Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Confused and don't want to mess this up

Hi all,
My husband has IBS so he has agreed to try the NSD with me for a week. From reading here I see that one week of NSD will tell me if my arthritis is starch related, but will that be enough time for IBS? I also just read something about how a Candida infection will keep the NSD from working, is that true? How do you kill the Candida first? This is all so complicated!!
Wendy

Hi wendy,

I saw some relief from my NSD only after 11 weeks or so, and only after eliminating sugars from my diet, which is actually the anti Candida diet. I was never properly diagnosed with it but I am going to be this week to see exactly where I'm standing.
Have no doubt - diet changes the route of the desease. Sometimes you need some time to see it change. Some people here reported an apparant change after more than half a year - nevertheless - isn't it worth it?

Good luck,
Oded.

Hello Wendy.

More kickers will answer to you more and better than me about one week on NSD being too short. Talking about Candidiasis, you could try Bee Propolis. It's easy to find, cheap and natural stuff. In Kickas I wrote more about it here (read all posts on that thread) and here . Is working well for me.

Good luck.

Pello.

Wendy:

"One week" was also what I thought when I started five months ago and I am still waiting to see a difference. I, like Oded am also dealing with candida, have had no official diagnosis, but am treating it with natural supplements, sticking to a very strick no starch and anti-candida diet, and waiting. . .

My experience would say the exact opposite of what you wrote. I have a good friend who also has AS, but she has always had IBS symptoms much worse than mine. She noticed a difference right away with her IBS symptoms, and has noticed some difference with her AS, but more so with reducing her IBS symptoms. I think your husband may be the one to find relief sooner. His situation is much less complicated.

I am so tired of the pain. I am willing to make the sacrifice to see if this will work for me. It really isn't so bad. Give yourself time to adjust to the diet. It is hard, but it gets easier. I take my own food where ever I go. I avoid eating out, but I have done it successfully.

Keep us posted on your progress. We'll help however we can.

~Shelli

Thank you all for answering.
If my husband doesn't see results in a week, he will scrap the whole thing. He was raised in a family where food is the most important thing in the world and the center for all things social and loving. He has come a long way in 17 years of marriage, but he started with a LOT of bad eating habits. (Incidentally, his family members average being 100 pounds overweight.) His mom has IBS too, but she would never modify her diet to get well. I suspect she gets too much attention from being sick all the time and wouldn't want to loose that center of attention status. I grew up in southern California where mastery of eating is tops on the list of necessary social graces.
I would like to ask how many people that sucessfully stick to the NSD have small children at home. That is going to be the hardest part, not eating the food that is under my nose 24/7.

Being married into a family of food addicts must be like trying to go straight in a crack house. Family is often the biggest problem with this diet, so just try to concentrate on you. Good luck!

Hi Wendy,
There is indeed also a strong cultural, psychological and familial aspect to eating. While some of us here degraduate the importance of food in life and place their health first, quite a sane thing to do btw, this is not a necessary thing to do. Starch free and enjoyable food can go together. Open up a good cooking book or go dining in a real good restaurant and you will find it is easy pick out a meal that is tasty and starch free. The bread that is served with it one can leave in the basket. It is only the hassle of everyday life, the lack of time and money that makes starch free eating difficult. But not that the food and eating itself is not very enjoyable. The quantity of food is another thing of course and I wonder if "mastery of eating" has to do with that. As a European I don't know the term and when one eats a low starch diet it is hard enough to keep a normal weight.
Gerard

My daughter is 2yrs, I personally found giving up starch like giving up cigarettes. Whenever I walked in I had to open the cupboards to find something. It took a good few months for that addiction to calm down. Now nothing bothers me, I even go and get the odd chinese takeaway for my wife. I cook one meal for me and one for the wife and kids sometimes. I do try and also search for a cure though or hope doctors find one at somepoint. If I looked at this a a permanent condition I think I would find it hard. But saying that once the pain disappeared that alone was good enough for motivation, I cannot stand it when I get a flare. You may have to be strict though and try a few things out to really get well. For me sauerkraut and homemade goats yogurt and kefir made a huge impact and I recover very quickly from flares. My mother also has the condition but was not so enthusiastic at first but gradually her pain in her back, fingers, eyes all cleared energy increased etc. Then that gradually increased her motivation and has also tried with further benefit introducing some of the things I mentioned above. Its not easy though, good luck.

Phil

Bilko,
In my little family, I will be able to do it, even if my husband doesn't continue with me. The though part will come next summer when we visit family. When I was nursing my daughter, she was so allergic to milk protein that I couldn't have even the tiniest bit or she would projectile vomit. They acted like I was imposing this on them just to cause trouble! I couldn't believe how angry my mother-in-law got when I wouldn't eat everything she served and my own grandmother was just as bad. They get really offended when I don't eat as much as they do and then tell everyone outside the family that I am anorexic/bulimic etc. (I'm 5' 6" and 135 lbs., hardly emaciated!)
Wendy

Gerard,
Hey, I love Den Hague! We have been up to Wassenar several times for dance competitions with my daughters. I'm hoping to get up there one more time before we leave Germany next summer because I haven't been to see the Vermeer yet I love the European attitudes on food, quality over quantity. I eat much less here because the food is so much more satisfying. Usually, when we go out to dinner as a family, I order a small side salad and share what everyone else is eating. The Germans serve BIG portions and it shows, I seem to see more overweight people in Germany than any other European country. I gain weight on vacations because I want to try everything and I drink more wine than at home. I think eating out would be easier here on the NSD, just because Europeans don't use as many fillers. my biggest adjustment will be not eating pasta. We lived in Italy for 3 years and learned to eat pasta every day and you can't exactly just eat sauce
Wendy