Marcia writes:
It's often necessary in the beginning to go very easy with fibrous foods, even legal ones--cooking well and peeling and seeding ALL fruits and vegetables. I know that this is contrary to the usual advice you hear on C, but for me it made a big difference when I started avoiding onions and peppers and broccoli, and cooking , peeling, seeding all else. (I can eat a little cooked onion now with no problem, it was just for some months that I had to avoid these things totally.)

Swinging between D and C is also not uncommon for IBDers. Did you try any of the standard SCD advice for C, such as stewed prunes, or reduced down prune Juice w/legal orange juice after breakfast? Glycerin suppositories? 1 pint warm water +teaspoon salt in an enema?

People have also been recently writing in about increasing magnesium intake to help C symptoms.

I had all your symptoms except insomnia. In my experience, the low energy and exhaustion after starting the diet lasted about a month. Part of the issue, for me, was learning how to eat correctly on the SCD. Have your read the recent posts on hypoglycemia/low blood sugar? In the beginning especially, you simply cannot allow yourself to become too hungry.

If my blood sugar went too low due to too long between meals, I would indeed feel exhausted, lethargic, irritable. I thought that eating sweet stuff would help--honey sweetened things or nuts and dried fruit--but really I needed to mix that with protein and fat. Now when I start to get hungry I have some cheese, or whole milk SCD yogurt and cooked fruit compote, then prepare a full meal without too much delay. This works for me.

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