What sets me off

[neue01]

So I thought I'd try and get a consensus going with some of us here as to what foods set each of us off. It might be nice to see if we are reacting to similar foods. my list of forbidden foods are largely what follows. It seems I can have very small amounts of most of them but anything more then that aggravates my system. It also seems that the form of aggravation I get from food is a slightly different variation then what I get from an all out muscle flare. Food based flares will usually subside with in a few hours and do not require as much to undue vs a mechanical muscle tension flare.

trigger foods:
fruit juice, soft drinks, coffee, sometimes wine, bread, pasta, pastry, cookies, anything containing large amounts of sugar.

acceptable foods:
I am essentially limited to meat, nuts, beans, fish, vegetables, potatoes, some fruits, rice, corn, water, sparkling water, deli meat, cured meat, tea, sometimes oats.

After eating certain things I seem to also sometimes get fatigued for about a half hour and get subtle annoying twitching in other muscles like my legs and arms. Does anybody else get these reactions associated with food related flares? Does this ever get better? Will we ever be able to eat normally again? How does this develop in relation to CPPS?

[webslave]

After eating certain things I seem to also sometimes get fatigued for about a half hour and get subtle annoying twitching in other muscles like my legs and arms.

Fatigue or sleepiness after eating a food can be a sign of food intolerance. Avoid that food for a few months, then eat it in large quantities for a day or two. If you are intolerant, you'll have a distinct reaction that will leave you in no doubt.

[neue01]

Yeah, I have done this and it is absolutely the case. What about the muscle twitching in the extremities? Is this also associated with food intolerance? Also, do you have any insight into why these reactions to food are almost immediate and last a few hours instead of the full time that the food is in the digestive tract?

[webslave]

The twitching is also a symptom. For instance, I get hiccups after certain foods to which I am intolerant, and some drugs give me restless leg syndrome (viz diphenhydramine aka Benadryl or Dimedrol). The range of symptoms caused by food intolerance is very wide and sometimes bizarre.

The symptoms are often not long lived because the body processes or "disarms" the offending chemical after a few hours.

[strobers]

Neue01, I had a regular allergy test and another one, whose name escapes me at the moment. I was found to be allergic to Navy Beans, but I don't eat them. There was nothing else of consequence.

I've never gotten any of the symptoms you described. Regarding food, it's extremely important to maintain not only a healthy diet, but a diet that does not contain trigger foods. You can get the list off of the IC website. Most people agree that IC/CPPS is a multi-organ disease with a lot of cross-talk between the nerves. That's why when people have bowel movements, for many of them defecating makes their issues worse or better. This is something I experience all the time. Everything is inner-connected.

I was in a two month remission last year and I ate anything I wanted from November 4, to around January 4th and then suddenly after I ate some chilli, I went into a flare that I've had pretty much non-stop since then. IC/CPPS is like a wild animal. It's very unpredictable and you never quite know how it's going to attack you next.