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Hi Tex, I did try cooking the carrots by steaming them until they were soft, but maybe I could've cooked them even longer. I might try boiling them next time.
It might be the zucchini interfering, although I was able to eat all 3 (zucchini, yellow squash, carrots) in a little medley months ago without WD reactions. Maybe my digestion has changed since then, who knows... I'm considering testing new foods with minimal other veggies/rice in the same meal to see if that helps.
I think I did read that newsletter, it was really interesting! I have to remind myself that this is a marathon, not a race. And also - I actually only discovered this forum about 4 months ago, hahah. I feel like I've made huge progress in that time with the help of everyone.
May I ask which supplements you are taking right now? Which ones you suggest taking longterm (other than vit D3 and mag, of course)? I am taking my vit D3 and I've started a homemade magnesium oil topical. Besides that, I don't know if I should be considering other supplements for future use.
A possible reason for your symptoms might be histamine intolerance. Some of us develop histamine intolerance after years of living with MC. Because of it, we have to carefully limit our diet to avoid (or at least limit) high histamine foods.
Okay I'll tell you what I'm taking, but remember, this is not medical advice. I'm taking these supplements not necessarily because I need all of them, but because I might need them due to my old age and my limited diet (I'm 83, and I eat no vegetables, except for the corn in corn tortillas, if you consider corn to be a vegetable — actually, it's a grain, of course).
I take ubiquinol (because I take a statin), Thorne Laboratories Methyl Guard Plus, flaxseed oil, magnesium, vitamin D, Centrum Silver, lutein (I've had drusen for over 45 years — drusen is a vision issue of the retina), Solaray zinc/copper capsules, vitamin C, Life Extension Neuro-Mag Magnesium L-Threonate (I've taken this ever since I had a stroke, to overcome the stroke symptoms, and maintain my cognizance into old age), and Glucosamine with Chondroitin (to assist a worn-out knee because of years of repetitive heavy lifting at work). Remember, just because these supplements work for me, doesn't mean that they will work for anyone else, because we're all different.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Good point. I completely forgot to mention in my update that I also ventured to try banana last month. One morning I tried having only two bites of banana, maybe a tbsp amount, and after having my lunch of safe foods 4 hrs later I had an episode of WD. It seemed to me that the banana was the culprit, since nothing else had changed. I was amazed at how fast the response was for me.
So I very likely have a histamine intolerance right now. Should I be changing anything though? I am able to eat my safe foods up to 3 days after cooking and refrigerating them. (I only ate them on day 4 one time when I was in a pinch, and it seemed to give me a reaction later on, so I don't dare to do that anymore).. I thought carrots were low histamine too?
And thank you for sharing your supplement info! I'm glad to see that you've found ones that work for you. I think the only ones I am considering for the future are the Thorne Lab Methyl Guard Plus and perhaps a multivitamin with safe ingredients. I will have to look into this more later on.
The foods you listed are not normally high histamine foods, so refrigerating them for a few days should be safe. Foods such as chicken, or fish, gain histamine in the refrigerator, so leftovers need to be frozen between meals in order to keep their histamine levels down. But once we develop a histamine problem, it seems to be permanent. So going forward, you will probably need to avoid high histamine foods. That said, that's strictly a guess, because these are uncharted waters as far as medical research is concerned.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Sorry I'm reading this very late but I figured I would throw out the fact that for the longest time I pressure cooked EVERYTHING!!! Of course everything wasn't very much of anything back then I did bone broth from lamb bones in my crockpot (Whole Foods had frozen lamb bones). I didn't do any ground meat either. My meat was only elk, antelope, turkey and lamb. I was lucky living in Colorado because hunting friends kept me stocked up with the elk and antelope. I either pressure cooked the meat or sauteed it with a little coconut/olive oil. My mom to this day just can't understand why lamb on holidays isn't some special deal for me! If I never eat lamb again, it will be too soon
I avoided regular potatoes but did sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, zucchini and any sort of squash I could find - in the pressure cooker. I'm sure if I was inclined to look into OLD posts on this page-Tex was gently encouraging me to cut back on most fruits/veggies. I was a tough nut to crack on that one-but when things just went from bad to worse-I listened to the man and cut all that stuff out. I would meal prep by putting the cooked meat/veggies and bone broth in single serve containers and freeze them.
When things got a little better I added cassava flour or green banana flour into the mix for pancakes (no real eggs, no dairy). Pretty darn good actually!!!
