Wednesday 25 September 2013

Colitis Diary Pays Dividends!

Recently my Ulcerative Colitis Diary has become more useful. This is mainly due to the amount of time I've been keeping it, and in some part, to how indepth it is.

If I look back I can see that I started filling it in on a regular basis about 11 months ago, before that I'd left it for long periods when my flare-ups had subsided. The diary covers what I eat, my meds and symptoms I'm experiencing. Here's a link with more information about my colitis diary.

The most useful bit of information it has given me recently is how long food takes to cycle through my digestive system. This is notoriously difficult to work out due to the many factors that can effect our metabolism / digestion.

The amount of time food takes from eating to exit (in a healthy person) can range from 8 hours up to 72 hours. Here's a link to my website about digestion and the colon. Most people assume it takes about 24 hours - I know I did and it's what I hear from others if I ask them how long they think it takes.

My diary has revealed that my digestion cycle takes almost 72 hours, which in turn, has made me realise that I've blamed some of the wrong foods for my Colitis symptoms in the past.

This discovery was only possible because I continued with a 'remission' diet similar to that of my flare-up diet. The reason for this, apart from being a more healthy diet, is that I'm hesitant to eat much else in case it brings on UC symptoms. For what it's worth (we're all different when it comes to UC) here's a link to my Coltis diet 'remission' regime.

It has taken some determination and will power to stick with the diet! There have been times when I've had a tasty item of food in my hand, had a flash back to how ill I felt during my latest flare-up and begrudgingly put the food down!! Other times it has been very close to me saying sod it and eating it anyway!!

So now I've kept a similar diet for so long, I've discovered that trigger foods will produce symptoms after approximately 3 days. Interestingly, I drank some water with a slice of lemon last week (I'm not good with citrus but thought this might be okay) and it caused symptoms within 4 hours, this is because it was liquid, not solid.

So I guess the lesson to achieving an accurate diary is: firstly keep the diary going (even when it seems like a chore); secondly stick to a similar-ish diet. Eventually the diary should start turning up useful information, sometimes when you least expect it.