conflicting dietary needs!
#255399 - 03/30/06 01:47 PM
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maia
Reged: 10/15/05
Posts: 41
Loc: Kaua'i, Hawai'i
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Help! I have conflicting dietary needs and just can't seem to figure out what to do about it.
Without going into my LONG colon history, briefly: I have had chronic constipation since age 4. Extreme intestinal gas, with great difficulty expelling since about age 25. Painful IBS attacks began around age 30 and lasted 6 years. Then they LEFT, but the extreme gas with difficulty expelling lasted. Got a little better a few years ago. Now (I am age 57) I began to have extreme hypoglycemia while on a raw food diet. Found out that my adrenals are shot as well. The Doctor, who is an MD practicing Alternative Medicine (a really great wholistic doctor) put me on a high-fat animal protien diet for the adrenals-hypo. When I started the raw food diet I weighted 109 lbs. I am very small, and was a bit fat at that weight. Perfect for me would be 95 lbs. But on the raw diet I went down to 89 lbs and was so hypo, so the dr. gave me the fat-animal protein, which yes, caused me to gain some weight and helped my hypo. HOWEVER, about 4 months into this diet all "heck" broke loose with my extreme intestinal gas and spastic colon. I don't have pain attack again, thank god, but the colon does spas up with the gas (tons and tons of gas) and I am unable to expell it! It nearly drives me insane. Then my constipation got much worse, too...not to mention severe irritaton of the colon lining after a gas-spas attack all night. So now I have cut out dairy, cut out all sugars, including fruit, as I KNOW I have severe candida. I am still eating lots of sesmae and virgin olive oil...even putting in up my rectum, per dr's suggestion...eating broth of beef bones with livers, cooked then pureed and put into as veggie stew. I also eat soaked almond and pine nut puree...VERY soft, with oatmeal.
I KNOW I need to get off the beef fat and the oil fat. But I am eating so little now I weigh only 80 lbs! I have taken away the dairy and the sugar, if I remove the fat too, I will disappear. I am a skeleton now.
WHAT IS YOUR SUGGESTION? 
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Maia Nartoomid
IBS-C, spastic gas
Kaua'i, Hawai'i
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I'm not sure exactly what the dietary guidelines are for hypoglycemia. Can you be more specific? Do you just have to avoid high-sugar? You could also do a search on this site for posts about hypoglycemia.
I don't understand the reason why you need to eat high-fat animal meat. Are you sure you agree with this doctor? As Heather says in her dietary guidelines, it is a huge trigger. From personal experience, fatty meat is a huge trigger. Can you instead eat safe meats like turkey breast, chicken breast, fish and seafood? Seafood would be a good way to get some fat into your diet, salmon for instance is relatively high in fat.
I too was having problems keeping weight on. I always relied on dairy and red meat to boost me up a bit, but my stomach suffered alot from this. Since becoming stable by following the diet, I've managed to start gaining weight back steadily. I've done this simply because I can eat more now that I feel great all the time.
It would be best for you to figure out what foods you can tolerate and what will work with your hypoglycemia. Then once you have foods you know you can eat safely, eat a lot of them!
I also recommend getting a soluble fiber supplement, such as Heather's Acacia. This will help you get more fiber to settle your stomach, without having to eat high-sugar foods all the time. And fennel tea should help with gas.
Kat
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Kat
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Since it seems that you have some dietary issues dependant on several medical conditions, I would suggest talking to a registered dietician. MD's are only trained so far when it comes to nutrition, even if they have extended training in alternative methods. An RD would be the best person to go to for advice on your diet and dealing with your health issues.
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Here...there....everywhere
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Thank you for your help on this. I have since read that anorexic women have actually gained the weight they need on this diet, so I feel better about doing it at this point. My doctor supports me fully in doing so. He may not be especially knowledgable about IBS )although ahs helped my other conditions greatly), but he will back up his patient 100% to do what they feel is best for THEM...and he will learn from their sucesses, so I hope to help other IBS suffers who come to him, if I fare with with this.
I am already on Heather's teas, and got the accacia, took it a few days and them became afraid of everything new I was taking, due to some extra symptoms, so I quit it ALL, including the accacia. I will now get back on it. I found that only 1/4 teaspoon ONCE a day was working on me (at least as a starting point). I am very small, so that may be a factor.
