Hello, I'm new here
#328950 - 04/27/08 08:51 AM
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I am a vegetarian who is lactose intolerant and was recently told by my doctor that I have IBS. I'm trying to figure out what foods are tolerable for me. Milk based yoghurt and whole wheat cereal are kind of questionable. They seem to be better tolerated for breakfast. But sometimes they are not tolerated. I am not sure if I should cut them out. I am afriad to cut out yoghurt entirly because when I was on a completely vegan diet a few years ago that exasperated my stomache problems (which I now know what they are). I probably was eating too much whole grains though. Sorry if this post is confusing but I'm just feeling a bit confused and limited....Suggestions are welcome 
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Hi PixieDust,
I'm new here too. I found the website a few weeks ago and have been trying the diet and reading the forums but I haven't posted before.
Have you tried following the diet Heather suggests on the main part of this site? Dairy is a "trigger food" and whole wheat is I believe an insoluble fiber which can be difficult to tolerate at least without eating soluble fiber first.
I'm still trying to figure out which foods I can tolerate; from what I've read it can differ for every person. The only foods I'm sure I can tolerate are the soluble fibers, bananas, apple sauce, white meat poultry, and fish. What I have figured out I need to do is stick to that base of foods I know I can eat, and one at a time slowly introduce other foods and see how I feel for the next day or two. It can be annoying but it makes it much easier to figure out what I can tolerate, instead of saying "well one or more of those 3 things apparently disagrees with me" and then going through several days of feeling horrible to figure out which it was.
So anyway, my suggestion based on what has worked for me would be try the strict diet Heather suggests for a couple days (including not eating any yogurt or whole wheat or any other trigger foods), and see how you do. Then try introducing a little yogurt and see how that goes.
I agree it can feel very limiting to eat such a small variety of food. I'm hoping I'll eventually find a few other foods I can tolerate. On the other hand, to me it's unquestionably worth the food limitations to reduce or eliminate my stomach issues.
One tip - be careful of soy milk. I thought it would be a safe food I could count on, but it caused me a lot of bloating and pain. Perhaps you'll be fine with it. There's a page from Heather somewhere on this site about some people needing to slowly introduce soy milk to be able to tolerate it, but it's something I definitely didn't know at first when I replaced my regular milk with soy milk to follow this diet. (BTW I found rice milk to be great.)
Good luck and post again if you more questions!
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Thanks a lot for posting back! I am working on following the diet. I was really amazed when I read her list of safe foods and I realized a lot of them are really what I have eaten when it felt like I can't eat anything else (especially the oatmeal, bananas and apple sause).
As for the soy milk- it is something that I have consumed for many years and luckily it does work for me. Equally does almond and rice milk. The whole wheat ceral I spoke of is a bit of a misnomer. It is a combination whole grain cereal for trader joe's called heritage cereal. It contains whole wheat, quinwa, oats, and some other grains. I will stay away from it for now though.
I am very new to this diagnosis but it feels a lot better to have one. I recently lost 25 pounds unintentionally...I think i just wasn't eating as much as I should because everything I ate didn't digest right. Plus I am currently going back to school and I have missed a lot lately because of a combination of my stomache problems and my migranes.
Tonight I am going out for sushi...it seems like a safe food (avacado, sweet potato, rice) but I am not so sure about the condiments (wasabi and soy sause and ginger). Tomorrow I will try to follow it more strictly.
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Good luck. I seem to do all right with a little soy sauce with my sushi even though a lot of soy milk with my cereal hurts me. I don't know about wasabi or ginger as I don't particularly like their taste very much so I haven't tried them since starting the diet.
I wanted to mention also - for me personally, I don't think oatmeal is a safe food. I am pretty sure it has both soluble and insoluble fiber. I haven't tested oatmeal completely on its own (the way I did for soy milk) to know for sure. But if you still have trouble after following the diet, maybe try cutting out oatmeal. My breakfast of choice right now is corn chex or rice chex with a banana and rice milk. When winter comes around again, I may have to give oatmeal another try.
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