Diverticular disease/ diverticulitis - advice please!

[SassyOliveKoala]

Hi, I’ve recently been diagnosed with diverticular disease and would appreciate some advice on how to manage it and your experiences 🙏 I’ve had abdominal pain for 2 months, with diarrhoea and feeling cold all the time/ chills. Also had nausea, loss of appetite and fever in the beginning. It seems to have got worse again the last few days. I’ve got to wait until Dec for a colonoscopy for the gastroenterologist to fully investigate and see if I have inflammation/infection.
I’ve had blood tests -all normal. Stool tests - all normal except calprotectin was high. Ultrasound- didn’t show anything. Finally had a CT scan where the diverticula were identified. Could it also be diverticulitis even though my blood tests are normal? It seems weird why I have ongoing chills.
I’m 32 so was told it’s uncommon my age to have this. I generally lead a healthy lifestyle- eat well, go to the gym, not a smoker, don’t drink much alcohol etc
so far all I’ve taken to try and manage the symptoms is paracetamol and buscapan but the pain can be really bad in the night and when I wake up. Any advice on anything else that helps? I’m trying to stick to more plain food again and build back up to include more fibre.
I’ve seen conflicting things about diet post flare ups. The gastroenterologist advised to have lots of soluble fibre and cut out insoluble fibre

any info on your experiences of diagnosis and how to treat/manage symptoms would be really appreciated!

Oh, sympathy. I'm afraid, from what I know, that prevention seems very personal - keeping a food diary and working out what helps you/what causes discomfort/flare ups is important, as what helps one person may cause a flare up in someone else.

My mum had diverticulitis for years. She had to avoid spicy food and eat a good portion of cabbage every day. She used to arrive for Sunday lunch with a cabbage in her handbag, in case I'd forgotten! If she missed a day she knew that it would lead to a painful flare up.

Another friend could eat cabbage at all.

Best of luck. She did grow out of her cabbage dependence eventually and had almost no trouble in her latter years.

Family member has it. They can't eat seeded bread, nuts etc as they get 'caught' in the pockets in the bowel causing them pain. So try and avoid those. Alcohol and spicy food can be irritating as well but they manage a 'normal ' life.

@QuirkyandGreen I’m so sorry I didn’t get a notification to your reply! Thank you for messaging. The gastroenterologist did suggest to avoid nuts and seeds (even though there is mixed thoughts on this apparently). It has been quite a lot of trial and error and to figure out triggers. Alcohol and spicy food make sense as triggers. Glad they can live a pretty normal life though that’s encouraging:)

My dad has it, and has to make sure he stays 'regular' - daily prunes and fibogel keep it at bay for him

@Notquitegrownup2 I’m so sorry I hadn’t replied - my notifications must’ve been off as I didn’t see anything. Thanks so much for your reply. That’s so funny with your Mum taking a cabbage with her everywhere bless her! I seem to be able to tolerate cabbage ok so that’s good but many other fruits and veg not so much :/ I think you’re right that unfortunately it’s very much individual and a case of trial and error. I have been keeping a food diary and noticed some triggers so hopefully that’ll help to not have a massive flare up again anytime soon