Help & advice for spastic colon from raw

[Sharon in Colorado]

I met a great new girl who was very raw interested. We did meet through this board and have become very good friends, so she may be reading this. I know she wouldn't mind me posting this, because I'd like to see if there's help for her and I'm concerned about the subject anyhow.

The story is, that she's been on and off raw for several months, 5-10 days at a time, then goes back to her usual animal based cooked diet for some time. At first she was determined to go all raw for a whole year. A few weeks later she said that she didn't want to continue because it was causing her to have uncontollable bowel problems, and because of her work, it made things very difficult. She also read about a nutritionist who said she tried raw but had the same thing happen to her so she stopped. She has become quite frustrated with not only that, but feeling like she's burdened with eating raw and restricted because she does cook for her hubby.

Anyway my friend said that now that she's been on and off raw, even though she's not all raw anymore the bowel problems are still happening. Even though I believe it to be some kind of detox or cleansing, she seems to have become frustrated with the raw food diet mainly because of this. I can certainly understand where she is coming from because I tend to have these problems myself, however I've had them way before I got into raw food.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced problems like this (sudden uncontrollable urges to move bowels, diarrhea, etc.) when they first started on raw, and if so, did it clear up after a while?

I hope that if my friend is reading this that I relayed the information correctly.

Any help is very much appreciated.

[sport]

I know that the fruit fans here will not like this but both my husband and I have found that reducing fruit and increasing veg has helped a lot. I had a carrot and cucumber smoothie this morning.

[Arky]

Some things which have caused excessively loose bowel problems with me, in the past, include:


1) Consumption of multi-vitamin tablets (possibly mostly due to the high vitamin C content, since this is a known side-effect of excess vitamin C consumption, but since multi-vit tablets are synthetic and thus foreign to the body, other ingredients may also have contributed to the problem). Also, note that excessive fruit (fructose) consumption can lead to leaching of minerals from the body.

2) Excessive consumption of nuts (especially brazil nuts).

3) Excessive consumption of fruits (much though I enjoy eating them). It just so happens (and note that I read this after my personal experience) that long-term fruitarians often suffer digestive problems when they attempt to alter their diet to reduce fruit intake and to include other foods. Caloric concerns aside, I therefore very much concur with Sport's advice to limit fruit intake.

To get her GastroIntestinal tract into good order, she might consider spinach juice (or smoothies). Spinach does contain high levels of oxalic acid (which inhibits calcium absorption), so should not be overconsumed. However, according to Dr. Norman Walker, it is excellent for soothing the smooth muscle in the G.I. tract. I am happy to report that my own experiences do not appear to disagree with this one iota.

She could also look into consuming kefir or kombucha (I feel like I've been recommending this a lot, lately, but there you have it! ;)), since this will support correct, healthy, digestive function.


J.

[Mystical]

I've had problems with raw too, and did a few things after going on and off. One, I did a 30-day cleanse (Dr. Schulze's products). That helped tremendously. From there, I went raw (and the cleanse was raw too), and whenever my bowel would cramp, and usually it would just get worse, not better, I would make Dr. Schulze's recipe for rice congee. It is basically a rice soup made with rice vegie stock. It is cooked, but would settle me right down. If I needed to, I would eat a bowl a day until I felt fine. Then proceed on raw. Then I read Jinjee & Storm's e-books (thegardendiet.com), and they recommend going on raw slowly, the opposite of Alissa's experience. So, I figure, I'll just go at my body's pace. I don't have any cravings for cooked food (just hasn't come up), so that makes it easier. I will always choose raw over cooked because it's more delicious. Overall, my diet has been high raw, and I eliminated the pain by using rice congee.

[rawpriestess]

I know several raw foodists, who have cured major digestive challenges with a 100% raw diet, Paul Nissan, Chef Sprout, and others, have cured Crohns disease and IBS, with the raw food diet.

It is a process. I often tell people, "it has taken your entire life to get where you are now, how long do you think it will take to heal yourself? give it the time it needs."

If you had cancer, instead of diarrhea, how long would you attempt to cure it, and how much effort would you put into it? days, weeks? years? Well, the answer is "as long as it takes"

Eating cooked food does NOT cure digestive challenges, it mearly slows down the detox process.

We all have numerous reasons that we would like to stay off of the raw food lifestyle, but none of them hold water, they are all just reasons that we want to detox slower. It can be very severe, it can be painful, it can be embarassing, we may have to take time off of work, we may have to call in sick, we may have to change our jobs, but if you are truly committed to improving your health, you will do whatever it takes.

I am so sorry that you friend is going through this, but like Victoria Boutenko says, "Get Excited about this detox, you are healing your body" What more could you ask? HEALING is what it's all aobut.

And yes, it can be difficult, but think of how long you've been sick to begin with?

[Sharon in Colorado]

Thanks for all your helpful suggestions everyone. I think I'll forward the link to her. I've done Dr. Schulze cleanses - they are great - I did the instestinal program about 3 times. That bulking powder may be the very thing that will help.

RP you are so right. You know when I'm feeling horrible during detox I tell myself the same thing, that it's all part of the process, and then if I eat something not raw and feel the effects I know I'm going in the right direction when I'm raw.

I can see how it can be very scary having a sudden urge out of nowhere to need to use the bathroom, and being in the middle of something away from my comfort zone, like sitting in the middle of church, or on a long drive where I'm not the driver, or at someone else's house :eek: - I've been through that!

So I can totally understand why this would be something that would scare her away from it. I've suggested going into it more slowly instead of a cold carrot (cold turkey) kind of thing - like replacing one meal at a time, or even going vegetarian beforehand. I went vegetarian before I started raw and I think it may have been easier on my sensitive system.