Laine
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"-Teddy Roosevelt
Hi Laine! I hadn’t thought about pressure cooking, I will definitely have to try it now. For my turkey, I bake thighs/drumsticks/breasts in the oven until they’re nice and crispy, usually overcooked according to the internal temp. I found a brand of ground lamb (Thomas Farms) that works well for me, so I cook a pound at a time and use it for breakfast meals. For the zucchini & yellow squash, I’ve found that slicing them up into a glass pan and filling it with some water allows me to bake them along with the turkey without drying them out. It’s a weird technique, but they come out cooked to mush every time which is all I need.
For things like sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin – how long did you pressure cook them for? And for the pumpkin, did you use pieces of a whole pumpkin? Or canned pumpkin?
Acorn squash, butternut squash and pumpkin all got cut up into bigger bite sized chunks and pressure cooked for I don't remember how long-just veggies done together. I'm sure there is a setting on my pressure cooker for veggies!! They were well "pressured" - that's for sure. I just did whole chunks of meat because I didn't trust any ground stuff-glad you found a lamb that will work for you. Canned pumpkin was added to pancakes...
Laine
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"-Teddy Roosevelt
Well, it was really easy and took the guess work out of everything-which I needed at the time. It let me make large quantities of food with very little clean up afterwards.
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"-Teddy Roosevelt
It’s been a while since I’ve posted, just wanted to give a quick update.
Having normans most days, with occasional isolated “blips” here and there. Much more improvement in the past two months. My nausea has also improved drastically. I’ve also been very consistent about using topical magnesium (x3 daily, with foot soaks a couple times a week). However, my diet is still extremely limited. I haven’t been able to successfully add any new ingredients since adding lamb. My current list is: turkey (plainville), ground lamb (Thomas farms), zucchini, yellow squash, jasmine rice, coconut oil. Ground venison from Thomas farms may be OK for me, but haven’t had a definitive result yet.
I finally bought a pressure cooker and overcooked a small batch of carrots to test. I tested a small spoonful with ground lamb and a tiny bit of yellow squash in a soup form for breakfast. But after my lunch meal with my other safe ingredients, I had a bout of loosened stool (Bristol #6). I could tell something was off too because I had some extra gurgling/gassy sensation right after eating, which is very rare for me. Seems like the carrots are already hindering my digestion.
I’m trying not to lose hope. I feel like I’m making progress, but it’s frustrating to not be able to add anything new when I’ve been stuck on the same ingredients for 8 months. Not trying to complain, just need to vent to people who understand.
Does anyone have recommendations on what I could try/test next? My latest attempts in the past few months have been carrots, sweet potato, rutabaga. I am mainly looking to up my vitamin A. I’m worried about being so deficient in it right now.
Frankly, I’m feeling a bit lost with where I’m at. Where should I go from here?
Additionally, some strange things have come up. I live with my parents, as I’m still a student, and my older brother had moved back in with us about 1.5 years ago. Well, recently he has started to develop gut issues. His symptoms have been bouts of diarrhea lasting for a week or more, triggered by eating inflammatory meals (one time it was after he ate fast food), along with mucus. And he’s also noticed the “gurgling” of liquid/food moving through the gut, which I’ve described to him as common in LC/MC. He also suspects he has a bleeding hemorrhoid, as he’s had quite a bit of blood in the stool. Though he has no pain, which makes me think that Ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s is unlikely.
We are trying to find a common denominator besides genetics. We both have been going through very stressful points in our lives, but nothing extraordinary. We both were eating quite healthy when symptoms first developed. The only other thing we’ve realized is that we share a bathroom that is most likely contaminated with black mold in the inner walls. We’re looking into getting professional assistance with it. What do you guys think? Could the black mold be behind why both of us have developed gut issues??
Thanks for taking the time to read. I appreciate your help.
Oh and one more thing. I’ve been struggling with sleeping more than 7-7.5 hours the past several months. In the past, I slept 9-10 hours easily. Now, it’s like the moment I wake up I’m tense and my mind is already racing, hence the trouble falling back asleep. AND along with that, I’ve noticed some patchy hair loss developing along my temples.
Is it the deficiencies? Is it the accumulation of chronic stress? I’m not sure… I think I’ve developed generalized anxiety, despite my best efforts to keep it together. But, I have surely been going through the most stressful period of my life up to this point. Just wondering if anyone has similar experience and advice?
Frequent exposure to black mold has not been shown (at least, not by medical research) to cause MC, but there may be reasons to believe it may increase the risk, or exacerbate symptoms, particularly in sensitive individuals. Repeated exposure may worsen immune dysregulation, increase gut permeability, and activate inflammatory pathways that could heighten the risk of developing MC, or aggravate symptoms, particularly in those who are already susceptible.
