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Lesley wrote:Will a couple of pieces of gum a day be as bad as eating a piece of bread?
Sorbitol is a sugar alcohol, and it's just a laxative - it's not a protein, so it can't trigger an autoimmune reaction.
Incidentally, you shouldn't need to throw out all your cooking utensils. The only ones that can retain gluten are those that are porous, (such as those made of wood, or cast iron, and those that are lined with teflon, or some other non-stick coating), or those that are cracked or deeply scratched.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Thanks Cynthia. I have been ill for so long I am not really depressed about it. Not yet anyway. At this point I am glad I have a dx, and going to fight it as much as I can.
I have never chewed gum before. Started now (advised on several websites as a partial solution for GERD). Before this I sucked on Werthes, but they have cream in them, and therefore qualify as dairy.
I was also using Splenda as a sweetener with no problem.
Today, no chewing gum, only chicken breast and sweet potato chips, tea, and the reaction was very quick. 45 minutes is all it took.
I am hoping things get better because the pain is bad (though not as bad as when I was coming off prednisone - that is better at last!), and the heartburn is horrible.
Tex, I didn't answer you fully last night because I was so tired my eyes crossed when I started to read, so I missed spots.
No one understands my electrolyte issue. Why my sodium and chloride levels drop very low (connected and always looked at together) , why they are SO difficult to get up. When I drink water I have had my sodium drop to 125. I can't drag myself around when it's at that level. I was hospitalized when I was really ill, and then they found that it dropped down to 122, at which level one should be dead. Then they would only let me drink one glass of "free water" daily. At that time I ate fresh fruit, and chewed apple peels to moisten my mouth.
I wasn't dehydrated. Even the nephrologist couldn't get to the bottom of it. It's just weird.
It doesn't have sorbitol, or, at least it's advertised as sorbitol free gum.
Does this look OK to you? Without the gum stimulating my salivary glands the heartburn becomes unbearable.
I took my pain pill after the bad attack this am. Haven't eaten ANYTHING since breakfast - chicken breast, some sweet potato chips, half a banana, tea and 45 minutes later - explosion.
And now, cramps, pain, heaviness, uncomfortable. Bad heartburn even though I am following Gabes' directions. I feel like I am between a BIG rock and a VERY hard place.
Lesley, I watched Food, Inc., too. That's why I stopped buying Tyson. It's not Foster Farms that is bad, it's Tyson, and another chicken producer that starts with "P", I think. I had never heard of that one. I think you are mixing up Foster Farms and Tyson. Tyson abuses the chickens, and the farmers that end up in "partnership" with them. I won't ever eat another Tyson product if I can help it.
Foster Farms is just across the river and down the road a bit from me. I have confidence in their chicken products. Until I learn different, of course.
Marliss Bombardier
Dum spiro, spero -- While I breathe, I hope
Psoriasis - the dark ages
Hashimoto's Thyroiditis - Dec 2001
Collagenous Colitis - Sept 2010
Granuloma Annulare - June 2011
It would be just like me to mix things up. I know Tyson is horrible and I thought the other one was Foster Farm. Anyway, I do know that they aren't free range. I KNOW the chicken tastes much better when it is free range. There is far less fat. Organic doesn't mean free range. Even TJ's doesn't have free range chickens. There's are high fat and no nearly as tasty.
I KNOW it's probably crazy, but being this sick has made me decide not to compromise on food anymore. I want to make it as natural and healthy as I can, so if that means buying the best, and looking for stuff to find the best price for the best product so be it.
I have always been super thrifty when it comes to food. However, my meds have cost a lot of money. I am now trying to get off meds so the money I save there will go on good food!
Wish me luck!!
That's a great goal - I've always prioritized spending on food (happy to skimp on other things). I love the idea that your savings on meds will help you to enjoy healthy, delicious eating!
Xylitol is pretty much equivalent to sorbitol - it's just another sugar alcohol with a slightly different chemical composition.
Try avoiding the sweet potatoes - you may be reacting to the mannitol in them. You may be super sensitive to sugar alcohols. (See my other post on this topic).
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
FWIW, I have a theory that when your system is really messed up (like yours is right now), sometimes it's not WHAT you're eating that's the problem--it's just the fact that you're eating! So definitely eliminate anything you think might be causing you problems, but keep in mind that you may not actually be reacting to everything you eat--it just seems like it!
I'll throw my 2-cents in. I tested highly reactive to chicken on the MRT test. I was quite surprised, but it did explain why the elimination diet I was using made me feel worse instead of better. I think that you should feel better quite quickly once you find the right mix of foods.
You might try eating turkey instead of chicken to see if it makes a difference. I can't eat just any turkey; it has to be either Honeysuckle, Empire or Norbest, but I don't react to it at all, unlike chicken.
I hope you can figure this out soon.
Gloria
You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
I had *that* experience in common with you as well - many foods I can now tolerate seemed to be killing me in those early weeks, because my whole systems was so inflamed, reactive, angry, exhausted. We have so many little details in common, I am thinking about starting a betting-pool about your future Enterolab results! (If I had bet on my own, I'd have been wrong...)
Gloria,
I now eat chicken without a problem, and was practically living on it in my first attempts to get MC controlled - but at some point in those dark days, I took your experience to heart, and switched chicken for turkey, with positive results. I believe I had over-relied on chicken, not only during this MC crisis, but for some years previously. I wonder whether that's the reason why so many people react to it more than to turkey? We have been getting turkey from local farmers, and are so grateful to have this option available. Our local supplier sells turkey breast, and also turkey wings, which are wonderful for soup. I am still pondering whether my next step should be to master canning, or invest in a chest freezer. I think I should modulate my hearty endorsement for chicken soup, based on the greater likelihood of reactivity to chicken - even though many folks seem to tolerate it without trouble. In the early effort to slam the brakes on MC, any way we can up the odds is worth mentioning.
