chronic bowel issues....discouraged
 

I have been posting my before and after pictures trying to remind myself that I'm doing well in at least one area right now. My weight loss is so exciting now that I can see it. I'm so glad I dug out a before picture!

I have a bowel disorder that the doctors have been unable to diagnose. It started with what seemed to be diverticulitis but it turns out that it's not. I have had two major bowel resections this year and am still having the same issue as before the first one. I do not have crohn's or colitis.

I really wish I had not had the surgeries since they were pointless and now I have more scar tissue and surgical scars. I have to have one more surgery due to a surgical injury but am putting it off as long as I can so that I can regain some strength.

Anyone dealing with chronic, undiagnosed illness that affects your food choices?

I did, for many years. I had undiagnosed Hashimotos thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease that attacks they thyroid gland and was the primary cause for why I was gaining 10 lbs a year after formerly being very healthy and athletic. I also had an undiagnosed dairy allergy that caused me to have acid reflux symtoms and I took Prevacid for 9 years and had an upper endoscopy for that...and all I needed to do was quit eating and drinking dairy products.

My mom also had an undiagnosed bowel disorder- have you been tested for C-Diff and other types of bacterial imbalance? My mom had C-Diff.

Hi,

Sorry you are having medical issues. Did your doc check for celiac disease?

Good luck
Sheridan

Celiac etc
 

Hi! I'm having my thyroid checked on Monday, but it's been very low 'normal.' Despite my symptoms, they won't treat it since it's technically 'normal.' I have hair loss, edges of my eyebrows are gone, freeze all the time (live in tropical area), constipation etc...

I don't think they tested for celiac but I don't do gluten just in case. Hasn't helped.

I don't have diarrhea, so they said it's not crohn's or uc. I've seen 5 doctors and 3 interns and no one has a clue. It's really bad right now but I'm trying to encourage myself.

Thanks for the help!

The main problem is that many doctors don't even understand how to determine if someone has a thyroid problem or not. The old lab standards are still being used by MANY doctors and that says that you must have a TSH over 5.0 (5.5 for some docs) to be considered hypo, as an example. However, the new lab standards are that anyone with TSH over 2.5 is hypo. I'm a perfect example of this. I suffered with hypo symptoms for 9 years as my TSH crept up from 2.5 to 6.5. My doctor wanted to treat my TESTS, not my symptoms. Additionally, many doctors ONLY test TSH when in reality they should be doing a battery of tests including TSH, Free T3, Free T4, thyroid antibody tests (to test for an autoimmune component) and also typically people with thyroid disease have a Vitamin D deficiency and sometimes ferretin as well and those need to be tested too.

One thing you might consider is posting your lab results at healthboards.com on their thyroid section. There are some very experienced people there that can help you better understand what is really going on. It may well be that you are hypo and your doctor is using outdated lab standards. You certainly have the symptoms.

Sam I'm so sorry you are having such a hard year.
I hope the doctors can find a cause and cure soon for you.
I have Crohns disease and also have had a resection- that was rough...I can't imagine having 2 in one year.
I also have hypothyroidism but the meds have really helped with that problem. I wish I could say the Crohns was that easy to handle. There are a lot of foods I just can't eat. I get really sick if I eat or drink certain things.
Right now I'm trying to find a good coffee that has low acid. I love coffee so much- but it is just murder on my stomach.
Please keep us posted on how you are doing. I hope you get to feeling better soon :hug:

Gonna step out on a limb here, but have you been allergy tested?

I have some digestive issues, that are allergies. As long as I'm careful with the foods I'm allergic to I'm fine.

On my list are chocolate, coffee, or any derivitives, anything ending in berry and tomatoes. I was diagnosed with these as a teen. They gave me terrible tummy aches and other issues. I out grew most of them, but still have to be careful with chocolate and coffee. I can have some, it has to be high quality, and even then, I have to be careful.

Chocolate is the worst, just he smell of cheap chocolate gives me a raging belly ache, that will last 2-4 hours. Never mind eating it.

Take it for what it's worth, just a thought, from what I've been through.

I have IBS, probably as a result of having ME/CFIDS (and now seemingly fibro as well). It mostly manifests whenever I'm on medication: if there are gastro-intestinal side effects available, I'll get them, and sometimes even if they aren't expected. So I have to be on the watch out and sometimes adjust my diet accordingly.

I also have gallstones, so I am on a low-fat diet and have to be careful about how much fat I eat at one sitting. It required some thought, but I'm used to it by now and it's not really troublesome unless I need to eat out. I went to an Italian restaurant recently and even though I asked them to make my pasta dish low fat, it arrived with a lot of oil in there. Thankfully it didn't trigger biliary colic that time.

