Friend from high school "cured" Crohn's! Here's how:

Hey girl yes, I've got crohns. was hospitalized when i was 18, was on 8 prednisone pills a day & was advised to continue meds for rest of life. I quite the drugs about 3 months later & have been on a journey towards full health since then... 16 yrs ago - wow i'm getting old! there is SOOOO much to cover on what has helped & what wasted my time. 1st: toss out the food pyramid, even if you're all organic (which I've been for about a decade)... grains suck the health out of you, even if they're organic! Quit sugar. I don't do cow milk, but am fine with goat milk (cow protein molecule is 30x larger than human milk, so WAY harder for digestives system to cope with, but goat is same size... fermented cow milk is fine, though, since the lacto bacteria pre-digests the protein & sugars... like kefir, yogurt, etc. I also eat/drink LOTS of ferments (lemonade, kombucha, saurkraut, ketchup, ginger brew, etc) to maintain a strong colony of good bacteria (better & cheaper than buying probiotic pills... though Garden of Life's HSO Primal Defense is probably a good investment for you right now to supplement with). iherb.com has free shipping. I'm fine with coffee. Wine is good because its fermented, I'm also fine with hard liquor or hard cider, but no beer- its grain based. I eat lots of grass fed meat & try to eat liver weekly. I basically eat Primally. The Primal Blueprint is a great book for info on that & I highly recommend reading it. "Patient Heal Thyself" is a great book by Jordan Rubin about his near death experience with Crohns & how he found full health through fermented foods, etc. Also "Restoring your Digestive Health" by same author is useful. Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions" is my FAVORITE cookbook/info book & has TONS of great fermented recipes- though the whole sprouted grain thing didn't help me, I just had to cut them out entirely. I make bone stock every week & drink it like tea, rotating between chicken stock & beef stock... super good stuff & full of bone minerals. The trouble with Crohns is that our intestines are jacked & it makes it harder to absorb minerals/vitamins, so simply taking whole vitamins didn't do the trick with me... i need to get mine from bones & foods. however, I do supplement with magnesium oil from Eidon or transdermally from Ancient Minerals... poor digestion can lead to deficiency & magnesium is responsible for over 300 enzyme reactions... but skip the pills since their absorption rate is about 4%. Magnesium is the only supplement that I can literally feel a physical difference from when I take it. This style of eating can seem costly,,, BUT I haven't had to go to the docs for crohns in 16 yrs. Also, once you cut out all processed foods & snacks, you save lots of $ there. Our family eats this way & we are on 1 income. It certainly takes more time to make all your food from scratch & I don't exactly dig cooking, but I love to make ferments & stocks & so cooking a bit of meat & chopping a salad is a simple meal and all the lacto-fermented condiments & dressings make it taste super yummy also, cut out all fakes, like hydrogenated oils, preservatives, MSG, colorings, etc. "Natural flavorings", spices", basically anything vague is suspect & is probably MSG or her sister devilry- neurotoxins derived from aborted fetal tissue HEK 293 by senomyx & friends... chemicals that make influence your taste buds to think things are sweeter, sourer, saltier, etc (not to mention you're getting DNA from another human) & is found in A LOT of processed foods under "flavorings" & other labels. also, avoid carragean & guar gum- natural thickeners that act as irritants to the digestive tract & are used in ice creams, fake milks (almond, soy, hemp, etc)... we definitely don't need anything that irritates our sensitive systems. your best bet is to make everything yourself or find a few foods that have ingredients you know & trust. Eat organic if you can, genetically modified foods have been linked to all sorts of inflammatory issues, amongst other things. if $ is tight, go organic, grass-fed meat 1st, then veggies/fruits 2nd & just avoid the top pesticide foods & GM foods (corn, soy, wheat, etc). I don't touch soy, way too many probs with that legume- messes with your hormonal balance & i tend to favor natural balance. Try to get some kefir grains (not real grains, just called that) to make your own & kombucha scoby to make your own... premade stuff costs too much & store bought kefirs tend to have added sugar & carragean... no good. other ferments are made with salt &/or whey which you can get from separating curds & whey from yogurt easily... lots of instructions & recipes in Nourishing Traditions cookbook. Other things to consider: get good sleep, reduce stress, breathe deeply, think positively, pray or meditate... I know you're a physical trainer, but you might want to consider the stress that chronic cardio places on your homonal system... more depth in Primal Blueprint. when your body re-calibrates, consider seeing a rolfer to do some visceral work to make sure your intestines haven't created adhesions with anything else- mine were attached to my psoas muscle, which restricted proper intestinal movement. try to eliminate other toxins in your environment: get a water filter that removes flouride & chlorine.. I use reverse osmosis because its the only one that removes perchlorate which is a pretty nasty chemical that majorly disrupts your thyroid & other endocrine body functions. I never swim in a cholorinated pool- chlorine kills the good & bad intestinal bacterial & all that work of eating ferments gets washed away, but you've got all those beautiful rivers in Cali, so shouldn't suffere there use vinegar & tea tree & lavendar to clean your house- ditch those other nasty chemicals & it'll save lots of $ too. as things wear out, consider replacing them with healthier alternatives- wood floors instead of carpets (off-gassing), wool mattress instead of conventional (more off-gassing), etc. learn how to sew & you can make your own furniture. I've made all our furniture from wool, which is a lot cheaper than store bought synthetic/formadehyde/chemical mattresses, couches, etc.
I'm sure there's more to talk about, but my son is trying to get my attention, so I've gotta go! feel free to call & we can chat- [redacted] central time (2 hrs ahead of cali). I know this might sound exhausting, but baby steps makes it a lot easier... start with the diet & then pick something else every year to tackle. I made all these changes over the course of 16yrs, but the diet & water are probably the biggest factors, everything else is complementary... except the stress & prayer. anyways, I hope you feel better soon & know that there is life w/o meds & discomfort!

