# My body is healing - no more IBS



## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

I posted this on another thread and was advised to start another topic and repost it in this section. There does not seem to be a success story forum which seems very sad, when there are people out there who _have_ healed and no longer suffer with IBS.By the time my digestion finally collapsed over three years ago after 12 years of IBS-D, everything was running straight through me, and the stomach pain was awful. After being told the Hospital could find 'nothing' wrong (not that they looked very hard!), I came home and did my own research. I picked up on Celiac Disease, tried dumping the gluten (and dairy, as I knew I was intolerant of that), and within 5 or 6 hours the D had stopped and the stomach pain was receding.I was still limited in what I could eat, but at least I wasn't in pain any more. I soon realised though that ALL carbs were actually a problem for me )and actually are for a lot of people, especially the processed ones, so I dumped those too. My digestion went up and down for a while, but at least the D was gone - in fact, sometimes it went the other way.Just over a year ago, I came across a free diet on the web that is essentially low-carb, but very healing too, and gradually things have really started to improve in my digestion. I wish I had found this diet right back at the beginning - no, I wish I had found it before I ever got the IBS, then perhaps I wouldn't have got it in the first place.Much of the food out there is very damaging. Not necessarily the food itself - but what is done to it. I have learned so much about our food over the three years and why it is not giving our bodies what they need. The Diarrhea is simply the body's way of trying to get rid of stuff it can't cope with. It can also cause constipation in some people too, because much of it sucks water out of the body and digestive tract as the body tries to process it.Things like refined sugar, improperly prepared grains, chemicals, denatured processed foods, etc., are damaging. They are 'dead' substances that rob the body of far more than they give to it. The body has to call on it's limited nutritional reserves to try and process it - often unsuccessfully - which is why so many people are getting sick.Above anything, our bodies need nutrition. Much commercially made food is very lacking in nutrition. It is often fractionated and adulterated. As Sally Fallon says, in her book 'Nourishing Traditions', food is like a bank balance, if your food keeps taking out more nutrition than it puts in, eventually you will end up in nutritional deficit. Calories are not nutrition, they are only fuel. Nutrition is the elements our bodies are made of - the elements it needs to keep our bodies running properly - the vitamins, minerals, trace elements, enzymes and likely other substances and interactions we have yet to discover.As Clive Lawler points out in his book 'Whole don't mean wholesome', how come things like Celiac disease and gluten intolerance were virtually unheard of fifty or sixty years ago? Because around that time, fast-processed bread techniques were created. Whereas tradional bread was usually proved overnight, now a loaf of bread can be in one end of the process and out the other within 45 minutes. The long proving gave the flour time to adapt and convert into a form our bodies can use. The fast-tracked stuff doesn't - and because of that the gluten and other substances have not had time to undergo the natural chemical interaction between the water and the yeasts that changes it into a non-toxic and beneficial food. The long proving also helps to neutralise phytates (anti-nutrients) within the grains that can prevent us absorbing the nutrition in the bread, and other foods we eat. Traditionally-made bread was slowly processed for very good reasons. Flour for cake mixes was usually soaked overnight in things like buttermilk before they were finished and cooked the next day. They would use far more nutritious raw honey, or maple syrup for sweetening. They wouldn't need as much because their 'teeth' weren't so sweet!Because improperly-prepared grains (predominantly wheat) are in virtually all commercially-processed food, we are getting nutritionally weaker and weaker and, as a result, sicker and sicker. Our bodies are not trash cans that we can endlessly keep throwing garbage into. Sooner or later the toxic dump will overspill and we will start to suffer.Add to the problem the 'dead' pasteurised dairy products. Pasteurisation kills all the enzymes that would help us digest the dairy, and a lot of the nutrition, as well as the good lactic bacteria that help to keep pathogenic bacteria at bay and support the digestive process. Millions of people around the World drink unpasteurised milk every day and remain strong and healthy. Most indigenous groups also eat some kind of fermented food - live food, that is nourishing and full of lactic bacteria to strengthen the digestion and immune system. Things like sauerkraut (not the dead commercial stuff) and kimchi, etc. We don't eat these precious and life supporting foods.We have dismissed the ancient ways of preparing our food with impunity. Over thousands of years our ancestors - through trial and error discovered the best ways of preparing food and we have just thrown them out with the bathwater in favour of speed and high-profits.Changing my diet, and making sure that ALL the food I eat is nutritious and not, as in the case of things like sugar and processed foods, robbing my body blind of essential nutrition, has meant that my body is now healing. It is not a quick process, but even so, in just the year I have seen things heal and disappear that had been with me for years.My IBS has gone for good, my gut is healing, my digestion is gradually improving, my restless legs and burning feet are a thing of the past. I no longer am a walking fungus-factory with thrush, athlete's foot, dandruff and fungal patches in every nook and cranny. The verrucas that were on my feet for the last 20-odd years have gone. I have more energy and am sleeping better. My back pain (my liver) is much improved. The 'age spots' have gone from the backs of my hands. The awful gas and swollen stomach is receding and the feeling that my guts were trying to climb out of my throat has thankfully gone. My blood pressure is back to normal and I was able to throw the BP tablets away. My eyes are improving. My nutritional bank balance is finally starting to go into the black. I am making up lost ground.This is only the main things that have healed so far - the full list is far longer, but even though I am only a third of the way through my healing journey, my quality of life is so much improved to how it was three years ago, and even to how it was a year ago. At times I thought I was dying! I am very grateful that IBS is no longer an issue for me.We have to remember that not all food is good food. Food can harm - and it can also heal. We just have to make sure that we are giving our bodies the right tools - the right food, to heal with, and making sure that we are not consuming the stuff that is damaging us.Ali.


