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Article by Rick
Note: There is a free downloadable diet sheet for diverticulitis sufferers at the bottom of this article.
During a Diverticulitis flare-up, eating the correct foods will bring great pain relief and healing. By following a diet sheet you will be able to stay on the right track and keep the flare-ups to a minimum.A diet sheet for diverticulitis usually comes in the form of a personalized summary of what you can and can't eat as a sufferer of the condition.
Although there are a number of known foods that sufferers of diverticulitis should generally avoid, just like IBS there is also a great deal of variation depending on the individual.
The simple fact is that everyone will be different, and results will be different. What some people with Diverticulitis can eat without any problems, others can not without suffering a flare-up, and vice versa.
For Diverticulitis, it is important to establish early on, what foods cause you to suffer flair ups. This will in-turn help you to create an accurate and personalised diet sheet for diverticulitis.
Start taking notes
The first thing you need to do is to start making a daily food journal, for at least a couple of weeks, preferably longer.
Using a small notepad and pen that is discrete enough to carry around with you throughout the day is the simplest and most effective way of doing this. If your journal is large or "desktop based", you are less likely to keep it with you at all times, and more likely to miss out adding entries.In your journal, you need to write down everything you eat and drink, and also leave space for how you feel afterwards.
Now, this is the important bit. Unlike an IBS journal, where the results / reactions will usually show up within a few minutes to a few hours, keeping a Diverticulitis journal can be a little more tricky.
The most common occurrence of diverticulum is located at the colon (mainly the area of the colon on the left side known as the sigmoid colon). This is completely at the other end of the digestive tract, and so there can be much wider time-factors involved between ingestion and potential reaction.
This is why it is important to maintain a food journal for quite a long time, to allow more definite patterns to show up. Something you eat today, may not necessarily have any effect on you for up to 24 hours, or even up to 72 hours in some people, all depending on the individual rate of digestion. So you may need to become a bit of a detective in order to figure out patterns and make connections between what you are eating and what may be causing flair-ups.
Your Personalised diet sheet for Diverticulitis
Once you have established which foods you need to avoid, then it's time to create your personalised diet sheet for diverticulitis.
We have included a simple printable A4 sheet (.doc format) below, which also lists some of the more commonly known triggers of Diverticulitis. Simply print out the sheet, and add in your own foods.
Stress and Diverticulitis
It should be stressed that diet is not the only contributor to a Diverticulitis flare-up, and higher stress levels are well known to increase the discomfort and symptoms.
An EXTREMELY effective way to help with stress and to relax, is through short but regular meditation sessions, as the IBS-Life.com team have recently been discovering.
Enjoy!
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