Hit your edit button, go down to her phone number and backspace on it to delet it.

That's one long post...she's done a lot of work, but she's found remission, not a cure IMO.

Interesting ideas. I have been wanting to try the Magnesium Oil from ancient sources. I need to order some and give it a try. When I was in my heavy bleeding stage, I used many of these ideas with the help of Rubin's book and it helped me considerably but it is a lot of work to make everything from scratch.

I am very glad she found remission.

Thanks for posting this!

Quackery. There's no scientific proof that Crohn's is the result of improper diet or anything else for that matter. Did it never occur to this person that they might simply have gone into an indefinite period of remission regardless of what they ate? It happens to the fortunate. False hope from snake oil like this helps nobody. Eat and live better to feel better in general not to "cure" Crohn's.

When CDers are flaring, I think there is something to eating a highly nutritional, easy-to-digest diet, that hopefully can help reduce bad bacteria too. There is a study being conducted by a US university about SCD and how it changes gut flora for CDers/UCers, but I haven't heard any updates on it.

At some point in the future, we'll likely have more scientific evidence about this matter. Until then, we can share our own personal stories. I found the Maker's Diet helpful. I couldn't do it 100% because of a stricture, so I modified it a little, like cooking veggies, limiting the suggested grains and raw veggies, no nuts, etc. I think we should have freedom to modify any diet we're on, according to what we can tolerate, because we are all different.

ConfusedByCrohns, I think you can see the word "cure" is a highly sensitive one with people who are chronically ill, and many of whom have exhausted diet and treatment options. None of us are exactly alike when it comes to diet & treatment.

Thanks for sharing food for thought!

I think it's just very rude to come on a website, and claim that people wo have been dealing with this disease for over DECADES, are doing it all wrong. I think they have a lot more knowledge on this disease than someone who has hardly had the disease for 5 years.

  It is very hard for me to follow diets because I CAN'T DIGEST ANYTHING. I've lost 90 pounds in ONE YEAR.One whole year. I could eat 3,000 calories a day and still not maintain my weight, much less follow the diet you are insisting. It just really rubs me the wrong way when I already have to live with an incurable disease, that is debilitating, and then to hear someone claim that they have all the answers & I must be stupid. That is not the case. What may work for your friend won't work for 90% of the other patients with Crohn's.

 I appreciate you sharing her success story but if your going to claim to have a cure I want evidence.

