Looking for foods that help heal microscopic colitis

[eliz45]

Are the diets for microscopic colitis and ulcerative colitis the same? They are both IBDs. I am looking for which foods I can eat for microscopic colitis. There is much more info on ulcerative colitis since MC has only just been recognized in the last few years. Thanks

[BabsyWabsy]

Following. I too have this diagnosis, and have seen nothing at all about dietary influences. I am also wheat allergic. I read somewhere that it can go after about three years, but I am at least five years in now, and although not as bad as at diagnosis, it is still here. Maybe I have learned to manage it better? In principal, I try to eat home cooked veg, fruit, meat, fish, eggs. Baking is done with rye or spelt flour, or even chickpea flour, which I can tolerate, and my bms are now down to about three or four on a typical day, from being ten to eleven, which as you can imagine, was life limiting. I do hope you find some relief through diet.

[eliz45 in reply to BabsyWabsy]

Thanks for the help.

[siouxbee19]

I was finally diagnosed w/MC in 1999, having suffered many years prior w/symptoms. I wasn't given much info back then, & subsequent doctors (from the same GI clinic) have blown off that diagnosis & said "you *just* have IBS, fissures, & bleeding hemorrhoids".

I've found, through extensive research & my PC Dr. (he's been a huge help, more so than any GI doc) that a BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) diet is very soothing during a flare.

I also have Gastroparesis, and a low residue diet prescribed by a dietitian works really well for both MC & GP. Google a low residue or Gastroparesis diet. In a nutshell it's low fat, low fiber (I know!), minimal low fat dairy, well cooked vegetables, chicken, fish. Low or no beef or pork, hard to digest. No raw veggies, no fruit other than bananas, canned peaches, pears, apples. Basically easy to digest foods, fat, meat, fiber, & dairy are not.

Also, with the GP diet, it's better to eat 4 to 5 small meals a day, like between 225-250 calories each, say 2 hours apart, stopping around 4 or 5pm. If you Google a Gastroparesis diet, it will explain it all. It also seems to help my microscopic colitis symptoms.

Hope this helps! Wishing you wellness...🕊️🙏❤️🕯️

[eliz45 in reply to siouxbee19]

Thanks. It is all so complicated but we just carry on.

[mal444]

Hi eliz45.Sorry to hear that you have microscopic colitis and hope you are managing it well.

I am currently waiting on nhs here for a camera but they tell me it might be 2022.

They think i might have the same as you because there is no blood.

My symptoms started a year ago. Explosive gas with mucus. Diarrhea on and off. Now i have lots of thick mucus on my stools and can pass it alone also. Really at the point of despair not fully knowing what this is. My mum had Ulcerative colitis so maybe its that. Im 50 and this started a year ago.

Hopefully you can tell me if you pass mucus also.

Malcolm

[eliz45 in reply to mal444]

Hi. Thank you for your kind wishes. I have had MC for maybe 6 years and just thought it was from other issues like celiac and SIBO. Or the not so helpful diagnosis of IBS. There does not seem to be any blood or mucus involved. Just urgent, often explosive, very watery diarrhea. Without warning. Often having accidents. Never alternating with constipation. Sometimes losing what feels like a quart of water and needing to rehydrate right away. Sometimes almost clear water with sediment.

But I was reading about ulcerative colitis, thinking it might be similar. The description sounds like what you are describing. The mucus.Why do you need a camera for a diagnosis? To find microscopic colitis, you have a colonoscopy and they take tissue samples from your colon. Generally you can't SEE it unless you are a really experienced doctor. They have to take tissue samples. That is why the diagnosis for MC is relatively new. Doctors never saw anything when they looked at the colon. Hope that helps.

[BabsyWabsy in reply to eliz45]

Microscopic colitis can only be diagnosed by talking tissue samples (biopsies) from the colon wall and looking at them through a microscope. It is not visible to the naked eye.

[Hephzi]

Join the chrons and colitis board as there are quite a few with microscopic colitis on there