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## peaches41 (Nov 26, 2008)

What do you eat now? I'd like to see a list of what foods are considered safe on your diet, it sounds very interesting.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

peaches41 said:


> What do you eat now? I'd like to see a list of what foods are considered safe on your diet, it sounds very interesting.


Hi.As I have battled with Candida for many years, I am on an anti-candida diet, but the diet also has provision for those who aren't suffering with Candida.My food list is basically nothing processed and no sugar. All the food I eat is natural and unprocessed. I eat meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and non-starchy vegetables. I also eat plenty of natural fats, like butter, lard, and coconut oil and use Celtic sea salt. which is very healing. I also take a small range of basic vitamins and minerals - not too many as that could overwhelm my body and stop the healing process.Very occasionally I will have a 'cheat' - but the more 'cheats' you have the longer it delays the healing process. We have a standing joke in our house that everyone else gets a bowlful of dessert, or cake, and mother gets an egg-cupful! But that is enough for me to not feel excluded. And that is only the odd occasion when my daughter has made one of her delicious gluten-free puds.This basically is a diet for life - if I go back to eating the 'normal' Western diet, I would get sick again, because it is the diet that triggers most of our health problems.I eat at least 4 eggs a day - they are very detoxifying - little powerhouses of nutrition. I will have some kind of meat or fish for lunch, then again for dinner with some well-cooked non-starchy veg. People with poor digestions cannot always digest raw vegetables so it is wise for them to avoid them.If you would like to know more - the diet is free and available to anyone please look up 'healing naturally by Bee'. I will not put the link because people are often, quite rightly, suspicious of links, and it is better they find it for themselves. She has a Yshoo group for support as well as the very informative website.Be warned though - you may find things on there that challenge our current understanding of disease and what causes it, so you do need a very open mind and an ability to reason!If you are not sure whether Candida or yeasts are a problem for you (not everyone gets obvious symptoms), there is Dr William Crook's Candida questionnaire on her website that you can take to help you figure out is that is a problems for you. The non-Candida diet is not quite as limited. Her diet is about changing the 'environment' within the body to safely and gradually remove unwanted microbes. The stronger the body and immune system is, the more able it is to be able to dontrol and reject anything unwanted. Our bodies are amazing things - if we give them the right tools.The diet may seem somewhat spartan compared to what we eat now, but then I always think - if we lived on a desert island somewhere and our diet was limited we wouldn't miss what we had never had, and would undoubtedly be very grateful for the food we had. It is because the Western diet is so complex and 'mucked about with' that we are having so many of our problems now. Every new 'disease' is merely a title for yet another set of symptoms - which all basically come from the same source - too many bad and damaging foods, and not enough good nutrition. What kind of symptoms we get as an individual purely depends on our damage, where it is and what our individual weaknesses are.Many people now are so 'hooked' on the sugar and damaging foods that they would rather be sick than change their diet - and that is very sad. Interestingly, all who follow the diet have found that eventually the craving for the 'junk' will go away and they have been able to settle into the diet just fine. They all say too that the benefits they have got from following the diet have made them realise that they just don't want to go back to the junk at all.Ali.