You mentioned certain foods that you can't eat with crohn's. Would you mind sharing? I have so many restrictions that it's easier to say what I can eat. I can blend veggies in my Ninja if they are cooked to mush. I can have potatoes and rice and fish. No raw anything and very little fiber. Some days I have to do liquids.

Janelle,
I do have allergies. I am allergic to pepper especially. I tested negative for lactose intolerance, but I can not have even a tsp of any dairy at all. It produces violent consequences. I am avoiding wheat right now as well until I can be tested. I don't know of anything else right now. I am allergic to mold and grass also. Weird, huh?

Sam here are some of the foods that really mess me up:
dark chocolate (even a small amount), broccoli, popcorn, nuts (all kinds), barbeque sauce, pork, fried foods, if foods are really rich like some casseroles, cakes, pies, etc. (I think it is the oils??, orange juice, tomatoes, ham, oatmeal. To name a few.
Even though these foods trigger pain and discomfort I still have them in moderation. I avoid all pork though it just kills my stomach! When I am in the middle of a Crohns flare I could eat a tiny bowl of rice and I would be sick after- it's just part of living with Crohns.
The best diet for when you are having digestion problems is a "low residue diet". You can google a list of these. The only problem is some of that kind of food can have lots of calories. So you really have to watch your portions if you are watching your weight. Here is a link good info- check it out:
http://bit.ly/qY13SS
I hope you feel better soon :)

Low residual
 

I am very familiar with a low residual diet. :-( I have been on a low residual diet for 2 years.

By the way, if you're struggling to find a diet that fits your GI issues, I'd suggest calorie counting. That way you can work out what you can and can't eat without the weight loss getting in the way.

Samantha thank you for starting this thread, when I read chronic bowel issues, I got alittle excited(wrong word). For years I have had problems with constipation. Had tests for everything, and yet they can't tell me what to do. I try everything to help me, but yet no answers.

Although mine is not the same type of problems you and some of the others are posting, it is right in the mix. I research all the time, what to do to get my regularity back.

The bad thing is that since I have started a lifestyle change to lose weight, which I am doing good at. It has caused my problem to worsen, I think it is becasue I cut out fried foods, junk foods, etc and they were helping me. So, now I am back to square one. Even though I eat alot of veggies, no help. My latest is to try flax seed oil. I need something to go through my system that can be digested.

I will keep an eye on this thread, just to keep looking for ideas that others have tried. My best to all of you.

Chickadeee55, have you tried whole flaxseeds, also sold as linseeds? You need to take at least 2 tablespoons a day, swallowed whole with 2 glasses of water drunk immediately afterwards. In addition to that, how many grams of fibre do you get a day, and how much are you eating in the way of wholegrains?

Esofia, thank you for your reply, I have always been told that flaxseed should be ground or taken in oil form, to get the best benefit.

I am on South Beach, Phase 2, so I have added some grains back slowly. Even steel cut oatmeal, grain breads and wheat bran and those types don't have effect on me, they bulk me up, but things just don't get moving on their own (sorry for that) plus I eat lots of raw veggies every day and yogurt.

If you're taking flaxseed for the oil, then yes, you should be taking the oil or possibly the ground form (though note that flaxseed isn't a good source for omega 3s, as very little is actually converted to a usable form by the body). If you're taking it for constipation, you need the whole seeds. They swell in the digestive tract, providing bulk, and they also develop a mucilaginous (slimy) coating which helps move them and everything else along. The swelling is why you need the extra water. You won't get this effect from the oil, you need the bulk provided by the seeds. Ground flaxseeds seem to be popular but I can't speak for them personally: I can't stand the flavour and the whole ones work for me, so I just use those. If you use ground flaxseeds, apparently you should grind them immediately before eating to avoid rancidity. The whole seeds don't provide any nutritional value as they're passed undigested, you're taking them for a different purpose here. You can also get prescription products which do a similar job, but in my experience are full of weird additives and taste peculiar. Some people like to put the flaxseed into liquid, which can include orange juice or breakfast cereal, and let it swell up before they take it. As far as I remember, it takes longer to consume as there is substantially more of it after swelling, plus you notice the flavour more. Anyway, apparently the dose is up to 3 tablespoons daily, though work your way up and see how you get along.

I get constipation as a side effect from some of my meds (not ones I take full-time, thankfully) so I've had to learn how to deal with it. If I'm just taking painkillers for a few days, I will use extra magnesium supplements. If I'm taking painkillers for longer, that's usually when I break out the flaxseed.

Of course, what complicates the issue is that constipation can also be caused by insufficient fat in the diet, and that's probably why some people are recommending flaxseed oil.

Wow this is so interesting. I have chronic diarrhea, and you would think with everything you eat going straight through you would lose weight. Doesn't work that way oddly enough.

My doctor suspects my troubles are related to medication I am on. Unfortunately alternatives have proven ineffective so I simply have to live with it.

