I responded to this three year old thread last year, but was unable to find the Elaine Gottschall interview that told her family's story of how the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) restored her 8 year old daughter's health after years of suffering with ulcerative colitis.
Tonight I found two articles written by Elaine in 2004 - (she passed away the following year at age 84):
ELAINE GOTTSCHALL AND THE SPECIFIC CARBOHYDRATE DIET: How It All Began by: Elaine Gottschall, Consumer Health, Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2004
http://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=20060228173516
THE GUT/BRAIN/FOOD CONNECTION: THE SPECIFIC CARBOHYDRATE DIET (SCD) by: Elaine Gottschall, MSc, Consumer Health, Volume 27, Issue 9, September 2004
http://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=20060301174333
As I posted earlier, the diet is explained in her book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, also on her on her website,
http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/
The best three videos I've found with Elaine Gottschall are located on her website here...
http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/video/listing/ (Still looking for the longer interviews with Elaine that I watched in 2015. Will keep looking.)
In the first video, Elaine is being interviewed by Wilma Phend, who celebrated her health store's 35th year of operation a little more than a week ago in Churubusco, Indiana...
http://busconews.com/local-health-shop-celebrates-35-years-in-business/ The second and third videos include a picture of Elaine's two adult daughters. Her daughter Judy narrates and shares what it was like for her as a young child during her illness.
Since Elaine's passing, others have carried on her work:
Pam Ferro, R.N., who you may have listened to in the above posted videos, teaches the SCD and authored a book with Raman Prasad on the diet, The SCD for Autism and ADHD: A Reference and Dairy-Free Cookbook for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (2015). Her co-author, Raman Prasad maintains a website here...
http://www.scdrecipe.com/ and a blog here...
http://blog.scdrecipe.com/ He received his B.S. from Cornell University in 1994, and M.Sc. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1999.
Here is his story from Raman's book Colitis & Me: A Story of Recovery (2003)...
Fourteen years ago, at age 17, a gastroenterologist diagnosed me with ulcerative colitis. Over seven years my health steadily deteriorated resulting in hospital stays, a bloodied intestine, heavy steroids, poor spirits, and probable surgery. Fortunately, I came across Elaine Gottschall's book Breaking the Vicious Cycle which painstakingly describes a Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), and the science behind it, for putting inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), celiac disease, and diverticulitis in remission.
After a year of following the diet described in the book I was able to taper off of medications and found my strength returning. The SCD became habit and, although I still subscribed to an e-mail list for others using the diet, ulcerative colitis steadily fell from the forefront of my life. In the second year on the diet I went back to school at night, finished a graduate degree, and plunged forward. and didn't look back. Similar to many people who joined the e-mail list, my initial period of excitement, marked by e-mailing many questions and telling my doctor about the diet, was followed by simply living my life and occasionally reading the e-mail to answer questions asked by others. I wanted to forget most of my experiences during ages 17 through 24.
Today, facing the options of forgetting or doing something positive, I started writing a two page narrative of my experience with ulcerative colitis. Those two pages turned into this book. Luckily, my recovery is not unique, it has been experienced by hundreds of others, of all ages and stages of IBD. However, the recovery should be shared with the hundreds of thousands whose lives continue to revolve around their personal struggles with IBD.
I put my story forward as a small step in assistance of others.
Natasha Campbell-McBride, author of Gut and Psychology Syndrome has a website here...
http://www.doctor-natasha.com/index.php and a blog here...
http://www.doctor-natasha.com/blog.php Her diet, referred to as the GAPS diet, is similar to SCD but adds bone broth and fermented vegetables.
I spent a lot of time on these two websites in 2015...
http://www.ihaveuc.com/
http://scdlifestyle.com/about-the-scd-diet/
I have had two significant IBD flares, one in 1999, the other in 2015.
After looking at the SCD legal and illegal food lists again today, I believe the first flare was caused by eating fish, oysters, and fries - (all cooked in a deep fryer) - five days a week. After I began having symptoms, I switched to eating grilled hamburger or chicken and a potato with butter. At the time I didn't know that the potato was an illegal food because I didn't know about the SCD yet. After my colonoscopy, which confirmed that I was in the early stages of developing inflammatory bowel disease (IBS), my gastroenterologist encouraged me to read Elaine Gottschall's book and to give the diet a try. He said most patients weren't interested in trying it or they become frustrated learning how to do it and give up, but two did and got good results. In the months that followed, I ate a lot of vegetable soup made from scratch. I considered it my healing food, and my symptoms began to remit.
Two or three years after that, I had a second colonoscopy and other than finding a polyp, my colon was healthy.
In 2015, my type 2 diabetes got significantly worse and I learned about and started the low carbohydrate ketogenic diet. I missed eating bread so learned how to make flaxseed buns. Within three weeks I experienced my second flare which lasted 9 months. When I reviewed the SCD, I discovered that flaxseed is an illegal food, and I'd been eating two tablespoons of ground flax a day for the entire three weeks.
I went back on the SCD, but looking back, I don't think I was completely following it. After nine months I began to worry that I had colon cancer so scheduled an emergency colonoscopy. No cancer, thankfully, but my gastroenterologist informed me that my colon was very red and inflamed. By that time, I was following the SCD more carefully. Within a week of the colonoscopy, I was back in remission. I'm going to speculate that the colonoscopy prep purged the bacterial/yeast overgrowth. Next time I'll fast for a few days instead and see if that works. I'm still paying off the bill for that colonoscopy.
Last week, I began having symptoms that suggested I might be developing another flare. Looking back, I think it may have been caused by eating sweet potato fries at a restaurant - (a rare treat; I thoroughly enjoyed them) - and two chocolates, also a forbidden food for me. The symptoms continued for a few more days, so I started being very careful about what I was eating. After a week of that, my symptoms completely remitted. SCD works well for me.
It really helps that I don't eat gluten, grains, or soy anymore, though I still eat hard cheeses. I have a friend who's struggling with IBD right now. I ordered Pamela Ferro's and Raman Prasad's most recent book, also Prasad's earlier book, Colitis & Me. Both have excellent Amazon reviews. Perhaps they'll be helpful for my friend. Looking forward to surveying the first book and reading the latter book.
To anyone reading this, the SCD is worth trying. Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis are incredibly difficult conditions to manage because while the medications manage the symptoms, they don't treat the root cause, the diet. Don't misunderstand, this condition is genetic as evidenced by my family.
When I first learned how to do the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and didn't do it correctly, I was able to achieve remission, likely because the disease hadn't progressed far into my colon.
I believe it's never too late to heal the colon. Elaine's daughter Judy, after using the SCD diet for 7 years, was able to return to eating all foods except rice. Now in her 60's, she continues to enjoy good health. If anyone has questions or needs encouragement, please contact me.
