Best Posts in Thread: Diverticulitis Causes

You can see from replies to your posting that foods are a big problem area for some people but with a variety of ideas how to 'cure' any problems.

I go with 'The Dude' in possibly trying an 'Exclusion Diet', which basically removes almost everything and then adds it back in one at a time. You would need to research that on the internet and be very careful that the base diet you start with does not include anything which you might react to. I am not sold on 'blood-match diets' but who knows - the human body is ingesting foods unheard of a few years ago and it has not evolved to cope with them. But, as you will know, trying more than one treatment at a time is counter-productive as it confuses the issue as to what is the cause.

I was interested to read that you can be affected by food that is frozen overnight because freezing food should virtually halt any cell reproduction (which means cells of bacteria and fungi predominantly) and slow down enzyme activity to almost nothing. Because one option, other than growth of microbes, is that the composition of the food (thus the chemicals entering your body) changes when it is no longer fresh.

I agree with avoiding street food (and similar), especially for those new to the country (or any new country), as we have low immunity to local microbes and hygiene may be lacking.

The subject is complex and there are many other diseases of the gut which also still puzzle doctors - sometimes we just have feelings about what is right for us and the best we can do is work on them. Sometimes it is what we ate, what combination we ate, how our gut is physically at that time, how stressed our body is, what medicines we took (and combinations of), etc., etc., etc.

I hope it goes well for you as these conditions can be limiting to your daily life - medicine does not have answers to everything and sometimes it makes matters worse.

 

Are you sure this is what you want to discuss? Those not afflicted with the ailment have little practical experience. Those who have little practical experience may not understand the difference between the ailment diverticulosis and the inflamed state of diverticulitis. Diverticulosis, which a huge number of older people have, will not bother you unless the diverticula become inflamed.

The acute inflammation stage is diverticulosis. It can be extremely painful. You may not be able to eat anything for days, fed through an IV tube drinking nothing but plain water for a few days while your guts heal. In its milder form, you just have to watch what you eat very carefully as most foods will go through you like water through a hose.

My personal opinion is: I don't give a d*mn what Dr. Google or Dr. Real Life says about the causes of the inflammation. They are not sure because it seems to have different causes for each individual. I know, from my own personal experience, that it is set off by different foods at different times and the only thing I have noticed in common are spice and bacteria. Certain spices will set off a bout of diverticulitis for me and too much bacteria will do the same. It puts street foods off limits for me. Sometimes I eat them anyway. Sometimes I get lucky and have no ill effects and sometimes I end up in hospital. It seems to depend on the general healthiness of my guts at any given time. It also takes a year to heal up the guts properly after a bout that results in hospitalization. During that time I have to be zealously conscious of what I eat.

So what does that have to do with white bread? At no time has white bread ever initiated a bout of diverticulitis "FOR ME". As in all things your mileage may vary. Each sufferer seems to have different trigger foods but when the inflammation is at its worse then I can't keep white bread or anything else inside me.

 

The nutrition advice I have run across which makes the most sense to me is to retreat to a diet which stuffs the most nutrition on your place for the least space and then slowly add other foods back. If you start noticing problems, then you might have an allergy to something you added back.

I have a friend who had some weird issues with his throat and it wasn't until his mid-30's (and loads of consultations with doctors) that he found the issue to be caused by an allergy with eggs. Some allergies aren't obvious. They can cause issues which you have assigned to being normal and livable.

Foods containing gluten (such as white bread) have been in the spotlight lately for all sorts of issues. True or not (nutrition is a problem area of science) I believe that removing things that are well known for causing allergies and then adding them back over time is a good move. Maybe this is easier said than done though, if you removed everything which caused allergies to some people then you wouldn't have much choice left over.