First let me apologize; it was never my intent to offend, or imply there was a cure out there.  I had simply received a message via FB from an old high school friend who shared her personal story with me, and I posted it as I was curious what others who've been living with Crohn's would think of this.  That's all.  I am very new to Crohn's and am very overwhelmed and confused by the whole thing.  Just looking for any info/advice I can get my hands on. 

Again I never implied my friend had found a cure, which was why in the subject title I wrote "cure" as opposed to cure.  I guess the implication that she "cured" crohn's was of her oppinion, not mine, was not clear.  Again, sorry to offend, was not my intent.  Just looking for help.

ConfusedbyCrohns- I am very embarrassed by how you were treated and would like to apologize for you being treated so badly by cetain members of this board. I cannot understand how people can be so downright mean to those who are simply trying to help others by sharing what has worked for them.

I really appreciated your post and would welcome you to post anytime.

/sigh sometimes i wish i could try a diet change but with little to no $ im stuck with my state insurance and the uncertainty of medications, and even the doctor seems to be losing hope in finding the right combination of meds

I follow a mantra. Eat to Live, don't live to eat

Very smart artist guy!

I used to be able to eat everything and anything I wanted and as much as I wanted and I never gained a pound when I was a teenager or even an adult...my friends hated me of course because with some people, they just look at a piece of chocolate cake and they'd gain a pound. It's just my metabolism...I walked a couple of blocks to grab the bus to go to school, I walked a lot, where most of my friends got rides everywhere. I think that metabolism plays a huge role, and the more active you are, the better your metabolism is (I can appreciate that there are illnesses and medications that can screw up a persons metabolism though).

I gained double my wieght with my first pregnancy back when I was 22 yrs old (105 lbs to 210 lbs in 9 months), it fell off quickly after I had my first baby, then when she was just over a year old I became sick with CD...I was on and off pred cuz it was the only med that helped, but it stopped working...the last time I took pred in my late 30's it caused me to gain weight (very first time ever in my life, besides being pregnant twice) it was difficult to get that weight off but I did it with exercise.

When I finally decided that I was going to alter my diet (I don't follow SCD or any of those others) I simply stopped eating all fast foods, processed junky foods, refined sugar etc....and my weight is still awesome (120 lbs, 5'5" with muscle tone from exercising regularly) and my gut generally does feel better compared to what it was like with my CD and eating poorly...I altered my diet for my overall health...I'm still flaring but my body deserves nothing but the best especially because I have a chronic illness.

I sleep excellent, I have energy and I have a better state of mind...all these things help me cope with my CD and it's probably a big factor as to why I don't have any osteo/arthritic issues considering I've been flaring with my CD for the last 21 yrs now.

So instead of people getting soooooooo offending when others suggest diet/food alterations, why not just encourage them instead? You know, it wasn't easy for me to change my diet the way I did....I used to eat a whole McCaines chocolate cake in one sitting and thought I wasn't paying any price for it cuz I still maintained a pretty darn nice figure....but you know what, it probably had some impact on me getting sick with CD...sugar is an inflammatory, some don't want to believe it because they don't want to give it up....I'm glad I'm not that person anymore.

I don't look down on others that want to eat unhealthy....I've been there and done that so I know what it's like, but I do take pride that I was able to give up that way of eating and it's disheartening when you come to a support board and can't even share your experiance or opinion about diet because it offends others and then they actually get angry with you.

LOL Roni, when I see them in the grocery store, it makes me want to puke (just think of that next time you think about one).
It had been about 5 months after I altered my diet, my son had a bag of candy (Starburst chewy candies) I thought to myself hmm, I wonder how it would taste to me now even though I wasn't craving it (used to be one of my favs) I took a piece, put it in my mouth and started chewing it....instead of the yummy candy I remembered it being, all I could taste was chemical tasting crap...I spit it out and never looked back....

It's amazing how you can train your body and mind to the point where even your tasted buds that once recognized something that used to taste sooooo good, in actuality really tasted like crap. Eat enough crap, you're gonna crave it....eat amazingly healthy, you're gonna crave it instead.

Now I'm off to eat a bowl of fresh strawberries with fresh pinapple!