question about nutrition

Hi guys! I would appreciate any input on this subject. How are people managing to balance good nutrition with issues of Crohns? I know many of the healthy foods tend to react badly with us. I am trying to figure out any foods that maybe people have tried and had success with. I know every case is different but would love some ideas. I have been on entocort for over 2 months and started my taper on Sunday. Already I feel symptoms creeping back in with my stomach being inflammed. I was up night after last with major cramping for an hour. I am just baffled why I am not able to bounce back from this flare without having to stay on a full dose of a steroid when I am being told my case is mild? And if I am being honest some of the minor symptoms creeped in even while I was on a full dose of entocort. My thought is that maybe my diet needs to change. Once I felt better I ate most things with little to no side effects so I must admit I ate more junk food than I should have. But I am so afraid to try healthy stuff for fear of blockage or even just pain. My Dr did not tell me any food was off limits but I have read horror stiores about fruit and veggies. I have a call into the PA at the office and should hear from them later today but any ideas you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated. I am getting a little frustrated. I was feeling so great, going to the gym for the first time in months and now I can feel the inflammation coming back. I am still relatively ok and am still getting out and about but I know if I leave it, it will get worse. Thanks everyone for reading.

I seem to be one of the rare ones who can eat anything I like without it affecting me worse than anything else, so it isn't an issue with me. A little like Former58D I try to eat good quality protein such as lean meat, chicken, fish and eggs, along with some veggies, but then I probably throw the baby out with the bathwater by consuming a slice of cake, chocolate bar, or whatever - just cannot forsee ever being capable of giving up sugar. Or dairy.

By the way, for whatever it's worth, one thing which definitely does affect me is eating too much junk food. A single item won't do much, but if I eat too much over the course of a day or two, I will feel like utter $*** for hours and hours afterwards. Listless, no energy, bloated, and just generally ill-feeling, along with possible pain and gas. I might feel like that anyway, but it's definitely much worse upon eating too much rubbish.

I'm slightly hesitant to give food advice that I don't follow myself, but suggestions I've seen many on here give regarding fruit and veg include juicing, peeling skins, cooking veg until they're very soft and mushy, and eating soup - in those broken-down, mushy, peelless/seedless forms, you should find fruit and veg a lot easier to digest.

For carbohydrates, you don't have to go wholemeal to go healthy. Just try to cook them as healthily as you can; keep butter/cream to a minimum and use healthy fats for cooking where possible eg olive oil. If you can get King Edwards, bake them in their jackets and scoop out the flesh - had one tonight and it was beautiful. Or boil up new potatoes then add them to a stew or casserole - a stew is probably quite good for a Crohnie because everything is cooked for long enough to be soft and mushy.

I'm sure others will be along with better suggestions... ¬_¬

By the way, don't worry too much about the Entocort. Steroids don't work the same for everybody and the severity or amount of disease doesn't seem to change that. I've been on 3 courses of prednisone in the past, and each time it only worked at the highest dose before the symptoms started coming back. I'm currently on Entocort and the same thing seems to be happening, except that I don't think 9mg Entocort was as effective as 40mg Prednisone, even though they're meant to be equivalent doses. Just remember that even in the best-case scenarios steroids were never designed to knock you into remission and keep you there; they were only ever meant as a stop-gap to allow other medications time to start to work. If you're suffering symptoms while tapering that's a sign that your non-steroid medication isn't working as well as it should - or, perhaps, hasn't had enough time to start working properly yet. Something you need to discuss with your doc.

