Diet

Has anyone achieved remission just on diet? After failing meds?

hi ivywood,
what diet are you following, i am very interested in doing the diet thing but i have only been diagnosed since july and i am finding that my head is reeling with all the different diets that people are using. should i eat wheat etc?. despite my meds preds and pentasa i am am still running to the toilet a lot with lots of abdominal pain. have had the dreaded mouth ulcers. i can't seem to pinpoint any one food that sets me off it seems at the moment whatever i eat i am running to the loo.
thank you
sue

Ending a flare and maintaining remission are very different. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Diet did not jump-start my remission, antibiotics (Flagyl) did that for me. Since I am allergic to the safer 5-ASAs I feel I can maintain remission with diet and supplements. Probiotics seem to be the most effective supplement.

I have nipped several flares in the bud over the past year with psyllium seed and VSL#3DS, but I don't know if they could snuff out a full-blown flare. If you are going to start dieting then I would experiment to see if you are sensitive to gluten, since that is very common and causes serious gastro distress.

i have been thinking trying the low residue diet but i will Not stop taking my meds. As i am newly diagnosed i can remember how ill i was before i started on my meds and i DO NOT want to go back to that time ( i thought i was dying i was so ill ) Its just with diet i don't know what to eat or what to cut out as everything seems to affect me at the moment. i have cut out all junk and fried foods, gone onto white bread instead of wholemeal eat very little dairy but have plenty of fruit and veg. salad is out as it really gives me stomach pains so i guess that's one thing i know i cant eat lol. I to have been reading up about different diets but i agree they all seem to have conflicting ideas and I'm confused enough already. I will try to experiment with the gluten first and see how i go with that.
thanks
sue

I wish there was an easy answer about diet and Crohn's. So many ppl swear by their diets—except all the diets have aspects that contradict each other.

Try one at a time and when you find one that works, stick to it until it doesn't work anymore.
Gluten free is a good one to try first.

While you are flaring almost any food is going to cause pain.  If you'd like to give your bowels a true rest, go on a completely liquid diet for a few days.  You may be hungry but you will feel better.  Some health care programs recommend this as an alternative to steroids to induce remission.  I'm not sure how long it might take to achieve a remission with a liquid diet, but certainly a few days is not going to hurt you and will undoubtedly give you some relief.  Think broth, non-acidic juices, meal-replacement drinks.

Raw vegetables, raw fruit and fiber are problems for Crohn's patients because of inflammation in the small bowel, where digestion really takes place.  If you can eat cooked fruits and vegetables that is a good place to start; lactose-free milk or non-dairy milks might be good too once you are past the crisis point.  Yogurt is a good, lactose-free source of healthy probiotics, calcium and protein - you might need to avoid the really sweet brands, though.  White potatoes and white rice should work alright also, and low-fat animal proteins (chicken, turkey, some fish).

As you continue to improve you will figure out what foods you can add back in.

Lactose and gluten are common culprits in digestive problems.  Lactose is easy to deal with, either by avoiding dairy products like milk and soft cheese, or by taking lactase tablets with a meal.  Gluten is more complicated, but I've been able to be gluten-free for the last 2.5 months and have been very pleased with the result.  When you're in the middle of a flare, though, everything is very complicated and it might be hard to figure out what dietary changes are working or not.

I have a pretty strict diet. 5 years ago I ate whatever I wanted, fast food, typical grocery store garbage and lots of soda. I drank soda like it was water everyday.

Then about 3 years ago I started to eat more natural foods. I admit that at first I was skeptical because I thought the same thing most others do about eating organic, that its like eating cardboard. But that was only because I was as ignorant as most are today. But after realizing truly what organic food was, I was successfully able to convert to an all natural diet. I am very specific to what I eat. I only eat food from Whole Foods, Trader Joes and local organic farmers markets. But even then, you still have to look at the ingredients and see what you are eating. So literally everything I pickup, I read the ingredients and make sure there isn't anything I can't pronounce.

I only drink water. Nothing else but water. I used to drink water and orange/apple juice but found out later that juice isn't that great for you. So now I only drink double filtered water. Filtered because I found out about all the chemicals and garbage that exists in our water supply.

And last, I completely cut sugar out. I only eat naturally sweetened foods from fruit or honey. I've done a lot of research the last couple of years and, depending on who you read, found that sugar is not good for you at all. Unfortunately refined sugars are in about everything you see in most grocery stores. The first week of cutting out sugar was tough because your body goes through withdrawal, but after that, it's a piece of cake, pun intended. ;)

And without sugar, I feel a lot less lethargic and tired all the time. My goal is to see if cutting sugar out will help deal with crohn's. (Fingers are crossed)

Ha ha, my girlfriend is actually trying to push me to the "Breaking the vicious cycle" way of eating. She is reading the book. I'm not opposed to it but I think it won't allow potatoes and starches in general. That would be tough to give up because I love 'em. :)

I mean gosh, my diet is so restricted now that if you take away my starches, I'm not left with much. :(

Torrance

Again I 100% respect that you are using diet to beat back this DD. I only mentioned SCD because I understood that you are still not in remmission yet even though you have made so many changes. If your current diet is working I would not change. However, if it is not working, then a couple of small changes might really help. Either way I hope you heal quickly.

I can tell you that at first the bacteria that you are starving by not eating the starches and other stuff will get mad at you. They will make it tough, but know that this happens to everyone. However, once you starve the bad bugs out and you are reset, then most find it not to be a big deal. I bet you found something similar when you cut out suger. The body consumes suger and those starches in a very similar way.

In fact, I was looking at my plate which had some great tasting veg and some BBQ chiken and I was looking at my wife's plate which had 25% of the plate covered with potatoes and I thought, I really would rather eat highly healthy food than a "filler".

BTW, I had chocolate chip cookies and chocolate almond cups last weekend, and they were fantastic. Once you are healed there is tons of stuff, both super healthy and not so much on SCD.

Dave

lol you are a good man. I could not do it cause my wife told me to do it even if I knew she was right. As I say you are a good man.

One thing to note. The book is very clear, if you are not going to be fanatically compliant, then do not start. I was not fanatically compliant for the first 6 months and saw little or no results. It was only after I really really looked at every little thing I put in my pie hole and made sure 100% that they were SCD legal that I got results. 2 examples for me, melatonin and organic dreid cranberries. Have to be legal, right? Wrong! Vitamens, almost all on the market are not SCD legal. Organic canned tomatoe paste, nope... You get the picture.

So do not go through the hassel unless you are 100% bought in and will be fanatiacally complient.

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BabeintheWoods

Sorry for confusion. I am and will be 100% compliant with SCD for the foreseeable future. Like Gail always telling folks to keep on even maintence meds, I hear of too many folks who were in remission on SCD and then they stop, and then they go back to SCD and it takes a very long time to work. I intend to stay on maintence meds and 100% on SCD.

The reference to chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cups was meant to point out that once you are in remission, then more and more SCD legal foods can be eaten without any issues. The chocolate chip cookies I made were made of almond flour, cocoa butter, vanilla and honey. These are all legal but not for folks who are not in remmission. Although these are 100% SCD legal I would still not call them super healthy. They are sweet treats, but they are SCD legal

Hope this clarifies

Dave