I think you should also be ready to commit to a diet for more than 10 days to evaluate whether it works for you. You certainly wouldn't take a drug for only a week and a half to measure its effectiveness. In any case, good luck!

Two and a half weeks.

No improvement in symptoms. Back pain and neck pain similar to day one of LSD diet. I would have expected "some" improvement by now, so a bit disappointed. However , I will continue. Considering antibiotics.

You are only doing LSD? Maybe it's time to consider NSD? There is no way I could have experienced success with the diet unless I was 100% strict NSD. Give that a shot for at least a month. A month in your entire life is not that long at all!

If you're a little tech savvy, might I suggest making a private/public blog (since you can easily search for things later on)? The 1st few weeks I blogged each day & then I blog once a week based on what I've learned & the AS pain variances. If you need some help on setting up, let me know & I'll be glad to get you set up.

One thing I wished I could have done sooner is getting allergy testing. Have you considered this option?

Lastly, two things that started me to better help are the Gut Repair 1 system & Pyloricin (herbal-based antibiotics). If you want to know more on that, go to http://100percenthealth.us/day-22-to-6-months/autoimmune-disease-and-inflammation-seminars/

Have you given any thought to introducing more alkaline foods into your diet? Some of the foods you listed are very acidic, like bacon, salami, and coffee, and they are the opposite of anti-inflammatory.

Why not try to eat lots of greens sautéed with fish, lots of fresh veggies, fruit/veggie smoothies and/or juices, and just try to feed your body foods that have been known to fight inflammation, rater than cause it. I personally believe in its simplest form this disease is about beating inflammation in the body, and in my case inflammation causes my colitis to flare up and my AS to go crazy painful on me.

Anyhow, I just did the most remarkable thing I have ever done for myself in my entire life. That was to do a fruit/veggie juice fast for 14 days, and calm down my whole body. I am now reintroducing foods, and I am PAIN FREE!!!! I honestly cannot remember the last time I was completely PAIN FREE. When I got out of my car today at work I was amazed to realize I wasn’t all stiff and in horrible pain from the 45 minute drive, like I had become so used to.

I had started the starch free diet 5 months ago, and I did definitely see some progress from eating NSD, but it was not until I removed lots of acid forming foods in my diet for two weeks, gave my body a chance to calm down and do some healing, that I can really say that NSD with a heavy emphasis on alkaline plant based foods is the way for me!

A friend of mine in Australia also just completed a juice fast with her husband who has AS, and he reported his pain went down to ZERO also in only 10 days! It's too incredible not to want to scream it from the roof tops! Here is a link to their story (their fast was not as strict as mine, as I ONLY drank juices, but they still saw amazing results): http://farmerkskitchen.com/ks-reboot/

Let me tell ya though, if I went downstairs into our winery kitchen right now and made myself a NSD snack of locally cured starch-free salami, olives, spicy roasted nuts, and roasted tomatoes, I have no doubt my body would get super inflamed allover again. I am currently on the right track for healing, but it’s going to be a long time before I experiment with fringe foods, because feeling good is not worth trading in.

My current core foods include:
* Almost all fruits eaten only with other fruits, usually the first 1/2 of the day, lots of fruit smoothies - I have learned that fruits eaten with proteins or fats will cause the fruits to ferment in the belly because the fruits will get caught up in a slower digestion with the fats/proteins. For years I dealt with the feeling of fermenting foods in my belly, but eating fruit alone, and following some simple food combining guidelines is really doing the trick. (NO oranges or tomatoes as they cause horrible inflammation for me, and I also avoid bananas just to be safe)
*Lots of green juice, I like to juice spinach, wheatgrass, ginger, green apples, kale, cucumbers, celery, parsley.
*Some fish - salmon, cod
*Some raw SPROUTED nuts & seeds (almonds, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, walnuts, macadamia nuts) - soaked for 8 hours before ingesting.
*Dates make a great snack when not combined with proteins/fats.
*Roasted veggies, carrots are amazing on the BBQ, sautéed zucchini, fresh veggies, and salads.
*Coconut Water, coconut butter/cream.
*Avocado dips & veggies, like guacamole (avocado, lime, cilantro).


