The conditions of IBS and IBD, while only differentiated by a single letter, are two very different creatures, even when the existence of shared symptoms is taken into consideration. As it’s April, which is IBS Awareness Month, it feels like a good time to look at how these two gut conditions are similar, and the significant ways they are different. In spite of their shared symptoms, they are very different conditions with distinct and separate causes, diagnostic methods and criteria, prognoses and treatment/management options. In spite of their shared symptoms, they are very different condit ..read more

LONG POST ALERT! This has been a difficult post to write. It wasn’t easy to go back and remember everything that happened and how it happened. I wanted this to be a positive and encouraging post for anyone who may be considering or due to have proctocolectomy surgery - but it just couldn’t be that without being something more challenging first. I debated just writing a kind of factual timeline, accurate but emotionless. But I couldn’t do that. As it turns out, I discovered the need to “give up the ghost” of everything that transpired, so I could finally land firmly on the other side, where th ..read more

We’ve all seen the meme: “The human body is 90% water so we’re basically just cucumbers with anxiety”. Well, we’re actually more like 60% water but yes, we’re more water than anything else! Water plays many crucially important roles in the body, including the regulation of body temperature, lubrication of the joints, removal of waste, as well as aiding the circulation of the blood and the transportation of nutrients throughout the body. Indeed, every organ, tissue and cell requires water in order to function. Without water, the body begins to shut down, and negative changes can be felt with a ..read more

The short answer? There isn’t one! This is such an incredibly individual matter, that there are essentially as many ‘right’ diets as there are humans on the planet. We each have our own unique version of ‘ideal’, and it can be a challenge to find, but it’s the ultimate commitment to your health and to feeling as good as you can. There are as many ‘right’ diets as there are humans on the planet. There is so much information out there, and so much of it is conflicting, it’s no wonder so many of us become befuddled and freeze at the thought of what to prepare for our next meal. This is a very re ..read more

Getting ‘scoped’! The gut, fascinating and complex as it is, is a part of the body that is more ‘camera shy’ than others. By which I mean, it does not show up clearly in tests such as x-rays, for instance, and for other imaging, like CT scans and MRIs, it requires that you swallow unpleasant contrasts to make it temporarily more visible, so that an image may be captured. As a result, the gold standard when it comes to examining the various parts of our elaborate digestive tract, are the so-called scopes: gastrosocopy, ileoscopy, sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy. To brazenly misquote Jane Austen ..read more

The last few months have seen something of a blog hiatus, largely as a result of feeling disappointingly sub-par health wise. Ups and downs are a given when you suffer with IBD, but I haven't had such an extended and hard-to-shake 'down' phase for quite some time. My usual coping strategies weren't working, and an overdue food intolerance test revealed at least part of the reason why: leaky gut is back with a vengeance! So I am working on first tackling that, before daring to expect any other sort of improvement.  As a result of this development, my previous fun food and cooking experime ..read more

While there is no doubt of the importance of food and diet when it comes to gut health, it can sometimes ‘steal the spotlight’ entirely, meaning that other important factors get overlooked. It’s these other factors that we will look at here, and how you can take small and easy action steps to support your gut, either before you move on to considering the dietary element, or (ideally) to try alongside your dietary efforts. It’s amazing how many things can influence the health of our gut and its microbiome, and to what extent they can do so. It’s amazing how many things can influence the health ..read more

What is a food diary? A food diary (or food journal) is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s a simple, yet potentially very effective, tool that is used to keep track of what we’re eating and how it affects us. You may think of this as a superfluous exercise – after all, you already know what you eat! But so much that surrounds our eating choices and habits is done automatically, unthinkingly, quickly and even reactively, that it is all too easy to lose track, or just simply forget the details of what you have eaten in a given day. A food diary is extremely helpful for stripping every ..read more

Meditation is so helpful when it comes to dealing with stress and anxiety, and even more so when you are coping with the daily struggle of a chronic illness. It's like giving yourself a time-out to rest and recharge your batteries. During meditation, your parasympathetic nervous system is activated - this is the body's state of rest, relaxation and repair, in contrast to the active fight-or-flight state, which is governed by the sympathetic nervous system. In today's world, most of us exist in a sympathetic nervous state far more than our bodies were ever designed for, so it is very important ..read more

It’s a well-known fact that fruits and vegetables are a key part of any healthy diet. However, the use of potentially harmful pesticides is also well-known, as is the fact that many crops still contain these pesticides, even after they have been washed, peeled and/or scrubbed. As the degree of pesticide contamination is different depending on the fruit or vegetable in question, it’s helpful to know which are the most and least contaminated, so that we are able to make better and more informed choices about what we eat. When you are trying to "eat for health" and avoid unnecessary toxins and o ..read more