I have had a busy start to Spring. Work got busy with added responsibilities and running has intensified with a race on the horizon. My sleep quantity is down and my stress level is up making a ulcerative colitis (UC) flare more likely.

Luckily I have not noticed the onset of a flare. As you may know, I keep a detailed record of my bowel movements (BMs) which makes it significantly easier to quantify how I feel and explain my symptoms to doctors. I decided to run the BM numbers to make sure there are no signs of a flare.

First let's look at how many daily BMs I am having. The figure below shows that before starting the SCD diet on December 1st I had more than three BMs per day. After starting the diet I have been consistently in the two to three BMs per day. Also this shows no strong signals of an uptick in BMs that I would expect to see with a flare.

Next let's look at average BM density per day. While the density (consistency) of my BMs has been flat for the last month, there has been a drop since the beginning of the diet. Values of five and six are what I consider normal. That is based on pre-UC memories of normal BMs. My current average of 4.5 is not far below that normal range so I am not concerned with this figure.

Urgency is a major concern for me. I don't mind going multiple times a day but going urgently is the worst. A bathroom is not always easy to find. Here I am showing the urgency for the most urgent BM of the day. I show the maximum here because the most urgent BM often defines how bad my UC is making me feel. This figure is very encouraging. BM maximum urgency dropped at the start of the SCD diet and it has stayed at a value just below six. This also shows that the number of high points (8, 9 or 10) have went down. In this figure a value of five or six is normal while a nine or ten could indicate the need for a new pair of shorts.

Finally let's look at total blood in stool. Blood is the best indicator of a flare. This figure is simple, no blood to report.

Overall these figure tell me that I am relatively healthy, but that I have room to get even better. Recently I have pushed the boundaries of the SCD diet by trying higher difficulty foods and that has likely caused the drop in my stool density. I am still trying to find the best way to balance the diet with life. So far I am very happy with the improvements I have made in my health and am finding the SCD diet easier to incorporate in a normal life.