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Specific Carb Diet

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ChicagoCrohns

Guest
Is anyone on this? Are you as strict as is needed? Is it working? I am on The Makers Diet and it seemed to work for a while, but about a month agao I got real sick and am now considering the SCD...you thoughts are appreciated.
 

Tami Lynn

Forum Angel
I read the book "Stopping the Vicious Cycle," got about half-way through the book and decided just wasn't for me. You MUST follow the diet VERY strictly for it to work.

As Mike mentioned on another thread about this topic (and I agree), it's either something you go for whole-heartedly and follow exactly or something you do even attempt.

I'm sure someone on this board has tried it. I know Mike said he had tried it for two weeks.
 
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DarrylP_Ajax

Guest
Tami Lynn said:
I read the book "Stopping the Vicious Cycle," got about half-way through the book and decided just wasn't for me. You MUST follow the diet VERY strictly for it to work.

As Mike mentioned on another thread about this topic (and I agree), it's either something you go for whole-heartedly and follow exactly or something you do even attempt.

I'm sure someone on this board has tried it. I know Mike said he had tried it for two weeks.
I am on day #3 of a hypoallergenic diet (more restricted then the diet in the book) not enjoying it one bit, but i guess i have to do what i ahve to do, if it helps me get back to a resonably normal lifestyle its worth it...
 

mikeyarmo

Co-Founder
DarrylP_Ajax said:
I am on day #3 of a hypoallergenic diet (more restricted then the diet in the book) not enjoying it one bit, but i guess i have to do what i ahve to do, if it helps me get back to a resonably normal lifestyle its worth it...

What is the diet you are on now then? And how long are you planning on being on it?
 
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DarrylP_Ajax

Guest
mikeyarmo said:
What is the diet you are on now then? And how long are you planning on being on it?
Its just a basic Hypoallergenic diet, cuts out anything know to cause bowel irritation, after being on it for 3-4 weeks u slowly introduce foods one by one until u come to one that causes u too flare up again, then u avoid that food and keep going until u figure out all the danger foods for your system...right now i am not allowed to consume dairy, red meats, grains of any kind except for rice, millet, buckwhaet and kasha, no citrus fruit, no potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, corn, peppers, nuts except for almonds and a couple other things.....after doing this diet for 3-4 weeks (basically letting my intestines get a good start at healing up) i plan on swithching to the SCD in hopes that it will prevent another flair up....i am optimisitc that my recovery will be fairly quick (shooting for 6 months tops until being completely off meds) as i ahve only been on Pred. for 10 days and i feel 100 times better, pain has been enormously reduced (light cramps here and there), Diahrea has basically dissapeared now, which is a big improvement since less then 2 weeks ago i was going 10-12 times a day, with no solid consistency period, now i am actually at a solid state, and for the last two days i have been taking a bottle of Bio-K a day (over 50 billion bacteria per bottle) and it seems to have reduced my gas from huge amounts to almost nothing in about 48 hours. I have also noticed (its probably due to the water retention of the Pred.) that i have started to get a little more thickness/hydration back in my chest and arms, looking a little more bulked up like i used to before CD struck....but ya, thats a little background info on the diet i am doing now and what i plan on doing in the near future...i am very new to all this but i am trying to learn as much as i can as fast as i can
 
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Kate

Guest
i have a friends in the SCD diet and she reckons it works and shes somewhat strict on it she reckons when shes "bad" it hurts more
 
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DarrylP_Ajax

Guest
I am finding the protein part of the diet the hardest...i am basically limited to chicken, turkey and fish for protein sources, cutting out red meat is hard for me, lol...the grains arent that bad, i created a buckwheat smoothie this morning that actually tastes pretty awesome, and 1 cup of buckwheat is about 400 calories, plus about 125 calories for the 1 cup of soy milk i make it with and fruit, so i get about 600 calories from my morning smoothie, without any struggles with taste, happy about that....i also made a huge stirfry (without meat of course) lots of green veggies and about 2 cups of brown rice which should last me through the workday hopefully (not eating any quick burning carbs like breads really makes you sluggish) and i am gonig to have some tuna...should be a fun day, getting a little more used to the extra 20 mins a night i ahve to take to prepare food for the next day...
 