I spent 5 months dropping iodine on everything I ate, and it seemed well worth it at the time. But I am not afraid of raw starchy pears, avocado, or apples, as they really aren’t fazing me whatsoever, after all raw fruits & veggies saved my body and restored my health over the course of my juice fast.

Going forward I would choose a juice fast over a prescription of pain meds or bottle of NSAIDs (which up until now I heavily relied on), and I plan to “just juice” for a few days every few months.

Best of Luck & Health!
Andrea

Andrea, that is just awesome! Thankfully I have experienced wonderful pain free life going no starch alone. But it has been a work in progress...every time I've felt 100% I made excuses for myself, telling myself I was in remission. Well every one of those times I slipped up on something that was fringe or just plain "illegal", I've paid for it quite nicely with a flair to remind me that my body just can't handle it yet....and possibly never will. But that is fine by me. I'll choose what most people call a bland diet over the agony, depression, lethargic, exhausted being that I'm in when I'm flaring.

Well done Andrea! Let us continue to be crusaders for diet-inducing relief from the hell we live in. I completely understand there are people it doesn't work for, and I genuinely feel sad for them. All you can do is give it a 100% faithful fair chance.

I can't remember if you have already answered this in another post but are you testing with iodine? Never assume something is safe (esp fruit and veg) always test to be sure.

When first starting out Jon and I used the starch content guide list but found on testing alot of fruit and veg that was supposedly safe was actually starchy and when we removed those particular ones from Jon's diet he did much better.

I can tell you from experience you wont get far without testing as you will be eating more starch than you realise.

Thanks Lauren!!!!

So ture! I can totally relate to feeling better and then screwing it up all over again, over and over and over and over. And it always seems so harmless at the time, like "I'll just have the short ribs in wine sauce, hold the potatoes, and yes, please extra grilled veggies in butter, and maybe I take a tiny bite of my hubby's chocolate mousse."

And then WHAM, on the drive home my tummy bloats up, the inflammation rises, my energy takes a nose dive, and I have to ask my husband to practically wheel me into the house. Then I wake up the next day with a frozen shoulder, kinked neck, I reach for NSAIDS, drink some coffee (as my energy is so drained), later in the day my knees start hurting, and then I am par for the course once again.

I have been on this ride so many times over the years, as I was a strict SCDieter (a diet for Crohns & Colitis that is pretty similar to starch free diet) for a while a couple years back, and ever since have been virtually Gluten-Dairy-White Sugar-Grain FREE, expect for when I feel amazing and decide it's time for Pad Thai, and then I go into another vicious cycle.

This time around I am listening to my body, and will not succumb to anymore fancy restaurant meals, as those are always laden with hidden starches, msg, too much salt, dairy, etc. From here on out it's orangic fruits, veggies, greens, coconut, raw nuts, seeds & fish prepared by ME. Just being able to get up off our super low couch tonight by myself pain free was nothing short of huge progress! And my energy is incredible. I still have a slight hunch back, lovely at the age of 33, but my husband keeps telling me I look like I am standing up straighter & straighter!

I can't stress enough how much of a life changer this video on healing the body with the right diet is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KLjgBLwH3Wc - its basically the same exact diet I am now following.

-Andrea

+1 on Kiwi's sage advice.

In the early stages of the diet many years ago, I took the starch content guide as gospel, not knowing that I was actually taking in some starch. After a month or so, I referred to my food diary, and was able to see some trends.

Ultimately, I got on the iodine band wagon and tested things that my food diary suggested triggered reactions. Sure enough, for each increase in pain score, there was a precipitating starchy food that tested positive for starch with iodine.

It made me realize that the thing you can trust the most is iodine. It also made me realize that it only takes a little to trigger a reaction. That's the only reason why I'm so strict. Unfortunately, LSD isn't an option for me.

Regardless of what path you take, I hope you find some relief.

Good luck!

I really feel that the fasting is what kick started the quick management of pain for me. I also tested every thing even things that were "low/no starch on the list. I completely stayed away from spices of all kind. When I finally ate it was whole food only...nothing processed or made by others...this way I have control and know exactly what I am ingesting.