Do you all know what trigers your CD flares??

Stress, including travel. And I always hurt more when it rains and when I have my period. Food makes me hurt- salads, caffeine, and alcohol. I love the first 2 and enjoy the third- no fair!

STRESS is the hugest culprit for me.  As soon as I start getting upset about something I'm in the bathroom.  Also, undercooked broccoli or eating more than a very small portion will set me off.  Steak on the grill at home/maybe about 1/2 of a steak is ok, more than that is not good.  Going to a steakhouse is BIG no no, even if I have a few bites, strange.  My hubby always tries to make me do the mental gymnastics of "okay, what did you eat/do to cause this" and I agree, it's not always something in our control unfortunately.  If I ever eat Taco Bell, I always plan on being home within the next 30 minutes or so, that's a SURE FIRE trigger!!  Probably is for healthy people too!

I agree with Nanners that day-to-day ups and downs are not flares in my definition.  Flares are extended periods of time (a month or multiple months) of feeling sick, tired, losing weight, night sweats, etc.  Like I am either headed for the hospital or should be.

For me, all my major flares have been caused by long-term major life event stress, like moving to a new city and working multiple new jobs that I HATED with long awful commutes on inefficient public transit, having a miscarriage, having my husband out of the country for a year.  A sense of everything being all wrong with my life.  That kind of stress.  No one wants to go through things like that but I think we have be extra vigilant to avoid them because it's dangerous to our health.

hard to tell as well. last one was from that really bad flu that was going around. Was getting over that and then started to flare. Went for like 9 days and then realized wasnt the flu that triggerd the flare. The time before that being on no medication at all.

Only once has food been a culprit, & that was pickled beets ( I noticed that before dx I had the Big D every time I had pickled vegetables at dinner though).
Stress is a major concern, but it has to be intense & sustained. My worst flare in years hit in 2000 caused by being between jobs & nagged by family. But in a flare, even mild stress is a KILLER. Also, the flare that brought me to HW was partly due to stress..

Matthew

stress stress stress.

and carbs, allcohol.

bump!! Up you go for Jim83.

I have bad days with crohn's where I have bad diarreah, am exhausted etc...but I think of those days as just bad crohn's days, a flare for me is far more significant. about 1 1/2 months ago I started flaring, I don't believe it was triggered by a food (and don't believe any flare I've had has been), one day I was fine, the next day I was just extremely ill, severely inflammed (my guts and joints), extremely tired, achy, sweats, tons of pain in my gut and lower back. Doc put me on prednisone which took away some of the inflammation, took some x-rays and I have an ultrasound Mon to see how "blocked" I am, I suspect I will need another resection soon (an old pro at those). Only after 1 1/2 months, prednisone and very little eating did my symptoms of my flare start to subside but are still there and even if I don't need surgery right now, I think it will be a quite a while before this flare stops completely.

for me there are only 2 food triggers green leafy and ice cream, for me it's eating when i haven't fully evacuated my bowels, my cd is like a ball and chain where i go ball and chain go I'm almost always symptomatic, I can always feel my resected area where cd is prominent, my big flares come when I have injured myself, I once broke my jaw and had to havew surgery and mouth wired shut, within 4 weeks with mouth wired I was in thros of flare and when wires came off i had resection surgery, that was 1989, 2009 I had heat stoke and then had my 2 front teeth that had to be pulled and a bridge put in, after that happened I couldn't bite my nails and i went into current flare, this flare has disabiled me. emotional for me big time, only certain stress situations cause issues. I told my gi my conclussions and he's not sure, but you know gi's they don't really care what caused flare they just want to control it.

Shortly after I was diagnosed it seems like caffeine was a big factor. Also, diary is a factor. I think stress doesn't help. Sometimes, if I am not consistent with my meds that contributes to the flare up.