And note that if you can find those old posts by doing a search of the archives, using the right keywords, you will find that we've had several members whose pet cat has developed MC after they did. There might be a case or two involving a dog or two in there, also, as I recall.
Regarding trying new foods — believe it or not, It sounds as though you're eating more variety than I am, and probably more than a few others, here. We don't need variety, we just need to eat enough of our safe foods so that we take in enough calories. If you're worried about vitamin A, take a safe supplement. I've never considered vitamin A, in my case, but I do take a multivitamin.
Another thing to consider is that after we have not eaten certain foods for years, we tend to lose the ability to produce the enzymes that are needed to digest those foods, which prevents them from being properly digested, unless we start with very small amounts and slowly work up, simply because our small intestine has to relearn how to produce adequate quantities of specific enzymes needed to digest certain foods. If we eat too much of a new food, it may be partially digested, and end up being fermented by bacteria in our colon, causing gas, cramps, and diarrhea.
Regarding sleep, you're probably not sleeping because of the stress that probably was a big factor in the reason why you developed MC. In my own case, stress was the final straw that broke the camels back and triggered my disease. Symptoms were so painful before I learned how to control them that I was lucky to get a few hours of sleep at night, and I often had to take naps during the day. But after years of that, I rarely sleep more than five or six hours per night. Sometimes, if I lay there for hours, I can get back to sleep, but that's a bad habit because when we're in bed we need to be sleeping, and lying there wishing we could sleep simply adds to the stress and makes sleep more unlikely. I've been in remission for over 20 years, but I continue to sleep five or six hours per night. I do better getting up and going to work, and if I need a brief nap after lunch, some days I take a nap, but not every day. The point is: after we spend years getting by on less sleep, we tend to continue to get by on less sleep. It may be the nature of the beast (MC). But I blame it on stress, because most of us are type A individuals and often, when I wake up early in the morning, I'll be thinking about an idea, or a solution to a problem, and I'll need to get up and write it down, anyway, or I may forget it. Those are my thoughts, anyway. I just don't worry about it. If I can't sleep more than five or six hours, I sleep five or six hours, and then get up and start my day.
I hope this helps.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
WOW. I didn’t know about the stories of pets developing MC. Seems the environmental factors/toxins played a big role in those cases. I’m hoping that at the very least, removing the mold in our bathroom can only help my symptoms and recovery, and relieve his issues. I really hope he’s not developing MC too.
You are right about the food variety. I know I’ve harped on this in the past, and I appreciate you having patience with me. I’m grateful to have the staples I have currently. As I see it now, I think my only viable options are:
1. Test new items infrequently (low stress, stable symptoms)
2. Test new supplements infrequently to cover deficiencies
Otherwise, I’m really working on keeping the stress under control. But I’m currently a full-time student in medical school, so sometimes it can’t be helped. Though I have been getting into creative writing recently and find that it helps me a lot to relax.
This was very helpful Tex. Wish I could give you a big hug of gratitude for all you do for us!
I’ll keep working on what we’ve talked about and keep you posted.
Hi Leena,
I understand you perfectly when you talk about adding more ingredients to our limited diet. It's the same for me. I continue with a very limited diet and I long to eat more things. I have always loved to eat a variety of foods, to try new things, I really enjoyed eating. I understand what Tex says and, deep down, that's what I do. But there are days when it's really hard for me. The disease has already taken so many things away from me, adding a new food without symptoms is like winning a small battle.
One thing I do is to cook the same ingredient in different ways. For example, some potatoes. One day I eat them boiled in chunks, another mashed, another au gratin, another boiled with skin, another baked whole, another baked in slices, another fried in an airfryer.... It's like cheating the palate hehehe
Of the ingredients you eat, some I can't like zucchini or rice. You could try seafood or duck, cassava or buckwheat. For me these have been safe. As Tex suggested, I always try a very small amount and wait three days to try it again. If there is no reaction I eat it more regularly.
Best wishes
I did bone broth from lamb bones in my crockpot (Whole Foods had frozen lamb bones). I didn't do any ground meat either. My meat was only elk, antelope, turkey and lamb. I was lucky living in Colorado because hunting friends kept me stocked up with the elk and antelope. I either pressure cooked the meat or sauteed it with a little coconut/olive oil. My mom to this day just can't understand why lamb on holidays isn't some special deal for me! If I never eat lamb again, it will be too soon 