mikeyarmo

Co-Founder
You seem to be doing all the things I could recommend when following a diet, especially one that is new and more restictive than you are used to. It is good that you have found things you like and have everything you need, and it is great that you are planning ahead with each meal. This is the biggest, because you have to assume that the only food that you will find that is suitable for you is what you make. I never realized how restricted you are on certain diets from eating the foods that are commonly purchased in fast food, convinience stores etc. until I did the SCD diet for a few weeks. It really makes you realize how much crap food is out there :). But it does taste soooooooooo good :D. But it is not necessary at all to enjoy life, and after not having a lot of things for a long time I do not even feel the urge to have them ever again (even though I can for a lot of things).
 
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DarrylP_Ajax

Guest
mikeyarmo said:
You seem to be doing all the things I could recommend when following a diet, especially one that is new and more restictive than you are used to. It is good that you have found things you like and have everything you need, and it is great that you are planning ahead with each meal. This is the biggest, because you have to assume that the only food that you will find that is suitable for you is what you make. I never realized how restricted you are on certain diets from eating the foods that are commonly purchased in fast food, convinience stores etc. until I did the SCD diet for a few weeks. It really makes you realize how much crap food is out there :). But it does taste soooooooooo good :D. But it is not necessary at all to enjoy life, and after not having a lot of things for a long time I do not even feel the urge to have them ever again (even though I can for a lot of things).
My hope is that after being on the SCD diet for a couple months and letting stuff heal up and hopefully going into remission that i will be able to maybe be a little more relaxed on the diet and just not consume my "no-no's" in such large quanitity's....i am sure this was probably one of the biggest probs before i got my dx...i would eat like 4-5 burgers or a large pizza or a plate or two of pasta in one sitting, i am sure the sheer volume did nothing to help my developing CD...crosses fingers for lengthy remission.....
 
I've been on SCD for the last 3 years...

I started on SCD 3 years ago, then I added "the makers diet" this past year...

I am not 100% by any means, but before SCD, I had symtoms from the throat on down, SCD took away every symtom I had from throat down to my colon, I don't even have flairs anymoore

but I do continue to suffer with a really bad Fistula..It suddenly appeared out of nowhere after I went off SCD for only 2 weeks, about 2 years ago, and I've pretty much had the Fistula ever since.... I went back on SCD odviously after I got the Fistula, but since it wasn't working on the Fistula I started the makers, and still no change in them..

wasn't until reciently I discovered Fistulas do not go away on their own, so that probably explains that, yet I've had 5 surgeries on them so far and there still not gone yet, in fact I go into the surgeon about once a week now just to have them poak at it

but yeah, I've had great success on SCD, and makers

In fact, I run a support forum for Crohns myself which I discuss these different diets in detail...

http://www.crohnsdaily.com

but i won't say anything more then that, for the last time I talked about SCD and makers, I was kicked off crohnssanity for it, so I will not discuss that topic any further, was bad enough I got the whole freakin forum mad at me just for mentioning a stupid diet...like so what if it works for me, it doesn't mean I don't accept other peoples beliefs or anything, just happened to work for me thats all, whats wrong with that for gods sake? :) I think kimi took that whole incident way too seriously if you ask me, and i don't give a crap waht she thinks of me anymoore :) and to accuse me of logging in as my ex-wife just because she happened to use the same IP address I did (well duh we lived in the same house so duhh we'd have to same IP sighs) was just flat out childishness if you ask me and as far as I"m concerned that whole incident is long gone now, but children tend to not forget as easy as I do seems like...
 
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tea

Guest
yeh i think people need to be open to diet a bit more bubazoo. think how much worse a flare can get when you eat the wrong stuff, so it must work the other way and improve with diet changes also.;)
 
I think it does Tea,

I mean, I don't think SCD or Makers is the "cure all" miracle they both claim to be, but like you pointed out, it does improve things..

