Chillipeppers & auto-immunity?

[Wegetarian]

I usually choose to have spicy food whenever I can, and have some chillies growing in my yard in the summer. Since I was told to eat stomach protetction drugs with the pred I was a bit worried about my stomach.

Do you guys have any info on spicy foods and particularly strong chillies and how they affect us? My assumption was that it would be bad for the stomach, but upon googling it looked like chillies don't cause ulcers and on the contrary could alleviate the symptoms.

I guess I'm worried that if chillies do cause burning in the stomach and it would usually heal very quickly but with our auto-immunity not working too well I'd rather not do anything nasty to my stomach.

Here in this short video they even said it might help to eat some chillies if you eat painkillers:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/are-chili-peppers-good-for-you/

This page again lists chillies in the don't eat section:
» Spices on the Autoimmune Protocol (http://www.thepaleomom.com/2012/07/spices-on-autoimmune-protocol.html)

I usually added some chillies to my food at home and didn't really notice anything different from usual. A few weeks ago though I got this burger at a restaurant where you got this T-shirt if you could eat the entire thing... It was quite spicy :w00t: After eating it I felt some stomach burn or similar sensation for the first time in years. My son wanted one of those shirts too, so I had one of those burgers today aswell (but this time I took off some of the really hot sauce before eating it) and again I think it did upset my stomach a bit.. Curious if any of you had any more info on the subject. I guess for now I'll stop adding chillies in my food at home and just take some in restaurants until I know more. I really don't want to destroy my stomach or anything, but I do love spicy food.

[Dirty Don]

I, too, WAS a spicy food eater...loved my chiles! Anyway, can't seem to do that anymore without some upset/nauseous reaction in my stomach...so, as the golfer's wife said to him after a bad day of terrible swings: "Don't do that!" Sheesh...

[Wegetarian]

Hmmm, well I've only noticed something from the really hot food. Like usually I order this Jolokia sauce at the restaurant. According to a chilli book I have its not fit for human consumption, but instead used for bear repellant.. Seemed a bit weird to read in a chilli book though, as its not even one of the worlds strongest chillies (although it was the record holder at one time). Anyway, I usually put just a little bit of the sauce in my burger but the ones you got the T-shirt for used a milder sauce I suppose but they put a lot of it in the burger. (I did pussy out and scrape a lot of the sauce of, since my eyes and nose felt like waterfalls the first time I ate one). This time it was pretty OK, still really strong and while eating it I did hope my daughter and spouse won't ask me to bring those T-shirts for them.

My son really liked the shirt and thanked me for eating the burger :D

Well I guess I'll try not to eat any too spicy food at home then, at least until I talked to some dietary experts about it... No way will I stop eating chillies when out. Although I might avoid the extreme stuff, its not really that much fun when everything only tastes like pain anyway.

[Wegetarian]

Hey, I found a nice guide on Nutrition and Vasculitis through another community. It looked very interesting - and made me so hungry... but I already ate all the good ice cream, and a pineapple...

http://ncvasculitissupportgroup.memberlodge.org/resources/Documents/Nutritionslideswebsite.pdf

So according to that guide nuts and chillies would be OK. It also mentioned that spices such as chillies had anti-inflammatory properties which I think some other guides mentioned.

Anyway, a very interesting guide. I'll be sure to check out the references they mentioned and I think I'll start buying only whole-wheat pasta now... Even managed to resist the temptation to boil myself a big bowl of pasta for a night snack and instead heated up some frozen organic vegetables and added some tahini... Damn you apetite! Never been such a night eater before.