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Archway Coconut Macaroons

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Posted 6/27/2010 9:24 PM (GMT 0)
I thought this sounded really silly but thought, what have I got to loose.  I had read that 2 Archway Coconut Macaroons in the morning would control diarrhea all day long.  Low and behold, it worked!  I have at them 3 days in a row and have not had one bout of diarrhea.  I tried eating just one cookie and had a couple of bouts during the day, but nothing compared to what I was doing!

 

I have been on prednisone for a year now with no success of getting under 20mg per day.  I am now at 15mg, tapering to 10mg in a couple of days.  I hope the cookies continue to work.

Posted 6/27/2010 10:52 PM (GMT 0)
I don't know about controling bouts of diarrhea, but it sounds delicious. I absolutely love coconut.

Posted 6/27/2010 11:02 PM (GMT 0)
Actually, I was at the GI unit in the hospital the other day to get my central line removed by my surgeon and the nurse told me to try macaroons! My surgeon just said "hey, it can't hurt"


Someone else recently also advised me to try coconut oil
Posted 6/28/2010 1:37 AM (GMT 0)
I wonder if it's just the coconut? I actually have heard this before and I wondered if it would really work. I might try it!
Posted 6/28/2010 1:58 AM (GMT 0)
i do believe it is the coconut
Posted 6/28/2010 2:44 AM (GMT 0)
This idea has been around for at least 15 years as an anecdotal story. Not really sure if it works or not, but I've heard it multiple times. Coconut is not something that I tolerate well so I don't think it would work for me. Again I think it is one of those things that might "work" for some but not for all.
Posted 6/28/2010 3:12 AM (GMT 0)
This is an old wives' tale that's shown up here over and over again. I tried it in 2001. It didn't work at all--and the coconut (which is fibrous enough to irritate a tender intestinal tract) helped contribute to the development of a stricture, which disappeared when I went on 6-MP and a low fiber/low residue diet.

You're right, though--they're so so so delicious!
Posted 6/28/2010 11:06 PM (GMT 0)
It does work for some people. You can make your own macaroons, it doesn't have to be a specific brand. Google it, there has been a lot of talk about macaroons in the IBD community.
Posted 6/29/2010 1:59 AM (GMT 0)
If it worked for you then great and who cares what other people say!
Posted 10/20/2015 2:45 AM (GMT 0)
I was diagnosed with Crohn's 40 years ago and had multiple bouts of remission and relapse for 20 years. A friend of mine gave me a couple packages of Archway Coconut cookies twenty years ago which I thought wass a sweet gesture. I ate those two packages of cookies and haven't had a symptom since in the last twenty years.

Go figure that one out. Do I think a couple packages of those cookies "cured" me? Of course not, but I don't have a good explanation for what did happen.
Posted 10/20/2015 2:48 AM (GMT 0)
I ate a couple packages 20 years ago and have been completely symptom free since after twenty years of utter misery and serious health issues requiring multiple surgeries.
Posted 10/21/2015 1:37 AM (GMT 0)
Over ten years ago well-meaning friend read this on the internet and advised me that my cure was only a package away. I felt really belittled that I wasn't "smart" enough to cure myself so easily. How dumb of me!

If you can eat them w/o problems, that's fine (I personally love them). If you're a patient with strictures or prone to obstructions, you may want to proceed with caution.
Posted 10/21/2015 2:06 AM (GMT 0)
I had two bowel resections and a couple of obstructions so obviously I was damaged goods. I just haven't had any inflammation since and no diarrhea since that wasn't attributable to the occasional stomach bug everyone gets No fever. No sweats. No thrush. No joint pain. The person who gave me the cookies was a very dear friend of mine and I just thanked her and ate the cookies just for the eating. I had no expectation I was never going to have another flare up. WTH, I aint looking no gift horse in the mouth.
Posted 10/21/2015 2:24 AM (GMT 0)
post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

Just because you no longer experience symptoms after eating those cookies doesn't mean those cookies are the reason you no longer experience symptoms. There could be any number of reasons that you are not aware of.
Posted 10/21/2015 2:47 AM (GMT 0)
I am a retired NASA software engineer and I am well aware that correlation does not imply causation. I clearly stated that.
I simply said that after I ate those cookies I went into a twenty year remission. Why that happened to me I have no idea. Why others would have similar experiences I have no probative evidence nor do I pretend I do. I simply stated a simple fact. I can't imagine what palliative properties could possibly exist in those cookies.
Posted 10/21/2015 3:02 AM (GMT 0)
Technically, this is not an example of 'correlation does not imply causation.' That is a different logical fallacy. :-)
Posted 10/21/2015 3:09 AM (GMT 0)
Go away
Posted 10/21/2015 10:24 PM (GMT 0)
Now I want a package of them. They're not carried by any store in my area. :-(
Posted 10/21/2015 10:47 PM (GMT 0)
darn you have a whole constellation of issues.
They're on Amazon for a nominal amount.
http://www.amazon.com/Archway-Coconut-Macaroons-10-Box/dp/B006ULABWU

I can't begin to explain why or if the cookies are responsible. All I know is that my disbelief was beyond words and there is no harm that can from them. My friend gives me a package from time to time. As I said, my career was based on logic (software engineering) and there is nothing evidently logical about this.

