A good friend of mine wants to try my diet....which is mostly paleo and quite low carb....she sees my success and admits she needs help.

Problem is....she tried it for about two weeks...and had such stomach pains..horrible attacks that she had to see her MD. Come to find out...her last colonoscopy showed that she has diverticulosis...and wasn't told about it. Something about all the raw foods awakened this and caused a major irritation leading to bacterial infection. Now she's on antibiotics, and doesn't think she can eat this way any more.

My question is...is there a way for someone with active diverticulosis (or diverticulitis) to eat in a paleolithic manner? I think there's a special diet for people who have this condition...which might make it impossible to eat this way.

Any Ideas?????

Are you under the misapprehension that paleo equates to raw food? It doesn't. She can stick to cooked food and still be perfectly paleo.

I'm not an expert on her IBD but I think sometimes it is high fiber and things like seeds and nuts that can cause issues. She might find that eating a paleo diet, but avoiding triggering foods, she can heal her IBD enough that she can expand her diet.

I'm somewhat convinced that IBD's are often caused by things like gluten intolerances but they show up in the lower intestines rather than like celiac disease in the upper GI.

being a mostly protein eater since the age of 18....
this past summer, i tried to lower my food bill by buying more vegetables and eating more salads...
unfortunately, i got a diverticulitis attack.
the doc told me i should stick with what works and forget about veggies.....
i'm back to my mostly protein WOL and i've not had any more problems...
and being a mostly protein eater... i NEVER have constipation problems.


i learned my lesson.

I've seen people eat, who have diverticulitis and if they can eat all the junk I've seen them eat, I'm sure they could adapt to any other diet............

The funny part to me is, people choose to go to a Doctor, get on meds, so they can go on eating in the same way that created their problems in the first place... Having a fear of eating in a healthier way because there is a belief it would create bad health due to one's unique circumstance does not sound logical to me, but perhaps I'm wrong about all that.....

I eat what I consider to be mostly Paleo and I don't feel like I need to eat foods that irritate. She can just go to a more Atkins-style Paleo, minus nuts and fruits and dairy.

Janine

Thank you all for your input on this....my friend has decided to continue trying to make this work, and I hope she can find a balance...she's on an antibiotic at this time.

Incidentally, my low carb lifestyle has been self-designed...something that works for me...and I only discovered in the last few months that about 75-80% of how I'm eating is paleolithic...and my ND wanted me to see it, so made the book "The Paleo Diet" prescription reading.... My friend had been seeing my own success (weight loss of 103 lb as I write this) and, needing to find something that could work for her, insisted that she was going to try MY diet. MY version of this diet is mostly raw foods...lots of salad....but I do have cooked veggies as well...and I can see now that maybe she could adjust what I do by eating stews and cooked veggies, watching fruit and dairy more carefully.

The SCD diet works really well for many people with IBD, in fact that's the audience it is geared towards. It is VERY similar to the paleo diet but concentrates on easy to digest foods. It also has you making just about everything from scratch and peeling and cooking all veggies and fruits, at least at first. It is very fussy and time consuming. But if one is really suffering from IBD it might be worthwhile.

The way I got started out on Paleo was by doing SCD. I couldn't stand all the fussiness though so I went Paleo instead.