Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; New here, question

R: Lettuce,

I find that the 'greener' the lettuce, the better I do with it...

Iceberg=no good.
Romaine=alright.
Green leaf=great.

Spinach=great.

Violeta,Welcome to kickas, sorry about your AS
I can't eat red meat, for some reason I flare, but I can eat chicken and turkey.Nightshades bother some of us arthritics too.Hope you find the right diet for yourself, take care.

Thanks, Kleb, when I'm feeling a little better I think I'll try the greenleaf since it isn't on the list of goitrogens and high oxalates, both of which really bother me. Do you mind if I ask what do you eat?

Thank you, ValsMum, for the welcome and well wishes. I don't know exactly what I have, but I have a lot of similar symptoms to what I've been reading here. It seems as though it does come down to each person finding exactly what works for them.

I can't believe my achilles tendonitis and thumb joint pain came back yesterday. It was this time of the year when I first had my really bad attack. I also had a bad headache on Monday and some sort of intestinal upset today. I'm a little worried.

Sorry for the whining!

Betsy

Hi Betsy,

Don't feel like you're 'whining', these forums are here to share and compare, offering, I think, great relief and insight for most who surf them...

I get away with eating an ultra strict diet, as I don't do much activity (gentle jog or 30min+ bike ride makes upper back flare) still.

My large portions (on a working day I eat 3 equally large meals) consist of either:
Steamed kale, or broccoli + fowl, or fish;
Salad: radishes, long english cucumber, celery, green leaf lettuce, and lots of spinach + fowl, or fish.
Each salad (usually 'breakfast' and lunch) with 100ml+ of EVOO.

All meat gently fried up, or slow cooked, in coconut oil and no-starch/additives chicken broth.
My weight is very stable, and I have a good appetite. Again, my portions are large
Our regular dinner plates don't cut it, I eat my salads in a low-walled Ikea serving dish!

I'm in the process of having blood work done, checking sugar, insulin, cholesterol, etc.

I have tried 2 different probiotics in the past year, but find my stomach is the most settled with the restricted menu above.

Keep experimenting...
/Kristine

ValsMum, it just hit me that maybe my current flare is from the pasta sauce with zucchini that I had two days in a row this past weekend. Potatoes can make me really sick, too! I'll have to make sure I stay away from the nightshade family, too.
Kristine, thanks, your food list sounds really healthy and satisfying. For sure the next thing I'm going to try to add is salads.
It's great to have people to brain storm with. Thanks!

Hi Violeta,

I wanted to recommend drinking your greens!

Every morning I drink a big smoothie with some greens blended in. My favorite combo is 1 mango, 2 big handfuls spinach, 1 medjool date, ice. I LOVE this!

Some mornings I drink a smoothie with pureed sesame seeds (great calcium, protein, omega 3's) or hemp seeds and then add in fruit like peaches or strawberries with a date for added sweetness. Or I make hazelnut milk with raw cacao powder for a "chocolate milkshake" full of vitamins & minerals. Or I drink frozen blueberries with almond milk and maybe some chia seeds to make a "porridge" loaded with fiber, protein, omega 3's, minerals, etc.

I also enjoy juicing my greens like: apple, celery, parsley, lemon, wheatgrass & ginger juice. It's amazing!! Or I juice carrots, ginger, lemon, & pear. So delish.

I also do not do well with eating meats. I eat seafood/fish once or twice a week, and the rest of my diet is plant based.

I can't recommend enough blending or juicing your greens for super easy digestion & absorbtion. I think sometimes plant ruffage can be hard for some to digest with a super inflammed and/or diseased gut. But fresh made juice is so easy to digest, and you get all the amazing vitamins & nutrients from the greens/veggies without any of the hard work digesting them. Smoothies which include the whole fruit or veggie are also super easy to digest, easy to take on the road to work, and they are truly my ulitimate fight against inflammation.

Wish you all the best!
-Andrea

Kristine,

That is the diet that works best for me too. I was eating that exact same menu for a long time in the beginning of this journey after I realized I couldn't do dairy and I felt SO GOOD. Lately though, I've gotten myself in trouble by eating fringe foods like too much sugary fruit and seasonings. I am currently flaring because I decided to eat coconut ice cream with agave syrup and I also have eaten asparagus and onions in a paleo cream of broccoli soup. Tested negative with iodine, but I'm guessing FOS does indeed bother me. I have noticed a bad pattern with agave....someone here said agave is really high in inulin/FOS and it feeds the klebs like wildfire.

Hey Lauren,

I couldn't agree more about avoiding agave. I blame agave for setting off my last flare a while ago, a flare I was only able to get rid of by juice fasting. Agave is loaded with FOS and I totally believe from experience that concentrated and/or syntehic FOS can feed klesiella like wildfire.

I love raw food recipes, and a lot of them have agave used as a sweetener, I have also tried subbing in honey for agave, but now I am using medjool dates, and I can't believe how awesome I feel now! I am also now making raw chocolates with dates for sweetener. I also find that dates DO NOT give my body a sugar rush like other sweeteners, they just give me a healthy amount of sustained energy.

I have no probs whatsoever with most fruits though. And for a little whlie I was afraid I might have to give up fruits. For me I have found the key is to eat fruits by themselves (or with greens), and not combine them with fats or proteins, if you want to avoid "fermenting" fruit sugars and bloating. Fruits digest so quickly and easily, whereas fats & proteins take much longer to digest, so you don't want fruits in the mix or they will get hung up and start fermenting, causing bloating, etc.

Now I do include pureed nut or seed milks in some of my fruity smoothies, and I do really well with that, likely because everything is pureed and already broken up.

That's my best bet!

-Andrea

Thanks for confirming that Andrea...I had suspicions agave was an issue. Now I know for sure. It is good to know a reason why you're flaring. I'm finding I can ALWAYS trace a flare back to something I ate.

Hi Andrea,
I just visited your site, and it's wonderful. I used to blend and juice, and even was raw vegan for quite awhile. You're right, vegetables and fruit are much easier to digest that way. I will think about going back to juicing, but I think I will definitely get some green lettuce and blend that up with some fruit.
How did you get the coconut sugar to combine with the cacao powder in your chocolate candy? I used to make a chocolate covered cherry with a mixture of coconut oil, cocoa butter, and sometimes cacao powder too. I tried to sweeten the mix, but couldn't find anything that would homogenize with it.

Betsy