Good luck and best wishes.
Posted 10/22/2015 9:50 AM (GMT 0)
Wesearch60, thank you for sharing your story. The information you gave here is valuable.
Posted 10/22/2015 10:53 AM (GMT 0)

xy123 said...
Wesearch60, thank you for sharing your story. The information you gave here is valuable.

Is it? "I ate 2 packets of coconut cookies and my Crohn's went into a 20-year remission!".

Did I ever tell you about the time I ate a packet of milk chocolate hobnobs and my Crohn's went into remission for 20 years the very next day? Obviously not, I must tell the story some time.

PS: I've eaten several coconut macaroons since my diagnosis and it didn't make a difference for 2 minutes, let alone 2 decades. They weren't Archway macaroons though, that's probably why. I looked into it further, and found the list of ingredients.

Coconut, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Potato Starch, Corn Syrup, contains 2% or less of: Modified Corn Starch, Glycerin, Egg Whites, Dextrose, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Salt, Propylene Glycol, Soybean Lecithin, Wheat Starch, Whey (a Milk ingredient), Corn Starch, Sodium Metabisulfite and Potassium Sorbate as preservatives.

That explains it. I don't think my coconut macaroons had half of those ingredients. No wonder they didn't work *shakes head*

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 10/22/2015 5:11:13 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 10/22/2015 2:25 PM (GMT 0)
I never would have tried those macaroons on my own if I was in a Back To The Future type of time warp. I wouldn't have bothered buying them.

The person who bought them for me happened to be a very close friend of mine then and now and I appreciated the gift as a gesture of kindness and concern which is how I came to receive them and actually eat them.

She had gone to Russia to adopt a couple of kids and picked up some sort of bug causing her symptoms that were initially misdiagnosed as Crohns which she knew about slightly through my experience. While she was afflicted she was doing some reading trying to figure out what she might do if she was afflicted.

My gastroenterologist retired years ago and I haven't bothered or needed to get another one. She was glad that my disease had gone into remission regardless of the reasons why. Neither she nor I have any idea why my disease would disappear like an annoying in-law arrested by the cops and sent to prison. I had several BRIEF periods of remission that would last no more than a few weeks previously. I was really startled to find this forum and I decided to share my experience which apparently isn't unique. That is it pure and simple. I don't have any financial interest in the company and the only time I eat the darn things is when my friend buys them and gives them to me as a sort of inside joke.

I am not about to claim Archway macaroons cure anything, I am just relating my happy experience. I am a heterosexual male but quite honestly I would have bought a pink tutu and done a pole dance at the town square if that would have even mitigated my symptoms. :-)
Posted 10/22/2015 4:03 PM (GMT 0)
but quite honestly I would have bought a pink tutu and done a pole dance at the town square

Er, doing that wouldn't make you gay.

I'm sure you're telling the truth about your remission, but the idea it was a couple of coconut macaroons which did it is a fairly laughable one, particularly as it was a one-off (it would be akin to taking two doses of mesalamine and expecting that to last for 20 years).

Very long remissions in Crohn's aren't even that rare - there've been a few people on this board who've had remissions as long as yours. Admittedly most were surgery-induced, but the people who had them didn't do anything particularly special to maintain them afterwards. Whatever caused your prolonged remission, it probably wasn't the macaroons which did it.
Posted 10/22/2015 4:53 PM (GMT 0)
I've made that abundantly clear that I have no idea why I went into an unprecedented 20 year remission which is rare after I ate a couple of boxes of macaroons. I was startled to find this forum among dozens of other similar search results.

After ileal or ileocolonic resection there is a 20–30% symptomatic recurrence rate in the first year after surgery, with a 10% increase in each subsequent year.

Do the math. Twenty years of being symptom free and clear colonoscopies after multiple bowel resections over twenty years of mostly unrelenting misery is hardly commonplace as you would suggest.

Again I am not saying that macaroons cured anything. I am simply stating my own experience which I discovered is not uncommon apparently.
Posted 10/22/2015 5:20 PM (GMT 0)

Wesearch60 said...
Do the math. Twenty years of being symptom free and clear colonoscopies after multiple bowel resections over twenty years of mostly unrelenting misery is hardly commonplace as you would suggest.

And I'm saying that there are many people on this forum who've been in 10 or 20-year remissions. I didn't say it was super-common, but it's far from unheard of. To be honest, people with Crohn's must have fairly long remissions on average, if you think about it. If they didn't, they'd be having surgery every couple of years and ending up with short gut syndrome. That does happen to a few unfortunate souls, but not the majority.

Another thing is that Crohn's tends to be a slow-burning disease - not always, but often. Just 'cos Crohn's appears doesn't necessarily mean you start stricturing straight away. It was 9-10 years before I developed my first stricture, even though - as far as I know - I had Crohn's in the terminal ileum the entire time.

Wesearch60 said...
I am simply stating my own experience which I discovered is not uncommon apparently.

Er, it is uncommon. Only the topic creator stated that coconut macaroons worked for them, specifically, as opposed to saying that they "heard it works" from vague and unspecified sources. And the topic creator had to keep on eating the macaroons every day for the effect to continue.
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