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## peaches41 (Nov 26, 2008)

So basically it's a very high protein diet with no or little starch? Sounds a bit like the Hay Diet. Thanks for the info, I will look at the website.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

It's not high protein. It's high fat, medium protein and low-carb. Unlike Atkins there is a limit on the protein.Some people might be concerned about the level of fats, but fatty acids, especially the ones found in saturated fats, like butter, ghee, lard, tallow and coconut oil help the body to detoxify. They are also the fats the heart prefers. Our bodies are contain a lot of saturated fat which needs to be replaced. We also need these fats to help in the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins - A, D, E & K.Many of the fatty acids found in these fats are essential - lauric acid, caprylic acid, capric acid, butyric acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, etc., for many processes in the body. The only other source of Lauric acid, found in coconut and plam oil is human breast milk. It helps the baby to build a strong immune system. the lauric acid found in coconut oil helps to support our immune systems too.Unlike polyunsaturates, sayturated fats are very stable at high temperature, and do not go rancid easily, often having a very long shelf-life. Most polyunsaturates go rancid very quickly - sometimes even before they get to the Supermarket shelf - and in some, the rancidity is not apparent by the taste. When they are rancid they are toxic. Olive oil is a good mono-unsaturated fat - but it is not advisable to cook with it on high heat as its properties can change.Many vegetable oils when heated to high temperatures, such as used for frying, can turn into an equivalent to varnish! Boiled linseed (flax) oil was traditionally used to make varnish. ever tried to scrape the congealed 'varnish' coating off a pan that is used regularly to fry chips (fries)? Yuk. Fats like that can stiffen the cells and stop them functioning properly.We have to remember that saturated animal and dairy fats are the fats that have supported the Human Race for thousands of years - long before processed seed oils came on to the scene. If they were that evil, the Human Race surely would have died out eons ago....http://www.modern-diets-and-nutritional-diseases.com/saturated-fatty-acids.htmlIt's not the fats that have been the biggest factor in our disease - we are eating less fat now than ever yet the diseases are still increasing - but the carbs and sugars, especially the refined and processed ones. Never before in Human history have we eaten foods like these.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

You know what gets me with this is the overwhelming lack of interest!!!You'd think that people would be so intruiged to find out about a cure - a cure - not just another pill to mask the symptoms, they would be falling over themselves to find out more.There are hundreds and hundreds of pleading requests for help on this forum from very desperate people - all the time. What sort of help are they looking for?I can't believe that hardly anyone is interested.This healing diet is helping people recover from all sorts of illness and disease - not just IBS.Have we become such a dependent society that we prefer being sick to being healthy?I have found over the years that anything I was given by the Medical Profession just in the end exacerbated my problems and loaded more on top. ALL drugs are toxic. Some maybe less than others, but they are all toxic and contribute to further degeneration and toxic burdens in the body. The more toxins we ingest the more the body has to try and detox them - is it any wonder bso many people have IBS? Diarrhoea is one of the body's ways of detoxing stuff it can't cope with. We are piggies in the middle of the toxic drugs and food.I didn't want to have to take them any more. All the time I was getting sicker and sicker and my health was degenerating more and more, and I realised it was only by taking back control of and responsibility for my own health from those who purport to know better, but who were just contributing to my degeneration, that I had any possible hope of getting well.All my drugs are gone. The only thing I am left dependent on - at the moment - is insulin, and I have been able to cut that right down to a fraction of what I used to have to take. Even at the high level I was taking three years ago I couldn't get my blood sugar out of double figures. It is now within normal range pretty much all the time, and that on a fraction of the insulin. I no longer have any 'diabetic complications', nor do I suffer any more with hypos or 'dawn phenomenon'.I am recovering from years of health issues. Many others I know are recovering from their health issues. And all it takes is a change of diet.


