Re: Die-off symptoms

[Guest guest]

Hi... I recently had a severe flare-up of my UC..and wnet on the introductory diet from The Gaps Diet.....I have been on the SCD diet for three years and did some stupid things to excerbate the UC...diet cokes...lots of caffine and wine....plus a few Blue Cheese Dressings from restaurants thtat I had no idea what was in the dressings...Back to the Gaps diet....which by the way Lucy says is NOT SCD compatible.....the die-off symptoms were so so bad that I thought I was having a mental break-down....Has anyone experienced die-off symptoms this bad? I was dizzy..blurred vision and really off......I felt like I was disassociated from my body..It was just awful.....It's SCD all the way for me from now on.....Lucy says the diet works and why would anyone try to mess with it !...I know I'm not supossed to mention other diets but I think this is just a super plug for SCD and not doing ANY other diet.Well I didn't have those symptoms - but I had awful, horrible terrible die-off symptoms on SCD that lasted for days - including running really high temperatures for over a week (103), no energy, being unable to eat because everything tasted terrible, terrible achiness and headaches and losing 15 pounds. My personal opinion about die-off is that - yeah it sucks to go through - but it means the diet is working and as soon as it is over, you will feel that much better because all those horrible bugs once inhabiting your gut are gone. Has Lucy read the GAPS book? Marilyn, the moderator here, says that GAPS is compatible with SCD. Here we think of GAPS as a version of SCD - a way to implement it that is more helpful for some people - the only really different thing as far as I have heard is that the author of the GAPS diet permits a probiotic with bifidus. But as far as I understand, it is not mandatory. Mara

[Guest guest]

At 10:21 PM 11/7/2008, you wrote:

It's SCD all the way for me from

now on.....Lucy says the diet works and why would anyone try to mess with

it !...I know I'm not supossed to mention other diets but I think this is

just a super plug for SCD and not doing ANY other

diet..

,

Well, you'll get no arguments from me about SCD all the way! It quite

literally saved my life!

I think you're fully aware now that cheating doesn't work -- I've lost

track of the number of people I've seen who say, " Well, I was on

SCD, and it worked, but then I.... " and now they're back for help in

implementation.

Suggestion: find an oil and vinegar recipe that you like and carry a

small jar with some of the seasoning in it. Then, if you are out and

about and want a salad, you can add oil and vinegar, shake, and presto --

legal salad dressing!

Can't help you with the Diet Coke business -- I have never tolerated any

artificial sweeteners, and as far as I know, they don't make Coke with

honey! (Not that I'd trust them if they did -- they'd probably cut the

honey with high fructose corn syrup!)

Lucy is correct that GAPS and SCD are not compatible, but it's less

because of philosophy and more because of implementation. GAPS calls

for probiotics which Elaine did not (correctly, in my view)

consider appropriate for damaged guts. GAPS, because it was developed

from -McBride's work with autistic children, eliminates dairy.

Elaine was very big on properly prepared homemade soup -- and if you take

a good look at her chicken soup recipe, and other soup recipes which were

traditional in Dr. Haas' time, you'll find that they bear a strong

resemblance to the " bone broths " recommended in GAPS and

in books such as Nourishing Traditions.

One of the things which concerns me is the crystallization of SCD since

Elaine's passing. There are people who will tell you that if you do not

have the soup and the cheese cake and so forth, you have not done the

intro diet. There are people who tell you that if you eat any vegetable

other than carrots you have not done the intro properly. That was not, as

I remember it, Elaine's view. Considering that I was too ill to make soup

or yogurt or cheesecake when I started the diet, I'd've been up the

proverbial creek with no visible means of propulsion!

What I did was eat roasts, soft-boiled eggs, and steamed zucchini (the

one vegetable that didn't make my stomach churn) -- and that was

fine with Elaine. The object of the intro diet is to eat easily digested

legal foods which will not feed the bad bacteria.

SCD is a comprehensive system, and there may be many methods of

implementing it. People get frustrated because Elaine did not write

precise procedures. She didn't write precise procedures because it's

impossible to predict all the varying ways people's guts react. For

instance, I require a fairly high level of fat to keep functioning; Kim M

would keel over if she ate that much fat. Yet we both follow SCD.

Similarly, I am fine with both cow and goat dairy (haven't has a chance

to try legal sheep or buffalo cheeses or yogurt), and yet some people

find that they must eliminate dairy to eliminate joint and muscle pain.

Most people are fine with well-cooked carrots at the outset of the diet;

I did not tolerate carrots for close to six months or more.

Welcome back to the SCD fold...

—

Marilyn

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Further to the posts by Marilyn and Mara, I just wanted to clarify

that GAPS is not a diet --it's a three-part program. Its *diet* is

SCD, but yes, it also has two other parts --supplementation (which

includes a recommendation, but not a requirement, for a broad-spectrum

probiotic) and detoxification.

As Marilyn noted, it eliminates all dairy for a minimum of 4-6 weeks

(after which it is reintro'd very carefully, as tolerated).

I think different people experience more die-off with some approaches

than with others, maybe depending on which bugs are causing the most

issue for them and other variables.

I've done three different intro protocols for SCD, and GAPS was the

easiest on my body. It was very nourishing without feeding the bugs

that were so problematic for me, and did not require me to cope with

casein, a protein I was not able to process well.

I moderate on a GAPS list and find that some people will try very

early to do far more than the program sets out, then find themselves

overwhelmed with detox. (Much like folks who decide to do the protocol

set out in BTVC plus chug back a litre of powerful yogurt right off

the bat.)

Like Mara, I view detox as very positive --it's just important to my

coping that I regulate it somewhat. One of my lessons in this came

when I decided, a couple of months into strict SCD (via GAPS), I took

a full capsule of s boulardii. Well, welcome Baden to die-off hell!

That was way more die-off than my body could process, and the mental

effects were outrageous. I even " knew better " , but still did this step

whole hog instead of 'low and slow'.

Re: " Why would anyone mess with SCD. " I think it's more a matter of

some people finding that, like Marilyn noted, certain emphases work

better for certain people than others. For example, lots of us have to

remove casein for awhile before being able to digest it. Or some of us

absolutely cannot have the fruits and honey offered in the BTVC intro

without perpetuating candida overgrowth. Some of us require copious

broth to be able to get through the early stages. Every body is

different, and we each have to find our unique path within SCD's

wonderful offerings.

Anyway, I'm super glad to hear you've found your way back from Coke

and prepared dressings to SCD I'm confident you will find full

health again!

Baden

[Guest guest]

Baden....

Thank you so much ....those were words of wisdom....spoken from experience....I can tell...I think that my die off symptoms set off an autoimmune attack or something in my body?.....Thryoid? Adrenals? I don't know but I was sicker thatn a dog. Alot of spinning around...felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach...naseous....just in a tailspin that I had a hard time getting myself RIGHTED again....Yeah the mental symtoms were bad....actually thought I was having a mental breakdown of some sort....

I made it through to the other side and am starting to heal again....I love your advice of going slowly as I tend to do the same as you.....full steam ahead.....

Thanks so much Baden

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