# Slowly add food to diet or stick to Fodmap?



## Melissa Lady (May 3, 2013)

First off, I apologize for the long amount of text. I am young, lost, and confused.

Hello!

Introduction! I'm a 20 year old female who has had IBS for about four months now. Not long compared to most people, but it feels like a lifetime. From what I can tell, it's Post Infectious IBS. In the short time I've had it, I've tested normal on pretty much everything they could do and found several triggers. I've been on a gluten, dairy, and red meat free diet for about two months now. Since about two weeks after I began the diet, I've felt almost normal again! My biggest symptom is nausea, but I have Zofran to help with that.

Once I began to feel normal again, I added little things of dairy back into my diet. I used a parmesean salad dressing, ate mashed potatoes with half and half, had butter on my corn, etc. I've been completely find with that! I tried yogurt the other day and my stomach gave me quite the upset rumbles, but nothing severe.

My mother told me that I should stick to the diet strictly and not try to add things in. A friend of hers developed Celiac from her IBS when she didn't cut out gluten.

Questions!

Basically, I'm wondering how you're supposed to do this. Are you meant to eat strictly on the fodmap diet or should you try to ease yourself back into a normal diet?

Most cases of Post Infectious IBS go away within a year or a few. Would I return back to normal better by easing into it or just sticking to the diet as long as I can, is what I'm trying to get out of this.

I hear people can be okay with gluten and just cut out dairy. Should I try gluten and see how it affects me?


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

A lot depends on if you can get enough nutrition and calories on the stricter diet. Usually people do have some tolerance for some amount of fodmaps, so adding a little bit of things back in to find what your tolerance level is tends to be what is recommended and what most people do. However, you want to play with the diet when too much setting something off isn't going to be a problem. So on days you need to do stuff and be out and about, stick only to what you know is safe for you.

As long as the IBS is active you may not be able to get back to a totally normal diet loaded with fodmaps, but you may find you can have a bit here and there so you can have a bit more variety in your diet.

Some people find it easier to stick to a very strict diet as the tendency is if you can get away with 1/2 a cup of something a day then you'll loosen up too much and it may take awhile to settle things back down.

PI IBS can fade, but sometimes it doesn't so you may want to plan on the long term rather than how fast can I get back to a normal diet.


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## LivingHappyWithIBS (May 22, 2013)

The diet is designed to eliminate any possible triggers from your body and then to slowly add then back in, FODMAP at a time. This way, you can find your triggers and in what quantities. If you start adding many things back into your diet at once, you will not know what impacts your symptoms.

I did elimination for about 6 weeks and started by adding a little bit of lactose at dinner. Once it didn't affect me, I knew that amount was safe. Then I tried to add that same amount to lunch (and have a FODMAP-free dinner) to see if that would affect me. Once it didn't, I added a bit more. At the point where I noticed my limits, it's really eye opening. Once you have narrowed down your tolerance with that FODMAP group, you can move onto another.

I feel like dinner is the best place to start testing something because if it causes issues, typically, you sleep through most of the pain. However, it's a better gauge at lunchtime, since you have more time to see the impact. I always stick to a completely FODMAP free breakfast because that could really ruin your whole day. Let me know if you have any other questions!


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## jza (Oct 4, 2016)

I've been on a low FODMAP diet for the past couple of months for my SIBO-C. My symptoms significantly improved. I started adding in a small amount of wheat this past week, and the symptoms came back in full swing. Very frustrating.


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