I think what happens, is alot of people "try" a diet change for a couple of weeks, don't see much improvement, and stop the diet saying "oh it doesn't work for me", when really there saying "it didn't work for me because I couldn't handle the cravings" which to me sounds more like it :)

Any kind of diet modification, rather its SCD, Makers, or something else, is going to take "years" to notice a difference, there is no magical diet cure for crohns just as there is no medical cure, but diet is just like medicine, in that, it does help...

even my surgeon says in his medical documentation, that Crohns IS a bacterial inbalance, which throws off the immune system causing inflammation, and the only way a bacterial inbalance can occur, is with Food allergies so to speak. bacterial overgrowth is what they call it... Many factors cause this, not everyone in the world has it because the allergic reactions are inherited, but everyone in this world has some kind of bacterial inbalance, but some can handle it and some can't, I like to think of it as an allergy.. Some people can put it in complete remission with a combination of a bacteria-starving diet, like SCD and makers, along with probiotics to balance out the bacteria levels to normal, but others have a more difficult time with it (like me for instance) I still have crohns badly even after combinations of antibiotics, probiotics, and bacterial starving diets, but I don't believe I got it from heredity either, I have relatives who have it, but they didn't develop it until their late 60's, so why am I the only one who got it so young? I didn't know until about a year ago when I read about late Rubella manifestations, now I know why I got it so young, because of the Rubella I got at birth that also took my eyesight, crohns just happens to be a late bloomer of that, so no matter what I do I'll have crohns the rest of my life, but I still use diet to minimize the symtoms, so I don't have to loose my intestines, or suffer thru years of flaires that aren't quite as bad as they could be if I didn't decide to do this...

actually how i think of diet, it prevents those sufferers who get frequent flaireups to not get those flaires anymoore.. thats the biggest improvement I've noticed anyway.. Sure, I still have inflammation, Fistulas, so on and so forth, but I don't have diarrhea anymoore, I've had perfectly normal stools for the past 3 years, probably more normal now then before I found out I had crohns... and I've gained weight back... I now weigh 172 lbs, which is ALOT better then the 129 I once weighed 3 years ago when my crohns kept spreading all over the place :) and I'm a 6'2 single male, 129 is not normal at all for a guy that tall, but I'm happy with 172, so for me I think it has worked, but at the same time, I understand alot of people are not ready to give up their chocolate just yet, I understand that it was hard for me too :) but after a couple of years on this, I realized, what foods we are addicted to is just like quitting smoking, sure its hard at first, but once you do you start to realize how bad the "tar" smell really is.. same with food, I can smell a French fry a mile away, and it smells like fried dog poop to me now, can't even stand to be in the same room with someone eating fast food because it smells so awful to me now, but I still have the cravings, but the smell alone keeps me away.. instead now, I get cravings for broccoli, cauliflour, carrots, fruit, etc like a woman would get a craving for chocolate. hehe What we eat is all habit, nothing more..

but for me, the thought of being without a colon, a rectum, or complete lost of control and having to wear adult diapers the rest of my life when I'm only 35 years old, scares me more then living without chocolate :)
 
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rhiannonctr

Guest
I did the SCD for about 6 months. It just got too expensive for me both in time and $$ to keep up with it. I'm a grad student, so between doing my personal research, teaching classes, and doing research for profs finding time to make yogurt and so much stuff from scratch just became impossible. There were a few corners I cut, for example, Trader Joe's makes an all natural mayonnaise without any of the no-nos in it, so I bought that instead of making it from scratch, but really it is an all or nothing diet. I mean either you buy the idea of bad bacteria and don't eat anything that feeds them, or you don't. If you only go at it haphazardly what's the point?

As far as curing the disease goes--I guess I'm just a cautionary tale. I went off meds and on SCD and then felt great, so I stayed off meds. However, 2 years later I ended up with major obstructions and surgery. I thought everything was fine, but it wasn't. I didn't have any flares or any warnings that things were going so wrong. Just be careful!
 
