Dairy free nutritional drink recommendations?

[Daytripper]

Hi all!

I'm after a bit of advice please

I'm 26 and have had crohns for ten years, I'm currently on fortnightly humira however I feel like the effectiveness is now wearing off and I keep flaring on and off.

My next plan to help myself is drinking a nutritional meal replacement drink for breakfast and lunch. However, I can't handle dairy very well, so I wondered if anybody out there could offer me any advice as to what the best drink would be? And if anybody has any tips or advice as to best doing this?

I also wondered if I can make any drinks at home, for example coconut milk, avocado and banana in a blender?

I'm in the UK so a drink available there would be best, but I don't mind ordering from elsewhere if that's what is best. Anything to set me on the path to recovery!

Thanks.

 

[Clash]

I'm not really sure what's available there. I know otc brands like Boost over here have things like Boost Breeze that are dairy free, more like juices but do provide the nutrients and such. Also, some mention shakes like Orgain and I think it is lactose free but not sure beyond that.

Of course there are a lot of pxed formulas most are lactose free but not necessarily dairy free. I think modulen is lactose free but not dairy free.

You could check with the makers of modulen, on their website, see if they offer dairy free products.

 

[scottsma]

I use a powder from Holland & barrett called Bioglan.I mix it with 0% fat milk,but you can use juice.I prefer the cacoa or the berry mix.It's £21-95 but I usually stock up when it's in the penny sale.2 teaspoons is the equivalent of 11 to 14 portions of fruit and veg. and one packet lasts me about 10days.Google it and see if it's suitable for you.

 

[ronroush7]

I use a nutritional drink by Svelte.

2

 

[Daytripper]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I will have a check on modulen clash, I will also look into bioglan too thanks scottsma. Ronroush7, where do you get your nutritional drink from?

 

[ronroush7]

They sell it both at Giant and WholeFoods. Giant has it cheaper. Best to you.

 

[Daytripper]

Thanks Ronrush7, I will check that out!

 

[happy]

Daytripper,
This is a slideshow that provides info about enteral nutrition (liquid diets) and other dietary approaches to treating IBD: http://online.ccfa.org/site/DocServer/Nutrition_in_IBD_CCFA.pdf?docID=27003

The following link has terrific info about using enteral nutrition to achieve remission and also about using a fill or partial elimination diet to maintain it: http://nutricia.co.uk/e028/managing_crohns_patients

This is another diet, the anti-inflammatory diet, that can be used instead of or after using enteral nutrition for treatment: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896778/

Some research suggests that partial enteral nutrition with the anti-inflammatory diet works well--the research has mainly been done on children.

I used VivonexPlus--it did not have dairy in it at the time--you would need to check with the company directly now to see if it is still dairy-free. This formula is very expensive, however.

Good luck with your liquid diet.

 

[Daytripper]

Oh wow thank you so much happy. I am going to check all of them sites out when I'm back from work- I can't wait, I love information like this so thank you. I've made myself a smoothie for breakfast....I know it's not the same, but I already feel it's eased my digestion towards to what it's normally like in the morning. I'm very interested to read up on the anti-inflammatory diet too, I was reading about a bland diet to follow but some of the ingredients would just not do me any good. Can I ask you happy, what is your full elimination diet that you do? All things food and health wise connected with crohns really interest me! Thanks again.

 

[happy]

Daytripper,
How are you doing? Sorry it has taken so long for me to check up on you.

You were asking about the elimination diet that I used. So just to be clear, the full elimination diet that I used was after achieving remission from using exclusive enteral nutrition (EEN) for four months. So basically the theory is that you are trying to maintain happy bowel flora to prevent the inflammation from returning. Usually a LOFFLEX diet is used--info about this is in the Nutricia link that I sent you above. Unfortunately that diet didn't work for me and I relapsed. So I resumed eating on a full elimination diet that has you test each food separately for several days before deciding that it is a 'safe' food to include. This takes a tremendous amount of time after having done the EEN first. More info about this process is on my thread about my success: http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=31028

Also info is in this book by Professor Hunter who did the research about the diet at Addenbrooks Hospital in the UK: http://www.amazon.com/Inflammatory-Bowel-Disease-Essential-Controlling/dp/0091935083

Please let us know how you are doing.