Specific Carbohydrate Diet

[utdan]

I just picked up a copy of "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" at the specific carbohydrate diet seems like it's worth a try. Has anybody tried it or heard anything about it helping?

[eKatherine]

It's an extreme diet for people with severe food-related health problems. Often someone will stay on the diet until their health starts to improve, upon which time they are able to begin adding back food that they can now tolerate.

[utdan]

It's an extreme diet for people with severe food-related health problems. Often someone will stay on the diet until their health starts to improve, upon which time they are able to begin adding back food that they can now tolerate.

is celiac disease a severe food-related health problem? The claim in the book is that 'many celiac symptoms would relapse on a supposed gluten-free diet no matter how strict one ate gluten-free. But the specific carbohydrate diet, followed for a certain length of time, had supposedly eliminated many people's gluten intolerances permanently.' I would think someone would have tested this claim.

[corinne]

I've been on the specific carbohydrate diet for 6 months now. I have collagenous colitis not celiac disease. My mom is celiac and many people with collagenous colitis have a first degree relative with celiac and improve on the gluten free diet.

Initially, I was on medication, but that didn't work any more and the next step was to try steroids. I did not want to go that route so I decided to try gluten free. I got much sicker the more rice and corn I ate. So I decided to give the SCD a try. Symptoms (diarrhea, vomiting, cramps etc) started improving within 2 weeks and now I'm off all medication and have no symptoms at all. I eat more restricted than in the book; I can't tolerate dairy, cruciferous veggies, any beans or uncooked fruit + veggies.

It is a very restrictive diet, but a number of us who do not improve on a gluten free diet are helped by the SCD. I would recommend first going gluten free for several months and see if there is any improvement. If that doesn't work, try eliminating other common problems such as dairy, soy or corn.

The SCD is more of a last resort if nothing else works.

[Matilda]

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[utdan]

Hi Matilda, thank you for the reply. Sorry to hear about the problems you gained while on the diet. Hopefully it will work out better next time you give it a try! I also feel better after consuming a hefty dose of good bacteria, maybe because of an overgrowth of bad bacteria? I understand stress kills good bacteria, and I certainly have an overdose of that. I've only been on the diet two days and I already feel somewhat better, although eating more veggies and staying away from the gluten-free junkfood probably has something to do with that.

Corrine, that's interesting I never heard of collagenous colitis before. But I'm glad to hear that the scd diet helps you and that you found something that works. I hope I can do the same. I've been gluten-free on and off for two years now, sometimes going 3 or 4 months at a time...but then again I probably missed a lot of stuff because of not knowing about modified food starch and some other stuff. My symptoms have not gotten a lot better and so last week I cut out all dairy and soy and that made a big difference, but there's still an unnacceptable amount of symptoms going on. Maybe i just need to wait longer? However it works out, I don't see myself not eating gluten-free anymore, but I might just do the scd trial diet for 2-4 weeks just to see if noticeable improvements come.