Rainbow, yeah, I actually called out my cousin on her vacation gluten-eating habits. She went to Disney and posted a photo of a croissant, and I replied, "Uh, doesn't that have gluten?" She gave me some lame excuse about how it was made with "French flour" (whatever that is?) which supposedly only has 1/5th of the gluten that American flour has. So, it still has gluten. From what I've heard, people with actual diagnosed celiac disease can't handle ANY gluten, it doesn't matter if it's got a little or a lot, any gluten at all (even microscopic amounts) can and will cause them lots of bad symptoms. So yeah, I'm pretty sure my cousin is full of it. As for my mom, she was orphaned at age 17, her parents both died of cancer when she was a teenager. Losing her parents at that early age kind of messed her up and ever since she's been very vigilantly anti-cancer. Her dad died of colon cancer so now she thinks her dad had undiagnosed celiac (I think he had undiagnosed IBD!). I'm the only one who has been through multiple medical tests so I feel like I have a good leg to stand on when these arguments come up, but my mom is just a little nuts and I can't get through to her. So yeah. Looking forward to bingo, and football, but the rest of Thanksgiving not so much.
As for psyllium, there's a big difference between soluble and insoluble fiber. Psyllium is soluble and is very easy on the digestive tract, I promise. (For the record, insoluble fiber is NOT my friend but psyllium is!) Now, if you have active inflammation or bleeding or anything like that, then it's probably best to try to avoid all fiber as it can be irritating on an already irritated gut. But from the other people I've talked to on the forum who have tried psyllium, all of them have had good things to say about it - I haven't talked to one single person who had bad results with psyllium. So do keep it in mind. It's pretty interesting stuff, it tends to regulate the bowels regardless of whether you tend towards diarrhea or constipation. It bulks loose stools and helps things move along with constipation.
And as for exercise, I was very similar to what you described during my first year of illness - doing anything active would just exhaust me and give me more d, more pain, etc. But I do recall doing yoga a few times that year and not being punished by my body for that, so for me anyway I could do a small amount of gentle physical activity without repercussions. But yes, it wasn't until I got into remission that I started working out hard-core. Now I've been out of remission for about 6 months and am doing what I can. I kind of wonder if my flare has stayed mild at least in part because I've been keeping up with regular exercise. I don't know, but I'd like to think so anyway. So if you can get to feeling better, start exercising and don't stop!
Oh, and with regards to your eating poll - on an average (work)day, I'll get up and just drink water for the first couple hours or so. Mornings are the worst time of day for me guts-wise, so I just have to let my guts wake up and calm down for awhile during the early mornings. Once I get to work, I usually have an appetite, so I'll have my healthy homemade smoothie for breakfast (ice, almond milk, chocolate supplement powder mix, cocoa powder, and a banana all blended together). If I'm starving then I'll admittedly have a donut with my smoothie too. After my smoothie, I have a mug of hot herbal tea to warm myself back up, as I tend to get chilled after drinking a cold smoothie, particularly in the winter months! After my tea, I'll have a big glass of water mixed with a teaspoon of psyllium. Then maybe an hour later I have a small snack, something like rice pudding or oatmeal. Something small but filling enough to get me through for the next couple hours. Then, if I'm going to the gym on my lunch hour, I won't eat anything else for 2 hours (I can't eat for at least 2 hours before hitting the gym) but I'll drink as much water as I can. Then I'll go to the gym for an hour and then eat my lunch after the gym - usually something like a tuna sandwich or pasta salad. That gets me through until it's time to go home from work. When I get home, I might go to the gym (if I didn't go on my lunch break of course), so if I go to the gym after work then I eat kind of a late dinner when I finally get home, around 7 or 8 PM. I know it's not good to eat that late, so I try not to eat a big dinner. I tend to have protein + carb for dinner, so maybe baked chicken with a side of rice, or baked salmon with a skinless sweet potato.
Oh, and I adore cheddar & sour cream Ruffles! They are my favorite go-to when my sodium levels are low. I can't keep my electrolyte levels high, I tend to always be either low or borderline in both sodium & potassium. I just started supplementing potassium (low potassium makes my feet & toes cramp up particularly when I sweat, so sometimes my workouts get painful if my feet are cramping a lot), and I don't avoid high-sodium foods and eat those chips sometimes (low sodium makes my blood pressure drop and I get very dizzy & light-headed). When I first got sick, my sodium came back very low and a doctor told me "eat a bag of chips and you'll be fine." So now whenever I eat chips to combat low sodium, I call them "prescription chips."
I tell my hubby he can't have any because I need them, for health reasons. Ha ha!
Oh! Sorry this post is getting so long, but I keep looking back at your post and seeing things I want to reply to. With regards to the joint pains and changes in weather - YES, absolutely weather can have an effect on the joints. My bad hip has always been worst when it snows, or when the weather is bitterly cold. We had a lot of snow last year and I could accurately predict hours ahead of time when it was going to snow, and usually the worse my pain was, the more snow we'd get. We had a blizzard last year with about 18 inches of snow, and before the blizzard hit, both my bad hip AND my good hip were hurting and my lower back was too. I could tell it was going to be a doozy! Anyway, physical therapy really helped my bad hip, I had hardly any hip pain for 2 years thanks to PT (and probably also thanks to my probable IBD being in remission at that time). So for all those with stubborn joint pain, particularly if it's in the same joint most of the time, definitely consider giving PT a try.
Cindy - I'm not sure what's in FiberCon, but I would guess it's probably similar to Metamucil in that it's probably got a lot of additives. And you said it's in tablets - tablets don't always break down for me, but psyllium doesn't come in tablets as far as I know so it should break down better for you. You can get psyllium in capsules or just loose - I get it loose, and mix a tablespoon into a glass of water. I have never seen undigested psyllium in my stools. It helps me not go so much (I was going 4 to 10+ times daily, and with psyllium I now go more like 2 to 4 times daily). Like I mentioned to Rainbow, it can bulk up loose stools and it can help ease up constipation and get things moving better. It won't cause d nor constipation, but it can help with both, it's pretty neat stuff. There's a very long thread
here all about psyllium if anyone is wanting to learn more. I highly recommend it, it's done great things for me. Two things to keep in mind - as I said in my earlier post, don't overdo it - start with a small dose and see how you do, slowly & gradually increase the dose if needed. And, you must take your medications either an hour before or 2 hours after taking psyllium, as it can supposedly affect how medications are absorbed. Other than that, though, it's very easy to take and can have a very positive effect on the guts.