[Mystical]

Sharon - Please PM me if you want more info about healing digestion. I spent about 2 years going on and off raw food until I found a way for my digestion to work. I'm excited now because I can see myself staying on raw food long-term, and just benefitting more - I feel healthier all the time.

[NRG]

I am just starting a partially raw diet (about 70-80% raw to cooked)
I am trying to stay as far away from animal foods as possible and don't really
want them anymore. But, I still have gas after 3 weeks and some diahrrea
(which scares me because of incontinence problems I have battled with the
last 4 years.) So what process did you go through to finally get it to work
for you? Did you go little by little into raw or avoid some foods altogether.
Also, and this is for anyone who wants to answer: did you have problems
with foods like avocados and nuts? I need the fat because I am quite under-
weight but I'm not digesting them very well, even when nuts are soaked. Any
secret to combining them I haven't been able to find in my books?
Thanks ! - NRG

[Mystical]

This is how I am doing it (since I consider myself to still be in the process of healing my digestion).
1. I decided to heal my digestion completely by January 2006, whatever it took.
2. After being on raw foods (for the 3rd time) for 4 months, and my digestion getting worse and worse during that time, so that at the end I couldn't even eat a banana without a giant stomach ache. So, I just ate rice congee for a few days till I felt fine. Then I re-evaluated. I had always had sensitive digestion, and felt intuitively that raw food was good for me, but not if I couldn't digest it.
3. I had done the Dr. Schulze cleanses before, but never for a whole 30 days. This summer he advertised a 30-day detox, and the testimonials were that people were reaching a new level of health from the body detoxing for that long. I decided to do it, and my husband joined me for support. The program has a bowel cleanse, liver cleanse, kidney cleanse, then bowel cleanse (a week of each). We also did skin brushing and hot/cold showers twice a day, and exercise. At the end of it, I felt like a new person!
4. I continued on raw foods after the cleanse, careful to note what digested and what didn't. I have green smoothies twice a day (that's actually a lot of food) - and they always digest well for me. I add apple cider vinegar to them, and hot pepper and ginger - that helps my digestion. I stayed away from salads, except for marinated vegies which I did fine with. I generally don't do well with avocados, so I ate them a little, and watched my response - I found I do better - I can eat a half of one just fine.
5. Since this time on raw foods, I got into a bad digestion cycle a few times - for me when it gets bad, it often just gets worse. Then I make rice congee again (a cooked food) and use it medicinally. It always works for me. I'd love to find a raw equivalent... That's the only cooked food I eat, and it doesn't start cooked food cravings for me at all, so I just figure that's my process to going raw!
6. I plan to do the same 30 day detox again next year during July-August when it's really hot outside. Once a year for a while feels good to me.

In summary, cleaning out my bowel, kidney, and especially the liver was essential to healing my digestion. I never had any success with digesting raw food without that step. The 30-day cleanse really was a quantum leap from the week-long cleanses that I had done in the past. I also think that I am experiencing less detox symptoms on raw food since cleaning out my system like that. It also made me want to clean out more, since it was so significant. I don't consider my poor digestion to be part of the raw food detox experience.

Re: nuts & avocados, nuts digest better when they are soaked. You can soak almonds overnight. Then you can make a nutmilk out of them (or any nut or seed) with water - blend well, then strain. The milk will have the nutrition and fat in it, and it's easy to digest. In general, blended foods digest better (they are broken down for you) so I am eating smoothies & raw soups for most of my vegie intake.
Happy digestion!

[Sharon in Colorado]

Thanks Mystical,

Since this is a raw board, perhaps you can send me the recipe to the rice congee and I can pass it along to my friend. Is it just the cooking water?

I've been tempted to do Dr. Shulze's incurables program (well, he used to call it that although he may have changed the name now)...I've done the liver cleanse and that wasn't fun at all, I don't know how you got through it! I think he might go a little overboard with the cayenne, but I also think that sometimes when your health is really bad, you need some kind of herbs to irritate things into a cleanse.

Once I did the intestinal cleanse during a fast and that was a HUGE mistake. Never take those intestinal capsules on an empty stomach. I got sick and ran a fever for about 10 minutes, lying on the bed holding my stomach in pain - he uses really powerful herbs and they should not be taken lightly!

[WinterSun]

Mystical, I'd like to know about the rice congee recipie also. I sometimes get very bad spasms, hadn't had one for 7 months, then this week I had spasms bad, I have anti-spasmatics to take (but don't want to) . Anyway, I made some rice and the pain went away, I'd be interested to see how to make the rice better.

[rawwannabe]

Dr Schultze rocks! My husband and son were ill last week; when I began feeling aches and pains I did two days of Echinacea+ as well as Super Tonic...all symptoms gone.

Do any of you use his Super Food? I was using it for quite sometime (it's raw) but occasionally had severe "flushing" (blood vessel dilation) immediately after consuming it. I assumed it was the niacin. His rep told me that does occasionally happen.

[Mystical]

I'll post his recipe & info in private messages.

If anyone else is interested in his protocols, there is a good discussion group at www.curezone.com. People talk about healing all kinds of things.

[Mystical]

Sharon - I tried to send you a private message, but your box is full

[Sharon in Colorado]

Thank you Mystical for sending the message. I just got a note that my e-mail box is full and that your message didn't come through. I just emptied out my mail box.

Can you re-send?

Thanks again!

[Suzie]

I have been raw for quite some time now and have studied and followed proper food combing to combat digestive problems with constipation/diahrea. This is going pretty well but I can't seem to get past excessive gas and bloating. I initially attributed it to an increase in fiber but I can't seem to get past it no matter what I eat. Any suggestions?