finding trigger foods

[teachmemath]

Thanks for your replies.
Julie that's what I had decided I would have to do. I just wish I could prevent those nasty flares from starting.

Next time I'm going to go strict on the IC diet at the first sign of a flare and see if I can at least keep it from going on for weeks.

[Julie B]

You actually hit the nail on the head. If I am already in a flare, I need to go back to the Bladder Friendly list until everything settles down. If I am feeling good, I can eat a lot more foods. :-)

[ICNDonna]

It can take a while to identify all of our problem foods. The printed diet list is a good starting point, but most of us will have at least a few variations from the list. For example, garlic is a comfort food for most ICers, but it's a problem for me if I get more than a tiny bit.

A food diary can help.

Donna

[earthlady]

Yes I found that certain foods only bothered me when my bladder was irritated but the same foods didn't bother me when my bladder was calm. It makes it so hard to figure out the food triggers. I finally figured out that eating something questionable once was ok, but if it was on a more regular basis it wasn't. I was never one of those who had a flare within hours of eating something so I had to keep a food and drink diary for a while to see if there was a cumulative effect from consuming something on a regular basis. What a pain in the you know what- As if I didn't have enough already to keep track of ya know?!

[teachmemath]

Wow, going 2 hours without peeing sounds great....that's me on a great day.

[Braedley]

it's never easy or predictable there are foods I could tolerate before I was pregnant that I can't now after the baby..and up until recently I could eat certain foods no problem, and then overnight it seemed to change again..so it's back to super safe diet for me, I am tired of peeing every 2 hrs during the day especially..night time I can go 5-7hrs without, but flaring the last couple of days
I can also do super safe diet, stick to my meds etc and still have bad flares from hormones or stress or long car travel etc.

[teachmemath]

I'm back in a flare. Had a severe flare for several months about a year ago and finally went on a strict diet and palates exercise. My symptoms seemed to improve after a few weeks and gradually I added things back into my diet. I really had a hard time finding anything in particular that bothered me that I hadn't previously removed from my menu.(I don't drink anything but milk and water and limit tomato sauce and chocolate).
So now I'm back on a strict diet again hoping for similar results and wondering if I'll ever figure out what foods to avoid. Does anyone find that some foods only bother you if you are already having symptoms? It's so confusing.