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## AprilMelbourne (Jun 27, 2011)

It's great to hear people talking about ways to actually heal!! I am a firm believer that if you give your body the right conditions it will heal. I was told I had IBS ten years ago and that it was something I would have to manage for life and just take I.e. Peppermint oil capsules for relief. I thought that bloating, gas, abdominal pain (sometimes so bad I couldn't stand up straight) gurgling, throat groans, constipation etc.... was normal. Along with being unhealthy comes other such symptoms such as irregular periods with excruciating pain, nausea and dizziness fainting from low blood sugar and feeling very tired that I would be falling asleep in the afternoons at work.To keep this short and sweet, for the last 5 years (through a chance encounter with a naturopath that kick started my interest in health - I didn't solve things by way of a naturopath, it just opened my eyes to other healing options) I have tried many avenues and different tactics, I have found the following to work for me. First of all, I believe the human body largely functions the same from person to person I.e a kidney has the same role in each of us.....however our bodies express differently as a product of our nutrition, upbringing, stresses, environmental factors, genetics etc.... so there is not one rule fits all. I encourage you to find what works for you and my thoughts are in no way prescriptive, just what I have found to allow me to live pain free, full of energy and without sickness!!!!So, here's what works for meProbiotics, I have tried quite a few, however none came close in impact to Progurt. You can google it. It's a very strong / high bacteria content and when I took it I had been experiencing daily abdominal pain and cramping. After the first day the pain halved and by the second day it was gone. Simply amazing.Digestive enzymes. I had a good quality one and took a 3 week course. Also chew your food really well to give the enzymes in your body a chance to digest the food properly.Fish oil, again choose a really good quality oil. This is anti inflammatory and calming to digestive tract and nervous system.Food - I love my food, however the processing and treatment of our food is in my opinion harmful to our bodies. I was lucky enough to come across a wonderful nutritionist, Sherry Strong and learnt a new way of eating. I now eat as close to nature as possible I.e food in it's natural state, largely home cooked and un processed. No refined salt, sugar, oils, grains I.e. Instead choose good quality sea salt, natural sweeteners like honey, cold pressed oils (olive oil, sesame oil, coconut oil) and wholegrain flours such as wholewheat, spelt, rye etc.... I choose only organic well treated meat and organic milk. Again, choose what works for you. A largely plant based diet is best for me. And there are so many ways to make delicious healthy food when you keep it simple.Meditation / prayer, something calming as IBS has an element of stress related triggers, choose what fits in with you.Yoga / walking /cycling, again choose whatever and only exercise you LOVE!!!!!I am so happy and lucky to have found what works for me. The difference in quality of life is difficult to put into words, good luck!!! Xxx


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

I have tried different probiotics - even kefir which did help a bit, but what I am using now and which seems to be having the best result is home-made sauerkraut. It is pretty awesome stuff.it's not my favourite food, but I am persevering with it and it is paying off.The lady who runs the free diet I am following believes that getting the 'environment' right is the most important thing - and I have to agree with her. As the body gets stronger from the high nutrition, it will naturally encourage the good bacteria and microbes to grow, and the 'bad' ones will go away. They are not 'pathogenic' in their own right - merely doing a job in digesting the huge and constant influx of processed carbohydrates we keep consuming. What our bodies can't deal with the yeasts do it for us, but they emit by-products that can make us sick as a result. In nature, bacteria and other microbes are 'clean-up' merchants. They turn toxins into benign substances, and different microbes deal with different substances. We just need to know what does what and why - and that is a huge subject that man has barely touched the surface of.When microbes as found present in the body and attributed to a particular infection, are they actually the cause of the infection, or are they rather the result? Are they present because they are trying to dispose of a specific toxin that has got into the body, through something we have eaten, drunk, put on our skin, or breathed? We are constantly bombarded by, and use, chemical and toxic substances. 'Received wisdom' tells us the bacteria are to blame - but are they?In the system as it is at the moment, many people's guts get trashed by things like antibiotics, that kill not only the 'supposed' pathogens, but also the 'good guys', the gut protectors. Kill the soldiers and the city is undefended! The high-carb, high-sugar, highly-processed Western diet then encourages yeasts to take their place and people end up with raging Candida and fungal infestations throughout their bodies. Everyone knows that a course of antibiotics will inevitably end up with a yeast infestation.In truth, if people were to make sure their diet was highly nutritious and their immune system was functioning as it should, then they wouldn't be affected by any 'pathogens' at all. The body would easily deal with any unwanted microbes.We are surrounded by microbes. They are on everything. We touch stuff all the time. We put our fingers in our mouths. They are on our food and in our drinks and on our cutlery and crockery and on other people when we kiss them! If our bodies weren't able to deal with them we would be sick all the time! It is only when the immune system gets weakened through a lack of enough nutrition, bad, damaging foods and substances, and external things like stress and trauma, that the immune system might not be strong enough to deal with unwanted microbes, and we succumb to infection. But even infection is the body's way of dealing with unwanted microbes. An infection will raise the body's core temperature in order to kill pathogens, that cannot survive above a certain temperature. In our modern wisdom, we do everything we can to curb the inflammation, and that can end up driving the infection even deeper into the body. We just don't trust our bodies to be able to deal with things the right way, and neither do we give them the tools to do it with when we lack good nutrition.