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Kbear

Guest
I have been on the SCD twice, each time for five months time. It did not effect my UC flare up in a way that made it better or stop. So I decided to try the Restoring your Digestive Health by Dr. Jordan Rubin and Dr Brasco (specialist), this book and this diet was impressive. Of course you would only use the main diet suggested when having a flare up. There is alot of interesting information in this book which has helped me get this far.
For me, the diet has to change in order to become well again. I use the diet to take the stress and pressure off of my body, immune system and bowel. And I use chinese acupuncture repeatedly to tell my body to stop the auto immune response or to stop the inflammatory response. If I do one without the other, it is impossible to heal up. The two in combination, are a sure win win for me, for I heal up quickly and have been on no med's for four years.
Good Luck!
K.
 
I dunno, I don't find it very difficult at all, and I've even included Maker's on that which is even more restrictive yet, and I don't have any problems at all staying on it... Its more difficult to go out to eat is all, but I learned ways around things, like to make big batches of food on the weekends so I wouldn't have to make anything during the week, I would just take something out of the freezer and pop it in the microwave, and instant dinner without giving up my work or social responsibilities! :)

the yogurt takes me 20 minutes to make, and it sits there by itself for 24 hours, so I can still goto work and do whatever I need to do while it sits there, and I only have to do that once a week, sometimes once every other week, because u can only have 3 cups a day max anyway and the jar is like 2 quarts so it takes like 1-2 weeks to use up all that yogurt anyway.. the half and half I use for it cost me $3, the starter costs me $3 for 3 batches, so I mean its fairly cheap, and I only make $6 an hour at my job, plus a mortgage, utilities, household expenses etc.

As for the extra expense, I think I spend less on SCD stuff then I do regular meals, about the same actually, and its definitely cheaper then eating out all the time, but I still go out to eat about 1-2 times a week, I just have to be very choosy about where I can go and what I can eat... I can eat just about anywhere really except mexican, so I mean it just depends, and when I travel I get a hotel with those little kitchens which really helps alot..

One of the purposes of my Forum down there in my signature, is I help people with shortcuts to these types of diets, otherwise my boards pretty much the same as this one, but I talk about different diets and treatment options other then whats described here that have worked for me since I've had this..

but yeah, I mean, what I eat and don't eat probably has the biggest impact on how often my crohns flaires, in fact I notice that if I eat exactally what I have learned my body can handle, I don't flaire at all..

but see, what I like best about SCD, Makers, and diets like that, is you use their legal/illegal list as a gudeline, those are just lists of things you can and cannot eat, what you put in your mouth, and what you can or cannot afford from the store si completely up to you... There are alot of foods on SCD I cannot tollerate, and some on Makers also, and there are some other foods that I can tollerate well that aren't really legal on SCD, but over time I have used SCD and makers as a guideline so that I was able to LEARN what my body can and cannot tollerate, and for me that was the point to all of it :) It has allowed my small intestines to actually function again, has allowed my pulips in my colon to nearly disappear, and although I still have a few crohns symtoms (like fistulas and morning sickness) its allowed my condition to improve 80% at least, and it has also allowed me to gain weight back that I lost from having crohns... before I started this diet thing I weighed 129 and loosing, at 6'2 inches tall 35/male, but now, the last time I weighed myself was at the doctors office Friday, and I weighed 172 then, and keep gaining, so for me its worked wonders :) I'm almost back to the 208 I weighed before I ever got crohns.. not there yet, but getting closer! :)
 
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alan

Guest
SCD & Probiotics Works

The combination of SCD and Probiotics works. 1 year on this combo was worth the strict adherance to cure CD for my daughter. It amazing that the medical community has ignored this approach!

Alan
 
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Skinsfan1229

Guest
Its not cured, I'm sorry and hate to tell you that, but Crohns Disease not not become cured, just remission.

The makers diet would be a better diet, because its well rounded, gives you all vitamins and minerals you need, without neglecting other areas of the pyramid.

Maybe you just had a flare...you can flare when on large doses of meds , so it might not be the makers diet stopped working for you, but if you've stuck to it for a year then you need to stick with it, its done some good for you then probably.

If crohns could be helped with diet alone I'd be so happy.
 
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alan

Guest
I agree that SCD alone is not a cure...but combining SCD with probactrix seems like it is. I guess we dont really know but its been 2.5 years with no symptoms.
 
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