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Diverticulitis Diet: A Solution to Dealing with this Digestive Disease

What does a diverticulitis diet consist of?

diverticulitis dietA Diverticulitis diet consists of foods with high fiber content. Diverticulitis is a common digestive disease particularly found in the large intestines. It develops from diverticulosis, which involves the formation of pouches , known as diverticula, on the outside of the colon. Diverticulitis results if one of these diverticula becomes inflamed.

Symptoms.
The most common symptom of diverticulitis is abdominal pain  and results in tenderness around the left side of the lower abdomen. If infection has sipped in, it might be follwed by nausea and vomiting; one might sometimes feel hotwith or without fever. Cramping, and constipation may occur as well. The severity of symptoms depends on the extent of the infection and complications. Diverticulitis worsens throughout the day, as it starts as small pains and slowly turns into vomiting and sharp pains. This information is based on my personal experience with the disease and not hear say.

Diverticulitis is like being involved in a violent car wreck.  Most people either have been involved in a car crash  themselves or know someone who has. And often you’ll hear the innocent driver say, “I never even saw the other car coming”, and then it suddenly happens. It’s likely they couldn’t see the other car until the speeder’s front grill smashed into their passenger door.  If he/she only had “x-ray vision” to see around the corner, then they could have avoided the crash. That’s what it feels and looks like when diverticulitis hit you.

Similar to a car accident, it hits with a “Bam!” that you don’t see it coming.  You’re hit with the worst abdominal pain you could ever imagine, along with
possibly fever, nausea, vomiting, chills and constipation.

diverticulitis diet image

After a visit to the doctor, ER or possibly a hospital stay, you are told you have this thing called diverticulitis, a name you might have never heard of until that day.  You’re given antibiotics and told to stay on a liquid diet until things “calm down.”  Then you’re given pills, told to stay away from nuts and popcorn, eat a lot of high fiber diet, and spend your days dreading the possibility of another flare- up (crash).  If the flare-ups continue and the diverticulitis gets bad enough, some of your colon (large intestine) may need to be taken out, possibly resulting in a colostomy (bag) to drain your waste. All of this out of nowhere? You are not really given a diverticulitis diet in the hospital, but you are told that you  just have to watch what you eat.

Diverticulosis, which is a precusser to diverticulitis, is sneaky like the speeding car because it usually doesn’t have any symptoms…until it hits with a bang! and turns into diverticulitis. It occurs when your colon muscles get strained from trying to move along stools that are too dry and hard.  So you end up getting bulges in your colon wall, just like potholes in a road. By far the major causes of stools that are too dry and hard are a lack of real food with nutrients and fiber, and inefficient digestion of your food.

It’s interesting to note that diverticulitis was completely unheard of until the early 1900′s.

Diverticulitis  occur when we  start  adding low-fiber,nutrition-less, chemical-rich processed foods into our diet.  Without the benefit of all the natural fiber and nutrients
from real food, people started having a rough time when nature called.  This caused strains in the colon, and eventually bulges; the resulting effect is diverticulosis. And if the cycle continues — eating processed foods and the wrong combinations of foods resulting in dry, hard stools day in and day out–eventually one or more of the diverticulosis “potholes” will get infected and inflamed and will result in diverticulitis.

Treatment and Diverticulitis diet

An initial episode of acute diverticulitis is conventionally treated with bowel rest IV fluid resuscitation, and antibiotics  while, recurring acute attacks or complications, may require surgery, either immediately or on an elective basis. It should be noted that most  cases of diverticulitis respond to conservative therapy with bowel rest and antibiotics.
A full understanding on diverticulitis diet and knowledge about the agents of food digestion  in your stomach will prevent any further bulges, inflammation or full-blown
attacks.

Can a diverticulitis diet help your situation? The answer is definitely yes because a diet for diverticulitis is the most important factor that should be considered by anyone who is suffering from any diverticular disease.

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Diverticulitis is caused by not having enough fiber in your diet. If you already have the didease, then you need to visit this blog to get some answers

Diverticulitis and stress

When it comes things that provoke diverticulitis episodes we normally think mainly of the things that we eat because diverticulitis is mainly related to our digestive system.  We hardly make a connection between diverticulitis and stress.
  I agree with the view in the article below that stress can greatly provoke our diverticulitis episodes  if not be one of the root causes of the initial  occurrence of the disease in the first place.
Sine stress plays a very important part of our health and affect the way our digestive system works, it is not difficult to believe that it can greatly affect how this dreadful disease would affect our digestive system.
diverticulitisinfo.com » Stress Management, Diet Changes Improve …www.diverticulitisinfo.comI wish to get across my gratitude for your kind-heartedness in support of people that should have guidance on that field. Your personal dedication to passing the solution all through had become wonderfully productive and has …

It was interesting when we did the survey for the End Diverticulitis Reference what our Newsletter readers had to say about stress.

It turns out that Stress was the number 1 cause for people to have a flare up, ie Diverticulosis to turn into Diverticulitis.

Stress

What happens?

Well Stress causes your body to not digest food properly. Usually when under stress blood and oxygen are not directed to the digestive system but to other areas in the body. This has a direct effect on how well the digestive system works. When the stressful situation is resolved the blood and oxygen is directed back to the digestive system. So imagine that you have the Diverticuli and you body is busy fighting an infection in them. A stressful situation comes up, blood and oxygen is taken away from where your body is fighting the infection. Guess who starts winning, yep, the infection. So you have a full blown flare up of Diverticulitis. It is important to give your digestive system the best possible chance for fighting any infections, and stress does not allow that to happen.

So what do you do?

Well avoid stress. That’s obvious isn’t it.

However while it is obvious we all live in the real world and not some utopian society.
So it will not always be possible to avoid stress. So we need to learn to manage it and control it.

There are things you should consider.

If it is your job that is causing the stress, is it continuous? Are you under constant pressure to perform and is the place you work a high stress work place?

You need to ask yourself. Do you really need it? I know some people thrive on it and love the stress and high action jobs, but if your health is failing then why risk Diverticulosis for the sake of a job. Might be time to have a look around at something else.

Is it something specific in your life, money, illness (Diverticulitis can itself cause stress, which can cause Diverticulitis, nasty circle that one). Then you need to face the problem and find a solution. Once it is brought out into the open and discussed you might find the solution is closer than you think. But keeping it inside will not help.

Some simple things you can do RIGHT NOW to help relieve stress.  Read more…

Diverticulitis and Stress | The stress no more

the-stress-no-more.blogspot.com

Diverticulitis and Stress. It was interesting when we did the survey for the End Diverticulitis Reference what our Newsletter readers had to say about stress. It turns out that Stress was the number 1 cause for people to have a flare up, …

 



Diverticulitis is caused by not having enough fiber in your diet. If you already have the didease, then you need to visit this blog to get some answers
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