Thank you everyone for these ideas!!! I love lean meat and do eat sirloin steak to help get iron into me. I typically half the serving right now so it doesn't bother me. Thank you for the reassurance on the medication. My thought was maybe the lailda was not doing its job. I have been on it for 3 months now so I am not sure how long before they consider it not to be working. That will be a good question for the PA when she calls me back. I did buy a juicer and am experimenting with different recipes to try to get nutrients. I was able to drink OJ for the first time in a long while!! I have overdone it on the junk food because for a few weeks i felt SOOO good that I could not resist. But, now I know better.

after i was diagnosed, fruits and vegetables very quickly became intolerable for me. over a decade later of barely eating them, i tried the makers diet, which actually has you eating a lot of them. it was intimidating cos now my diet changed to foods that i know i cannot tolerate. i gave it a try anyway and i was amazed that i could tolerate them! i eat them all the time now, with no ill effect or stomach ache, but i will admit that i do get gassy from the veggies (i cannot find anything to solve that problem). but then the trade off was a colectomy so i'll take gas any time.


spookyhurst - honey is only junk food if you have like more than 3 tablespoons per day and eat a ton of fruit and processed foods. only then does it become junk food cos you are getting too much sugar and fructose in your daily diet. for you, it sounds like it should not be a concern.

tewcute - ditch the ferrous sulfate. it irritates the stomach and causes constipation. talk to some one at a health food store about a better brand and type of iron. animal based forms of iron are the best.

former58D - the makers diet is a form of paleodiet and has done me well, so kudos to you for finding help from diet. i'll do legumes once in a blue moon in small amounts and i eat dairy sparingly, generally in raw forms and from goat and sheep as cheese, yogurt, and kefir. i dont drink milk and i'll make my own yogurt on occasion.

nicecupoftea - i'd argue with you about keeping butter and cream (ie saturated fat) to a minimum. saturated fat is good for you and you need it in your diet. the research shows that heart disease increased as society ate less saturated fat and more mono and poly unsaturated fats (ie vegetable oil). eliminate trans fat completely and be very wary of high omega 6 / highly processed commercial vegetable oils, which is what most people use (ie canola oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, corn oil) as these are found in all processed foods. olive oil should be used as a condiment. maybe i just have good genes, but i dont touch the processed stuff and sugar at all, i eat a ton of eggs and coconut oil and butter, i go out of my way to eat saturated fat and eschew vegetable oils and my cholesterol levels are very enviable. but like i said, perhaps i have good genes...

I personally follow a low residue diet all the time. When flaring I follow it strictly. Like now, when I am in remission, I do modify it some. I eat alot of chicken, fish, and turkey. Personally I avoid all redmeat as it is even hard for the healthy digestive tract to digest. It just kept causing me obstructive episodes, so I avoid it now. They have even found that its best to limit it in your diet. If you are going to eat red meat it should be VERY lean and only 1-2 times a week. I eat alot of fruits now, but avoids the peels, as well as avoid nuts and seeds. This diet is working well for "me". Good luck!

Food tolerances are clearly variable amongst individuals, but there seems to be some common ground.

There was a study done by Virginia Alan Jones about exclusion diets in Crohn's disease

Dig Dis Sci. 1987 Dec;32(12 Suppl):100S-107S.
Comparison of total parenteral nutrition and elemental diet in induction of remission of Crohn's disease. Long-term maintenance of remission by personalized food exclusion diets.
Department of Community Medicine, East Anglian Regional Health Authority, Cambridge U.K.

The most common food intolerances in the patient population using exclusion diets alone for maintenance were as follows in order of most common to least. The number in parentheses are the number of patients with that intolerance in the study.

Wheat(28), dairy products(24), brassicas(16), maize(12), yeast(11), tomatoes(11), citrus fruit(10), eggs(10), tap water(8), coffee(8), banana(8), potatoes(7), lamb(7), pork(7), beef(5), rice(5), tea(4), fish(3), onions(2), chicken(1), barley(1), rye(1), turkey(1), additives(1), alcohol(1), chocolate(1), shellfish(1), swede (rutabaga) (1)

crohnskitten, you'll have to try SCD pizza sometime. I'm hooked! I make a thin crust from almond flour, tomato sauce, and use provolone/parmesan cheese. You can also make SCD crepes for sandwich roll ups.