I have eaten Applegate Farms turkey products, and really liked their some of them - but at least one of their offerings has ingredients like carrageenan, and I prefer to eat the food/the whole food/and nothing but the food, when possible
Lesley, the first 3 - 6 months are the hardest, as you read and absorb all the info and advice, try and figure out what works and what doesnt, not just for the MC for any other medical issues you have.
to me, it reminds of the circus act with the spinning plate, just as you get one of them aok, others need your attention and you run up and down the line of spinning plates trying to keep them from falling. It will get easier.
it is important to figure out your 'trusty staples' as you will need them here and there.
can you have water if it is like an electrolite drink? there is a reciepe for home made electrolite restorer http://www.perskyfarms.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=992
a visit to the dentist and local anesthetic was enough to send my digestion into chaos for 48 hours.
due to nausea and vomitting i have not eaten for 30 hours and i only am now feeling well enough to have some gooey rice* with an egg stirred through and some well cooked finely chopped chicken
* gooey rice is: slow boil some low GI rice in stock (home made stock like yours), do not rinse or strain the rice, the glutenous liquid helps to heal inflammation
Hope there is some improvement for you soon
take care
Gabes Ryan
"Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned"
Dalai Lama
Thanks to you all. This is really valuable advice. Also the support really helps more than anything else.
I might be expecting too much at once. It's just so exhausting to go through this, and the prednisone really threw me for a loop. Such a mistake!
Cynthia - I think you are right because anything I eat seems to upset me. It gives me heartburn just to think of eating, especially when I am as limited as I am, and nothing even begins to look good.
Gloria - I will have to go hunting Turkey tomorrow. I don't like Turkey very much, and don't know where I will find a brand that likes ME.
I am not going to eat the yams tomorrow and see if that helps.
Gabes, much as I dislike the taste of the homemade electrolyte (tried it before) it can't be worse than the mixture I have made from the powders and vit d. Maybe I should mix them all together and get it over with?
Sorry you are feeling so awful. You have been helping me so much. I wish I could help you.
thanks Lesley, i am ok, our bodies have a determined way to make us rest,
when i didnt slow down and rest, the vomitting started, then i did stop and rest
(and vomitting and hiatius hernia dont get along either)
I am also realising that i dont cope with anesthetic very well, in the last 2 months i have had sedation, then 3 x local, then general, and friday 6 lots of local, each event of these 12 -24 hours later I get really nauseous and some vomitting
I went to the dentist appointment fatigued and not feeling 100%, I should have postponed it.
woke up today feeling much much better, (it is monday here) i wont go to work as i havent done any washing or cooking. I spend a halfday on a sunday to cook up all my staples for breakfast and lunch for the week.
figuring out the MC management plan that will work for you will take some time, as you make changes it will take some time to figure out if that change is working or not.
food wise - when our digestion is inflammed and super sensitive i believe it is like a baby, and with babies when you first start them on solids, they always react to a new ingredient, so when we start a new ingredient, have a small serve, wait 24 hours and then have a slightly bigger serve, and then the third day see if there are any symptoms. where C is more prevelant than D, look for discomfort, pain, gas, GERD being worse.
as per your discussion with Cynthia - it is important to be relaxed and be looking forward to the meal, that is the only way that our bodies can make the salivia to aid the digestion process.
if you are unsettled and stressed and have GERD before eating that is not good. The digestion process starts with us looking forward to the meal.
I know you have a myraid of things going on, but i feel that you should focus on the worst one first get it under control and then deal with the others one by one.
have you tried having small serve of a banana and Vit D, 20 mins before the meal? to settle the GERD.
When the gerd was at its worse, i would have couple of teaspoons of lemon juice in cup of warm water 20 mins before the meal and this balanced the PH
Embrace the meal, even if it is gooey rice with chicken, accept that what you are eating is nurturing and healing your digestion.
it takes a while for your brain and tastebuds to adjust to the new eating plan, given how you are feeling the success of attaining wellness is reliant on you accepting this modified eating plan.
Gabes Ryan
"Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned"
Dalai Lama
Anesthesia - do you know what your dentist uses? I cannot have Demarol in and anesthetic. I vomit for hours if I do. One of my docs said that everyone vomits after Demarol. Maybe, but not like me. They have had to keep me overnight because of the violence of it. And if everyone vomits why use it if there are available options? It's not a huge price difference.
If you track the ingredient maybe you can avoid the vomiting?
I came back from the pool ravenous. I had a bout of GERD while in the pool. Drank some water. Not great. When I got upstairs it seemed to have subsided, so I ate a tiny bit of chicken. It hurt going down. Actually burned.
I don't dislike what I am eating. Just that I miss a variety, dairy and F&V very much! I ate mostly F&V and dairy before I got sick, so this is a total change. Breakfast is my biggest problem.
Should I split the doses of vit D so I can more before I eat?
The meds I take prevent me from being able to really observe when C&D alternate. So far, even on this diet, even if I don't take a pain pill at night I wake with D during the night and/or in the am.
I think Cynthia is right. My system is so inflamed nd upset that it reacts to EVERYTHING. Till it quietens down I won't be able to tell.
Don't buy a whole turkey; it may not like you, either. When I'm visiting DD#2, I buy a couple of Honeysuckle turkey cutlets and panfry them. Hopefully you can find some. I also noticed that Sam's club sells cans of plain turkey breast with water and salt. I bought some for those times when I'm on the road or need a quick meal. They sell cans of chicken also, but I didn't check the labels for the ingredients.
Gloria
You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
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