Hello, Brian.

Welcome! Some baked goods are made with Stevia, a sugar derived from a plant. Whole Foods, or a health food store, or maybe Costco may have baked goods using stevia? I don't know if stevia will be better or worse than refined white sugar for a j pouch but you could try a baked product and see. It will say on the package that it's made with stevia. Something else to try are enzymes in pill form that might help with the gas and bloating and undigested carbs. I tried one called Super Enzymes recommended by a member here. It was easy to take immediately before a meal. I kept the bottle on the table. It seemed to help me digest. I didn't need it after my pouch settled down and matured around the one year mark. Still I cannot eat spicy or acidic foods (burn on the way out), and some members take daily doses of Metamucil and can eat anything, lucky. Can you manage fresh fruit in your diet? I manage an orange a day, without burning, and I'm happy to have those nutrients. You can do a search on this site to see what conversations have been regarding enzymes.

The foods that you are able to eat sound great. 

Hi, Winterberry, thanks for your reply. I don't think actual sugar (sucrose) really bothers my pouch. I think it's starches and complex carbohydrates that do. It seems that bacteria eat the starches and break them down in the small intestine and cause really bad bloating and gas. So eating cake/breads etc are difficult because of starches. I've tried different fruit, and the fructose has always bothered me, even when I had UC. It's been interesting because foods marked as safe on the FODMAP diet have really caused an overgrowth. I used to take the enzymes and totally forgot about them. I will try them again with the carbs I currently eat and see if they help. The butt burn was really bad when I first started to acclimate to the J-pouch but really improved when I stopped eating cheese and anything derived from dairy. I know lactic acid burns for sure, because that's what gives cheddar it's orange coloring and it was particularly noticeable when i ate cheddar. I'm not quite sure how to feel about where I am right now. I am just happy that I've healed quite nicely.

Hello, Brian.

Can you eat cheese made from soy? I love cheese. The world is better with melted cheese on top.

For butt burn, I use plain Zincofax, the brand made for babies' diaper rash bums. That's basically what j pouchers have. I used Calmoseptine in the beginning and it helped cool the area. Now I only need Zincofax. I hope you find a good super enzyme and it helps with eating baked goods again. I eat one fresh orange a day and I noticed everything is orange coloured!

I haven't tried cheese made from soy yet. I used to eat the lactose free Borden's cheese but it doesn't work well with the j-pouch. I have had to pretty much eliminate it from my diet. I was going through Calmoseptine really fast when I first got the J-pouch but cutting out cheese quickly stopped that.

The bloating and gas I would get was pretty severe. My pants wouldn't fit and I would get this pain on my left side and it would travel up to my shoulder. Once I passed that gas I felt better.

My doctor is convinced that I must repopulate the bacterial flora and that a bacterial overgrowth problem is quite common with people with a J-pouch. I do remember one of the doctors after the surgery telling me that some people are stuck with taking antibiotics for the rest of their lives. The surgeon told me that it takes about a year for the j-pouch to stretch out and settle down. I guess I will see what happens in a few months.