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Maia Nartoomid
IBS-C, spastic gas
Kaua'i, Hawai'i
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Complicated
#255555 - 03/31/06 11:35 AM
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belinda
Reged: 10/09/03
Posts: 474
Loc: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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It is very difficult to respond to your inquiry because:
1. I don't think many of us would know much about some of the conditions you have mentioned; and
2. I'm not sure whether or not the diets your doctors have put you on for some of your conditions are appropriate or not. The medical profession has all sorts of crazy diets for various conditions (including IBS), but it doesn't mean the diets actually work.
If I were to take the high road on this, it sounds like you are on a pretty unhealthy diet at the moment. And it also sounds like you aren't strictly following any one diet since you are trying to juggle a number of diets for a number of different conditions. The overall result is that you are very underweight and getting worse.
We can help you here if you just want to address your IBS. We might even be able to give you some advice for a few other conditions in combination with IBS such as hypoglycemia.
However, if you have a large number of other conditions, as it appears you have, then I think you need to search out a really good, reputable doctor and/or dietician who can assist you. I really hope you can find a diet that will work for you so you can gain some weight and feel better.
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Re: Complicated
#255558 - 03/31/06 11:58 AM
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maia
Reged: 10/15/05
Posts: 41
Loc: Kaua'i, Hawai'i
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These are my main problems: hypoglycemia (much better now, dispite the fact that I am bascially starving to death on current diet, as I can't eat much). I also have leaky gut (I think most IBS probably do...just my opinion), candida and parasites. I can't take any of the natural things one would take for candida and parasites, as my gut is too spastic to handle the cleaning out (same with a colonic - THAT was a disaster!). I have IBS-C...no pain (used to years ago), but just the horrible gas-can't expell and constipation-difficult to expell even with soft stool.
As I posted in response to another response on this thread, I have decided to do Heather's diet and accacia...MINUS all sugars-even fruit. This other diet is killing me, so I may as well go for it!
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Maia Nartoomid
IBS-C, spastic gas
Kaua'i, Hawai'i
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I, too, am hypoglycemic and there is no question that the IBS diet is not ideal for this condition. For example, the refined foods (white flour, white rice) that are recommended for IBS are high in sugar, which aren't good if you suffer from low blood sugar.
What I do is follow Heather's diet rules (not her recipes) and I eat the white bread and white rice even though they're high in sugar. However, by eating small amounts of food often, my blood sugar remains quite stable. I eat Basmatic white rice, which I think is better for hypoglycemia than other white rice varieties.
Did the doctor diagnose you with the candida and parasites, or was it a naturopath? I would be very sceptical if it wasn't a doctor. However, if it was a doctor, what type of parsites did s/he say you have? Some parasites can present symptoms that very similar to IBS and, if you go through the gruelling antibiotic course to treat them, your IBS symptoms could disappear.
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Thank you for your response, Belinda. My doctor is an MD who practices Alternative Medicine.
I would never take antibotics, as this is what ruined by colon as a child. It destories the natural flora in the intestine. Your tip on hypo is a good one. I will do that.
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Maia Nartoomid
IBS-C, spastic gas
Kaua'i, Hawai'i
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Yes, antibiotics are a bad thing for your stomach, but they are sometimes necessary. I rarely ever take an antibiotic. (The last time was about six years ago for a serious bladder infection and I had no alternative.)
Frankly I would be very cautious about your MD's diagnosis. "Candida" and "parasites" are typical diagnoses given by naturopaths and I frankly don't think they hold much credence. It's much better to see a good mainstream doctor who knows what he's doing.
I've had IBS all of my life and I went to my share of quacks who diagnosed all sorts of silly things (one alternative MD even told me I had a low thyroid "Hashimoto" condition). I didn't trust the diagnosis and got my mainstream doctor to check it out, and it turned out to be a false diagnosis. I personally think the whole candida/parasites thing is bogus too although, if a mainstream doctor were to diagnose parasites, I would definitely take it very seriously.
I highly recommend you see a good mainstream doctor. I use a non-drug, natural, diet-controlled approach as much as possible to my health problems, but if I need to see a doctor, I go to someone mainstream and reputable.
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