LOFFLEX Elimination Diet

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Mapper

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Sep 14, 2011
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Anyone else trying this diet? I would like to compare notes. I tried the basic diet, but quickly felt worse. Turns out I was sensitive to foods on the "generally safe" list, so now I am trying foods one at a time.

I miss food with flavor! It's also hard making 3 meals a day for the rest of the family that I can't eat! :ysmile:
 
Hi Mapper, I have been on the diet for 1 month now and waiting to see the dietitian to find out if I can introduce any new foods ,bet its hard on your elimination diet ,have you many foods that you can eat ? Thought it was bad enough on the lofflex diet !
 
I've been on it too. For me I was put on it after 3 weeks of Elemental 028 and a useless dietician, chicken and rice was pure blissful heaven!

So it was a way of introducing proper food back in relatively quickly and find those foods I didn't tolerate. In that sense it was very good. I've now morphed into a 'whatever I can get away with diet'.

My understanding and experience is that it isn't a diet like the SCD, it isn't fixed "must eat" and "no eat" lists. It gives you a place to start which most Crohnies will tolerate and then you add foods from the safe lists. If you're feeling brave, or desperate, you can try the unsafe foods but don't be surprised if they don't like you!

So what flavours are you missing? herbs, spices, chili, or more like sauces/tomato/etc...
 
guessing I have the same useless dietician who wasn't there for my appointment yesterday!
 
Oops! Possibly not, I saw one privately who was involved in the research that came up with Elemental. She kept saying I should drink more of the stuff despite it going through me in a most horrible way! She just focused on me loosing weight continually.
Later saw a different dietician at Addies who was younger, seemed to have much more knowledge of what foods we can usually cope with, and pronounced my diet to be somewhat limited but actually okay. At her suggestion I added more fruit, most give me stomach or gut issues, but I found tinned pear was okay and pear cider especially worthwhile!
 
I'm missing herbs and spices and chili the most. I got my kids a pizza the other night and it was really hard to sit there eating my bowl of rice! I was near breaking point after nearly three weeks solid of just rice.

Since I got worse on the basic Lofflex diet, I went to just eating rice for two weeks, then when I was sure my symptoms had subsided, I started following the plan in the book, trying one new food a day, and then if I reacted, going back to the safe foods until the symptoms went away, then continuing with the next food. So far, I can eat rice, carrots, red lentils, tea, bananas and milk. Trying peas today. Foods that I reacted to were potato, soya and pears.

I was surprised that potato affected me so badly, as it seems a quite innocuous food, but I have a friend with arthritis who has a reaction to anything in the nightshade family (potato, tomato, aubergine, peppers). I will be interested to see what happens when I try the other veggies in that family.
 
Well try some. A pinch of herbs here and there should be okay, as may the more gentle spices like turmeric. Keep to ground spices, not seeds for a while. As for chili try adding a scant pinch of chili flakes to your rice or whatever and see what happens.
It's horribly tedious I know, but keep at it.

I'm okay with potato but tomato is the only thing I'm officially allergic to.
 
I tried it! Put some cumin and some red pepper flakes in my lentils. :) The only problem was it tasted so good I ate the whole pot, which was supposed to be two meals. Still feel full 8 hours later, but no pain! Now a two day break from trying new things, and on Friday I get to try cheese. Also took my last dose of Pred today, so I'm off of that. Things usually go haywire for me when I taper, but it has been fairly uneventful, which I put down to the diet.
 
That was a bit brave. Overloading your guts might not be a good idea. And you wont know whether it was cumin, the chili, or the amount that set you off if you have problems....
 
Fortunately I seem to have escaped unscathed but I will definitely be more cautious in future! It was one of those situations where I had just let myself get too hungry and by the time my food was ready I just kinda lost my head a bit. So far, so good, and I'm happier now that my food choices are expanding a bit.

I'm surprised by the effect my diet has on my symptoms. I had been told many times by doctors over the past 15 years that diet had nothing to do with it, until I read Dr. Hunter's book. I'm starting to feel more hopeful and more in control of things now. Interestingly, while I was on holiday this summer, I was having a lot of pain in the evenings. During my two week holiday, I only had two nights free of pain, and those were the two nights that I had Indian food. It seems to agree with me.
 
How are you all doing with your diets so far?
I also struggled with the elemental 028s for a little less than a month, didn't really do very well on them, and relapsed immediately on LOFFLEX. So I started elimination diet in early september. I have to test each food for 4 days, so progresss is slow, but I'm up to a decent amount of foods now and my diet isn't too terrible.
Are you doing any blood tests or calprotectin tests along the way?
I have to do a calprotectin test once a month to see if the crohns is more or less active as i move along. please keep posting, it is so good to know other people are dealing with the same issues!
 
Hi All, I had the Elemental for 3 weeks and then started to have a violent reaction to it. Vomiting as soon as I drunk it and my bowels did not stop contracting till it was all out. So have started on the Lofflex diet, my question is to you all. :- My problems have slowed down to about 8 going to the toilets per day and no pain (this is from every 30 - 60 mins, day and night) What is considered to be "remmision" when should I start to try other foods ?:)
 
Hi Paulcourtyard,
I also didn't do brilliantly on elemental. Not as badly as you, but I had about 4 unformed BMs per day, a raised CRP and a raised Calprotectin level. Are you doing Calprotectin tests? Are you working with a doctor or dietician or are you trying to figure things out on your own?
Ideally, i think (but I'm not an expert, i only know from my personal experience) you should be at 1-3 formed BMs per day, with a Calprotectin level below 200 before you start adding other foods. I can give you the details of the lab in London where I had my Calprotectin tests done if you'd like.
Best of luck,
Hope you are feeling better soon!
 
Thank You Helena for your input, I am working with a Doctor and Dietician but frankly have lost a bit of faith in both and only get to see them about every 6 weeks, so often questions crop up like now that I can't get answered:).
 
Feel free to ask, am happy to help if I can. Having gone through the process myself I know there are a million questions that come up.
 
Ditto to Helena, anyone with questions on LOFFLEX, have got to end of food testing and am pretty stable... fingers crossed
 

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