I roll my eyes at the medical advice posted above in saying it is out of the loop to put patients on non seed diets when they have "pockets". Unless you have gone through the dizziness and soreness for days associated with diverticulitis until seeds or nuts are passed it would be good for some people to stay in the field they have degrees in. Your physician is quite sound in his protocol. To answer the question Peters Seeds does have seedless tomatoes in Oregon Spring. They are very nice and helpful people. For a variety of flavor, I personally use some seeded tomatoes and take the seeds out. Azoykcha is a fine yellow that seeds in pockets. Rose (Amish) is very meaty like German Johnson but has seeds in cells and Red Pear tomatoe I use a grapefruit spoon to remove them after slicing. There are diets which help diverticulitis in healing. I would recommend www.earthclinic.com and looking there for home remedies as many are good and work. Pockets are not fun for those who have had them develop and small seeds do cause discomfort as they seem to fester inside as low fiber diets lodge hard particle like even nuts inside them. God bless you and I hope that it all works out for your family:) Here is a link that might be useful: Seedless Tomatoes

Hi, hope you feel better now. I am not sure if I have diverticulitis. A month ago I had some raw garlic and for a week felt awful in my stomach. I then took some medication I have taken many times over the years and again it seemed to hurt my stomach a lot despite never having hurt it before. My stomach is in constant agony. Like a severel period pain that never lessens or goes. Same whether I eat or drink lay down stand up or sit. I sit and cry. I am at my wit's end with it. Cannot work or go out or anything. I saw three doctors - uk - first one said ulcer and gave me the usual for that - for a few days it helped but then was far worse and had to stop taking them. Second doctor said it was a urine infection - which seemed to ignore that I had no other symptoms at all (?) and said to take antibacterial tablets,. Third one said it is gerd and very minor (!).. He said to take the tablets for ulcers that make me feel worse. I have insisted on a urine, stool and blood test which will all take about three weeks. I am petrified of what this is and coping in meantime. Painkillers make no difference. I have read that with some people who have diverticular flaxseed oil can help, as can fish oil and fibre. But this is just from looking through google past few days in an effort to get to grips with things. Would be good to hear from others with similar thoughts and experiences.

http://www.gastro.org/guidelines/acute-diverticulitis Question 5. Should Consumption of Nuts and Popcorn Be Avoided in Patients With a History of Acute Diverticulitis? The AGA suggests against routinely advising patients with a history of acute diverticulitis to avoid consumption of nuts and popcorn. (Conditional recommendation, very-low quality of evidence). The relevant data on the consumption of nuts and popcorn and subsequent diverticulitis outcomes are derived from observational studies of incident episodes of diverticulitis. There are few data on consumption of these products and subsequent recurrence of diverticular disease. The key study reported modest estimates of relative risks (range, 0.55–1.13) and has a high degree of statistical uncertainty (95% confidence intervals that surround 1.0). In the absence of more compelling evidence, it seems that advising patients to avoid these items is not useful.

Neither a nurse practitioner nor a physician's assistant is a substitute for a physician. And a crappy physician can sometimes be a poor substitute for a good one. I'll see a nurse practitioner or physician's assistant when I have something seasonal and obvious (sore throat, possible flu, cold) when a real doc isn't available. But not otherwise. Never. joann, don't you have access to better medical resources? You need something more thoughtful and intelligent than "take these pills and call again if the problem continues".