekayed food sensitivity blood tests- if you are truly alkergic to particular foods, then definitely eliminate those.)

What is that the dekayed test?

Thanks hekela. I feel like I can't get past the intro diet. Are you eating grains now?

hey Hek -

don't mean to sound dumb, but what exactly is a c-scope ? and why haven't you had one ?

I am eating grains except for wheat, which I only cut out about 2 weeks ago. Thinking of heading toward paleo at some point but probably not while I'm pregnant. The things I don't eat (fried food, soy, egg, coffee, chocolate, most processed food, salad occasionaly and I never eat out or at social gatherings) are all a result of keeping a food journal and doing what works for me.

C-scope is a colonoscopy. Only had a sigmoidoscopy to get diagnosed. My GI has talked about doing one at some point but "doesn't want to make me sick with the prep etc. right after I got well.". I know I need to get it done. Insurance is always an issue for me, as I'm unemployed and hubby owns his own small business. It's looking like we may be able to afford it soon, but then I'll get to find out the joys of insuring with a preexisting condition.

My diet leans more toward Paleo than SCD which I found out by paying attention to my gut's reactions and not being "by the book" on any diet including SCD. SCD started as my guide but my gut did not like things that were "legal" on SCD. But I'm not "by the book Paleo" either.

Pretty simple: eat meat and fish (my gut is OK with shellfish like shrimp, mussels, etc but other people can't eat them) and lots of cooked veggies especially leafy greens like spinach and collards. I eliminated dairy, wheat, gluten, all grains including corn, rice, etc. Almond flour had too much fiber so I switched to almond butter to make desserts. First I ate no fruit due to D but after healing I can eat some fruit, dairy and even potatoes again, yay. And better still I can now eat chocolate and have a cup of coffee now, double yay. 2 years ago these foods would be a disaster.

Diet is very personal to your gut so don't ask us what to eat, ask your gut and listen to what it says.
I found bread/wheat/gluten to be sneaky because I couldn't see any reaction except C which at the time was way better than constant D. Luckily my body showed me finally that gluten was bad. When I stopped eating bread products my bleeding stopped.

Chrissy-are you using nightly mesalamine enemas? Enemas really helped my healing in the lower region and many, many people here have gotten better using them. Steroid enemas are fine too but not for long-term use. Suppositories do not reach as high up as mesalamine enemas but are OK to use daytime with using mesalamine enemas at night.

Good luck.

Andrina

I see you were diagnosed in '02 similar to me. IIRC my diagnosis was '00. You and I have/had a lot of damage to repair so be patient with your healing. Mine was slow. Even though the bleeding stopping was a big signal to me I was on the right path (finally) my healing process was not a straight line. Some weeks it was 1 step forward and 1 step back until it started to be 2 steps forward and 1 step back.

But for the first time ever I could see improvement and could also see that I had some control over my symptoms (in a small way at first) which I never had before.

One of my most hateful things about UC is the lack of control over my toilet functions. No adult wants to be back in pre-potty days, so humiliating. As hard as diet modification was it was worth it to me to regain control even the smallest amount, which became better and better. Again it was slower than I liked but I have never gone back to as bad as I was. The peace of mind is also healing.

I think I have the ability to be "normal" again even though all the experts say that is not possible. I think in 1-2 years time my UC symptoms will be in the past. That is what my gut is telling me.

That's cool. Yeah I don't do gluten either lately unfortunately it is in styling product at work I end up absorbing it through the skin so I hope that doesn't cause me havoc.

I am gonna see about enemas from my doc maybe I could tolerate more if I had those I'm not sure. I'm pretty much stuck on intro diet right now for a couple more days due to some recent food reactions that I tried to add.

But yeah patience is not my best virtue but hopefully I can find my diet someday. Just very difficult emotionally for me

Hekela - thought so - personally, i don't see a need to have one - if you're feeling right, why poke something up there that doesn't belong - sounds like you have a great gi guy - you're fortunate -

Ima - sounds like we are doing a lot of the same things with similar results - i'm feeling so awesome right now i don't even regret the fact that it has taken almost ten years to get here - just glad -

Yeah I feel like I don't know where to start. I cannot tolerate a lot
Of scd foods so I guess I'm not really doing it just struggling to find anything that works. Not sure If supplements Are causin me
D either right now. Or if hair styling is keeping me from healing because there is wheat in many of our products at work and it's hard to not absorb it

Or I need more meds as well right now maybe

don't you wear rubber gloves ?