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## Ploopsalot (Jun 17, 2011)

Your advice has been true for at least.It's only been 12 days but I've taking probiotics and totally cleaned up diet, eating wholefoods, no diary, refined sugars etc.I've felt better than for as long as I can rememeber and my body is healing. I used to eat alot of fast food when I was out, on top of processed foods at home, never again, IBS can be a blessing because it's a warning you can respond to rather than cancer or some other disease that these horrible foods that litter our supermarkets can apparently cause!


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

If you look at my 'signature' you will see the link to the free diet I am following. There is an awesome amount of information on her website and if you can follow the diet then you will get well.She does not actually recommend probiotics - I only used them for a couple of months just to settle my digestion down, as they generally just get digested in the stomach like everything else. What you do need is good food - and you can't go wrong by checking the diet food list - and some basic supplements to help combat the deficiencies that we are all suffering with.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

I have done an experiment this week.Hub and I are both very gluten intolerant. His reactions are more mental - depression, brain-fog, etc., whilst mine are more physical - IBS, restless legs and burning feet.I read - quite by chance - that the reason so many people have problems with bread and wheat-based products is because the grains are not prepared properly. They are not soaked - and that applies to all grains and seeds - beans, pulses, nuts, corn, too, and long soaking - long enough to trigger germination is what is needed to neutralise the phytates - the nutrient-blockers that prevent us from being able to take up the nutrition in the seeds.The other issue is that bread needs to be proved for a minimum 6 hours to allow the chemical and enzymatic interactions to take place between the flour, yeast and water so that the gluten can be fully converted into a safe substance the body can deal with. Because most modern bread is produced very rapidly, those interactions don't take place and the gluten - in its unconverted form, is toxic to the body.Because of the high-speed bread production these days - often as short as 45 minutes from start to finish, and the fact that all the wheat and other grains in food isn't soaked to remove the phytates, we are all having problems with these foods - whether we realise it or not. They are also a huge part of most people's diet - wheat is in virtually everything in some form or other.So I made some long-proved (more than 24 hours as I used a sourdough) bread on Monday. Having been contentedly munching his way through his first wheat bread in over three years my husband has displayed absolutely NO reaction to it. Normally, a random 'glutening' would turn him into Attila the Hun for the best part of a week - in pain, depressed, angry, frustrated, and with brain-fog so thick you could almost cut it with a knife!It's wonderful.I have had some, and I too haven't reacted. No IBS, no RLS and no burning feet.It made me realise that so many of our problems today are happening because we have thrown out and discarded the ancient ways of processing food. We have dismissed them as silly and puerile. And we are suffering as a result. Those ancient people handed down these wisdoms - acquired during centuries of life experience and we - in our quest for speed, high-profit and modern 'progress', have brought much of our ills upon ourselves by our arrogant assumption that our forebears were illiterate and uneducated, and 'didn't know anything'!Long before the written word, people had minds, memories and conversation - and great wisdom that was handed down from one generation to the next. They may not have known why they needed to do these almost ritualistic preparations, but they knew when they did do them, they were a darn sight healthier as a result!Our food is gradually being 'denatured'. Pasteurizing kills the nutritional, beneficial bacterial and important enzymatic elements in the milk. Microwaves also destroy the food. Grains and Seeds are not prepared properly before consumption rendering them toxic, sugar takes more away from the body than it gives - it contains NO nutrition at all and depletes what little nutrition is left in our bodies. Many nuts, herbs and spices and some fruit and vegetables are irradiated, which changes the properties and makes them toxic. Meddle, meddle, meddle, meddle.......We are LIVE beings who need LIVE food - the more dead food we consume, the more DEAD we become....Without enough good nutrition our bodies start to break down. Calories are NOT nutrition, they are merely fuel. Calories without nutrition is like fuelling your car without any oil. The gas will make it go, but if there is no lubrication to keep everything running smoothly, it will seize up and go nowhere.


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