Does anyone else deal with alot of nausea? Sometimes eating is the only thing that settles my stomache.

I get nausea occasionally, and particularly on some meds. I've been prescribed buccastem for it, and it seems to work reasonably well for me. You can get a tablet which you swallow, and a tablet which you hold between your upper lip and your gum while it dissolves, so that if you vomit then at least the tablet is still there. It tastes vile. I've also been known to munch on pickled ginger for migraine nausea. Pickled ginger, by the way, is dead easy to make and tastes really gorgeous, and now I have a random urge to make vegetable sushi.

I'm sure there are a number of meds for diarrhoea, has your doctor tried you on all of them? The bulking agent approach is meant to work for diarrhoea as well as constipation, although I generally reach for the loperamide when I get diarrhoea.

Sorry to hear you have chronic diarrhea. I have Crohns Disease and know completely what it is like to live with this. And like you I have often wondered how could this weight not let go quicker with this condition. But true it does not work that way. People constantly remark to me about how I am the healthiest and largest person with Crohns they have ever seen. I'm sometimes unsure if I was just complimented or insulted :shrug:
Anyway I did go on healingwell.com and read the Crohns forums where it is really common for "cronies" to be over weight.

Anyway, back to the subject- dealing with nausea...yes I have had that too and it is a hard one. I've learned my body and I have found that if I allow my stomach to get really empty I have a lot of bile that does build up there. If that happens I will get terribly nauseated. So I have to make sure that something is on my stomach during the day. Low fat wheat cracker is good. Or measured out dry cereal to crunch on, etc.
My biggest problem is diarrhea. I have come to believe that a lot of the extra weight is fluid- not all of it but a good portion of it. If you are like me because of the D I am so thirsty all the time. And I am constantly drinking. A good thing too or we would get dehydrated. I am always having problems keeping a good potassium and mineral balance. I have actually been hospitalized several times because of that very thing.
I try to control my D though diet and immodium. You have to be careful to take immodium after eating because if you take it on an empty stomach over a period of time it can hurt your stomach or it has mine.
Sometimes the foods help sometimes they don't- but here are some that have helped me... sweet potato (natures perfect food) I feel full after eating it- I love the taste- and they are full of vitamins. I wash mine real good and lay it wet in the baking dish. I pour a cup of water over it. Bake it uncovered until a knife easily slides into it. The water goes into it as it is baking. And it makes for a moist fluffy potato. I do the regular potatoes this way too.
The other foods are bananas, 1 cup of rice, an apple a day (it's true), cheese measured for calorie control.
We really are dieting with an obstacle here because the D makes us feel empty and hungry but if we keep eating we will not lose weight. But we have to eat to keep our body healthy. So we are having to find the perfect balance in our diet here. It's really hard isn't it!?
I hope you feel better soon and find the best way for you to learn to live with this issue.:hug:

Speaking of diarrhoea, I'm getting that a lot at the moment. Normally I have wholewheat pasta, but all that fibre isn't meant to be the best idea for diarrhoea. However, I find that white pasta doesn't leave me very satisfied. I intend to continue eating pasta if I can, so does anyone have any thoughts on this whole and white pasta? It looks as if it could be a decent compromise. The fibre content is in between wholewheat and white, and the calorie content is nicely low as a bonus. I've never had any kind of pasta with oats in it, though, so I have no idea what that would be like.

Have you tried rice pasta? I was eating that for awhile when I thought I had a problem with wheat, and I still eat it now and then.

I spent a year off gluten and found all the GF pastas to be on the insubstantial side, to be honest. There are some decent rice/corn blends out there, and a rice/millet one which was probably the best but far too expensive for me.

I get constipated really easily. What works for me is ground flaxseed in my cereal every morning (at least 2 tbsp) and, strangely, raw pineapple for dessert at lunch (probably 1/4 of a whole pineapple). As long as I eat these every day I'm regular!

If I have to take Coedine painkillers, like for a recent surgery, heaven help me! I have to break out all the laxatives, stool softeners, etc that the druggists has to offer!

These types of problems are a pain in the you know what!!

Esofia and Jessy.

Just want to thank you for yor comments, the whole and ground flax has been a blessing. I mix the two and add them to yogurt.

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

So glad to hear you're doing better!

I'm trying to make sense of the quilt in your avatar. Sampler quilt? Something from a class or show, since it has writing pinned to it?

Another remedy for intestinal complaints is 2 tablespoons of RAW pumpkin seeds every day.

You buy them at the health food stores and Trader Joe's. The shells have been removed. And they must be the raw ones.

If you search for "pumpkin seeds remedy" in the internet you will find all the conditions they can remedy.

:smug:

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)

Thank you for noticing, that is the quilt kit that my DH got me for my birthday. Haven't put it together yet, but can't wait.