How many of you "feel" your digestive process?

there are many places in this. Section and the section on restless leg syndrome that refer to the FODMAP diet

i suggest you search ,for them and ask your doctor to help you follow the exclusion ,diet to se if it helps

you can be intolerant of all sorts of foods that appear to be healthy.   They are heaLthy to others but perhaps not to you

a food diary is no use until you know what foods you need to avoid

if you are intolerant of several FODMAPS then a food diary would not appear to be logical

The food diary is an excellant aid to finding what's wrong but IF your problem is ibs then you need to recognise the FODMAPs that might be causing the problem.

For example your food diary might not mention that you had tomato sauce on your meat and that the brand of tomato sauce you used contained onions.   At another meal you might have tomato sauce but that second brand is free of onions and garlic.    Unless you record this information and recognise that onion and garlic are likely to be a problem you would just have a confusing situation and no pattern would emerge to help you identify the problem.   One day you might eat rock melon and another you might eat watermelon.    If you then had a bad time would you recognise the difference and identify the watermelon as the villian.     There is also a problem of how complete your food diary is.   If someone offers you a few Malteasers do you remember to write them in next time you pick up the diary?   I found I wasn't good at that.  I had great problem finding any pattern in what I ate and my symptoms.  

The other problem I had, which is not universal, is that if I drink milk at 6pm I might get a good nights sleep that night but then have two bad nights following it.   So the time delay makes it really hard to spot the cause when somethying has had an effect.

ASpplying the FODMAP diet means that you start way ahead because you know what foods might affect you and during the 6 to 12 week exclusion diet period you just avoid everything that might cause a problem until you can eat an apple and find you react badly to it.    You have then learned that apples contain one of the FODMAPS that you have to avoid.   If you are unluckey an apple a day just guarantees you feel crook every day.

I think its much easier to start with the knowledge of which foods are likeley to upset you so you can avoid all of them until your symptoms have gone.   You then reintroduce them one by one and your food diary helps in this process.

There are still lots of things to eat.   I am about to have bacon and eggs with a banana desert for breakfast.  I can have maple syrup on the eggs if I want to be Canadian or onion and garlic free tomato sauce to make it American.

Good luck

May the FODMAPs be nowhere near you.

Graham

ie I could have four cups of coffee and feel fine at the time but suffer greatly the following day, as with ice cream etc..

i I imagine in reading this comment you see why I have ibs type symptoms.. 

I am my own worst enemy, but trying to break the habits of a lifetime.. It's incredibly hard doing a 360 turn from foods you have tolerated your whole life

In truth it really can be hard at times.   I sometimes find myself wandering around a supermarket hoping top find something "different" and I can start to pity me.   But in my case the penalty for cheating is to lose a couple of night's sleep which makes me useless for thinking or doing anything fun.    I remind myself of that and happliy grab some FODMAP friendly stuff.

Some people say they feel better than they can ever remember.   Unfortunately there are a few people whose problem doesn't improve without FODMAPS so be prepared to accept disappointment as well.

ive been told try fodmap or try blood type diet, both of which exclude pretty much everything I eat daily.. Hard to know which way to turn but I'm working it, thanks for your help .

HOWEVER the FODMAP diet has been developed by Monash University specifically for people with IBS so its based on science and logic.   If you are suffering a desease that appears to have symptoms that are common to ibs and nothing else has been helpful then why not try FODMAP first?

IBS seems to be one of those many things for which there is no real diagnostic process available.   Probably why they call it a syndrome so the medics can pretend they know all about it  

Hence it seems best to me to go flat out FODMAP until you have given it enough effort to either be relieved of your symptoms or prove it doesn't work   give it 12 weeks and take notes of number of times you have a symptom so if the change is =gradual you will realise that something that happened 10 times a day is now only happening 5 times a day.  Otherwise it can get lost in the frustration.

FODMAP works for many people

Its Free    Food and a dietician might cost a bit but probably a lot less than drugs

You do all the hard stuff yourself so you know you have done a good job of sticking to the diet relentlessly

FODMAP must get up the nose of the big Pharma companies.   Imagine how frustrating it must be to have a perfectly good drug (which may not help many customers) that costs a fortune and some bunch of academics who dont understand shareholders desire for profit offer a free alternative to 70% of your paying customers.  Hence we demonstrate the benefits os research funded by the community with the patient and the cure as the focus.

I dont know for sure but I get the impression that Monash is the only place that measures FODMAPS in food and the othere centres of the diet use their data.    Its apparently quite expensive to determine the FODMAPS in a particular type of food and you even have to take into account the preparation of the food.

For example drink some liquid cream   -  bad    Add some whipped cream to your banana   - thats OK.     How can whipping make such a difference???   And again sour cream on my potatoes --- really bad.  

If you want my advice   talk to your doctor and give the FODMAP diet a 12 week trial.

I met someone recently who said she started cutting out wheat, yeast products, anything that would produce gas, bloating as certain things ferment in the stomach.  I decided to try gluten free bread which is high in fibre to see if it makes a difference and stops me from being so bloated and constipated.  Also I have a referrel to a Dietician/Nutrionist at the end of Jan so it will be interesting to see what she says.

Its interesting that you ue the word "ferments" because the F in FODMAP stands for Fermentable.  The FODMAP carbohydrates are a group of things that will ferment in your stomach if you are unlucky enough not to be able to digest them properly and this causes your problems.   The3 Monash website has a more scientific explanation so its worth reading that.

The important point is that the wheat is just one of many ingredients that are fermentable in your gut and unless you are lucky you wont be able to eliminate them all.

Thats why its best to get the FODMAP instructions AND if you can get help from a dietician to help you apply a systematic process of identifying what causes your particular body to misbehave.   There are two things you need to determine  one is what is bad for you and the other is how much of each bad thing you can actually tolerate.   For example (off the top of my head) you might react badly to grapes BUT you might be able to eat 5 grapes.   That sounds restrictive but 5 grapes in a bowl of fruit salad can be delicious and sufficient

Good luck with your expert appointment.   I hope they quickly resolve your problems.

Cheers

Graham

Thank you so much, you have been really helpful, I will talk to the dietician/nutrionist about this.  I am hopeing that they will finally sort my problems out, wish me good luck and I will let you know the outcome.