Elimination diet

[ingridj]

Hi all
First day of spring here but I can’t say it is working to lift my spirits! Would like the make some progress treating my LC and need some guidance please.
I was diagnosed with LC end June. I immediately started researching and found your amazing site and stopped gluten dairy soy sugar 21 July. Did not stop eggs but have since last week. I have been eating protein- beef lamb pork chicken fish , selected cooked veg peeled mainly tubers. Banana, cooked apple. Avocado and banana but stopped that a few days ago as I became aware of the histamine issue.

I started entocort four weeks ago, today is the start of my fifth week and I have a script for eight weeks. Entocort has done nothing for me. Imodium works so I use it when I have to eg an outing/meeting.

I have absolutely no idea what my safe foods are and cannot do enterolab tests as they have advised they won’t be geared up for international orders for 3/4 months.
As of yesterday I decided to restrict my diet and I chose to go with chicken jasmine rice peeled zucchini sweet potato. And a cooked apple maybe once a day. How long do I continue with this before I choose something different, if this fails to work and is not safe food for me? When do I know I’ve failed with this… move on…

We do not have turkey in South Africa. I have seen some frozen drumsticks in the dog food freezer in my local supermarket. It looks dubious. Lamb is not an exotic meat here it is readily eaten but not inexpensive.

I am taking vitaminD3 and magnesium liquid sprayed on and rubbed in.. probably not enough to that. And epsom salts in my bath.
Main question concerns my elimination diet… how long before I move on to something else if this fails? So much appreciate this site and your input.
Regards
Ingrid

[tex]

Hello Ingrid,

It's impossible to make precise recommendations because we're all different, which causes us to respond differently to various foods and medications, so like most of us, I tend to make recommendations based on what works for most of us, unless a problem is obvious. In general, most of us respond to diet changes in a week or two, but the more difficult cases may take four or six weeks or longer. I'm not sure what foods are commonly available in supermarkets or at local butchers in South Africa, but if these are available, antelope, buffalo, venison, emu, and ostrich should be safe — In other words, basically any meats than most people didn't commonly eat before developing MC. Some of us react to sweet potatoes, So if you continue to react while eating sweet potatoes, you might stop eating them, or switch to cauliflower, turnips, rutabagas, or some other vegetables, if you crave carbs.

Here's something you can use as a guide to help decide when to try diet changes: the half-life of antigliadin antibodies is 120 days. That causes gluten to dominate our reactions for much longer than any other food. It usually takes at least 6 to 8 weeks to get our antigliadin antibody level down to a sufficiently low level where it stops causing reactions, for those of us with the more severe cases. It took me almost 3 months. Antibodies to all other food sensitivities have only a five or six day half-life. That means that once we get gluten out of our system, we should be able to detect other food sensitivities within a few days to a week after eliminating those foods from our diet. That makes experimenting with foods much easier once the effects of gluten no longer dominate our reactions.

Severe cases tend to recover slowly, so don't try to judge your progress on a daily basis. Look at how you feel on a weekly or monthly basis. Progress can be slow, but when remission finally arrives, it's usually obvious.

I hope this is helpful.

Tex

[jbrohlr]

Ingrid

Since you can't get Enterolab yet, here are the 11 antigenic foods they test for (on top of the big 4: gluten, dairy, soy, and eggs) on the A1 and C1 panels:

Beef, Chicken, Pork, Tuna

Oat, Rice, Corn

Cashew, Walnut, Almond

White Potatoe

I personally react to rice, and my Enterolab results show that chicken is a problem for me. Just from what I read on this site quite a few people have a problem with chicken, but many do ok with rice.

When I reacted to rice the first day was bad, running to the bathroom every hour. After that day it took about 5 weeks before I fully recovered.

Just my opinion: give it a few days for the antibodies to eggs to clear, if you don't improve consider chicken and/or rice as the cause of your current problems.

Best of luck,
John R.

[ingridj]

Thank you Tex and John for the speedy replies. I will keep going with the diet I have randomly chosen for the next two weeks and then see where I am at. Ostrich is available here so that could be my next try… minus rice and sweet potato, will try other veg. No doubt you will hear from me again and I really appreciate your input.
Regards
Ingrid

[Gabes-Apg]

the other aspect of this 'stage' of things.

Along with the actual limited ingredients, is the mental and emotional aspects of healing.
this is the time that we have to listen to our bodies and love our bodies (despite the challenges)

be ok with the slow healing process,
be ok with slow progress, there will be minimal noticeable change day to day
let go of perfectionism a bit - try not to overthink things

It took me a good 12 months to get my diet sorted, my routine sorted and to get into a good space mentally about life with MC.