Clarification of dosage on the Mag -- I took 500 mg in TOTAL separated into 3 doses during the day.

Karoe,

This is wonderful that you're logging your experience with so much detail - thank you for that! I think it's going to be really helpful for other people to be able to get a feel for what it's like following the IBD Remission Diet ahead of time.

Take care,
Nicole

Hi Karoe--

Glad this sounds like its working for you, or at least informing you through the ups and downs!
Several questions for you: are you doing any Natren probiotics now? If so, which ones, and how much of each? Secondly, when you say 'CALM' brand magnesium, do you mean 'Natural Calm'? (on the canister, the word natural is pretty small, but thats its full name). Last...did I read right you are doing 1500 mg./day of the mag?

Thanks so much--hope you are doing well.

Susan

Reporting back on ED, day 14 + 3 --- ie, 3 days after I stopped the ED. First, let me respond to ssr's q: the product is natural calm, it's a powder, and I was taking TOTAL 500 mg per day. Jini's suggested max for mg. is 1000, by the way. What I took was plenty painful, I'll tell you, but it did work and it's over-- whew! I have a very sensitive system and like most IBSers, my gut registers pain at a lower threshold than normal people.

Okay, Thurs eve was the last shake. I took 2 tablespoons, heaping, of homemade yogurt made with Natren's Lifestart II before bed, to get them started. On rising I had more yogurt, waited and then had a scrambled egg, over cooked green beans and brown rice. Small quanities. Later, I had a broth. Then I went for a facial. While lying there getting my face de-toxed, too, I realized I did not want any more shakes, or magnesium--- ie. I didn't see the point in tapering off...I did that by alternating small quantities of food with broth, keeping up with the yogurt 5x that day. I felt I had enough with the constipated feeling. That day went well.

The next day I eliminated the broths (Sat) and ate more food at each sitting, but very little meat. I took a cup of senna leaf tea (laxative) at 10.00 am--- I just felt and really knew it was time to give things a little help. I felt very well otherwise, and managed a one hour bike ride and did lots of work in the yard. I introduced a small amt of raw vegetable on Sat eve in the form of a small salad. (It's tough to fight constipation when you're restricting raw vegetables.)

My patience and faith were rewarded, as on Sunday am I had a substantial, light brown very well formed stool which was completely odorless. It's kinda surreal, really, when that happens. Anyway, I still have a crampy pain in my gut, from that senna tea, no doubt but I am very relieved that all seems to be functioning normally. The shakes were good in terms of giving me energy, but real food is way better! Intend to keep up the fresh yogurt and slowly add back the harder to digest foods.

More as it happens.

Thanks, Karoe--hope all goes well for you.

Okay, here's how the first week went.....First of all, let me say that while I am not 'cured', there has been a substantial improvement in my symptoms and I have clues about what to fix next. Gas has been reduced by about 95% and the am toilet run has been reduced to ONCE, which is such a blessed relief from having to wait around for multiple bm's before I can leave the house. Wow, does that ever simplify my life. The unfortunate news is I think I've rediscoverd food sensitivities, and I'll discuss that further on in this post.

During the week, I had substantial formed dark stools in the am. with the only exceptions being Tues and Fri, when I had very small stools. I had a small stool, also formed each day in the afternoon. Toward the end of the week, the stools became less formed, and as of this writing, I've had two completely unformed stools in the mornings....I think that in the beginning of the week, the high amount of probiotics I was taking could account for the volume and well-formed pattern.

While on the ED, after the first two days, I stopped having the afternoon crash and any gut pain aside from the discomfort of taking the mag while ingesting the supplements in the shakes...that kinda stuffed, bloated, uncomfortable feeling. Interestingly, on the LAST TWO days of the ED, the CRASH came BACK and it was very pronounced, and I've had it every day since then. I think I became sensitive to the shake ingredients after having nothing but shakes for 13 days......they are based on milk and corn, and I normally avoid both of those things because I know they have bothered me in the past. I always assumed I had the leaky gut thing and had hoped that the shakes were being absorbed high enough in the intestine so that wouldn't be a factor in doing the ED. Wrong-O, I guess.

One of the first things I ate when I got back to solid food was eggs, and I suspected them of sustaining the crash pattern, so I dropped them after the middle of the week....the crash lessened dramatically. Now I am searching for other things to eliminate. I am pleased that I seem to be able to eat fruit again......I had a bunch of fresh papaya and a whole grapefruit at one sitting and nothing bad happened. I had a banana in an almond milk shake and also did fine.

I am going to go back to my file and get out all the food sensitivity testing materials, and my diaries. I did have many symtom free days while on a three day rotation diet.....nice, but a real pain in the butt to maintain. I think the big take away message here is that TWO separate problems manifest themselves in my condition. It's not JUST bacterial disbyosis, and not JUST food sensitivities, it's both things and I have to address them separately. Before the ED, I thought that since the exclusion and rotation diets did not give me relief that my problem was only disbyosis and leaky gut. Now I feel differently. I am of course dissapointed that instead of the cure, I have now another hurdle in front of me. It's not great to contemplate that I might be sensitive to so many foods that I can't eat the same thing in 3 or even 7 (!!!) days without feeling ill.

I continue to supplement with Lifestart II 3x per day, about 1/2 tsp each time in gelcaps on an empty stomach and I think I can go up on that this week. Right after the ED, I ingested massive amounts of live bacteria 4-5 times per day over the weekend in the form of yogurt made with the product. I now use the gel caps as I suspect the milk might have also been a problem.