Maker's Diet with lactose intolerance

Hi all- I'm new to this board- very excited I found so much info and would like to ask a Q. Hopefully I'm not already repeating someone (forgive me if I am), but I have Crohn's- was dx'd 2003 with 3 bowel perforations- very long story, mostly being misdiagnosed by countless specialists, one of which put me on prednisone which I believe pushed me over the edge- Had to have emergency surgery, they removed about 4 ft of Ileum, my cecum and ~6" of Ascending Colon. I have been generally well since then, a flare up here and there- nothing ever too extreme. I found that eating mushrooms was like putting poison in body, as I would immediately flare up and it could last a few days. Also, I also discovered that I was very much lactose intolerant. After my sx, they we finally agreed that sulfasalazine was working best to maintain me and keep the arthritis that I had as a manifestation of crohn's suppressed. I then started to eat a vegetarian diet at the advice of a nutritionist/friend, and was able to go off of sulfasalazine and was drug free- however, I was studying to get into a physician assistant program (very stressful) as well a working full time, and the stresses (i believe) caused me to flare up again, this time with peri-rectal issues. This time, my GI put me on entecort 9mg and cipro. Again, I followed the regimen, incorporated some fish into my diet every now and then, and went back into remission. Brought back down to only 3mg of entecort for maintenance, which lasted up until the this past fall. I got married this summer which was amazing, but also very stressful due to the fact that we put it on our selves, and I started the physician assistant program (I am now finishing my first semester- again, very stressful!)- just went to see my GI a few weeks ago, because I was kidding myself that I could just "get better". I lost about 6lbs and I was having cramps and basically eating only rice products. My GI put me on 9mg of entocort and also put me on Cipro. All of this background story to tell you...
...I feel a bit better since, but I want to do something that lasts, and I would love to get off of the meds. I've tried variations of vegetarianism and veganism, and I cannot seem to stay in remission and thrive. After I spoke with my pharmacology professor about different herbal remedies for inflammation, she gave me a book which she considered "too radical", but thought I might be interested- The Maker's Diet. This was yesterday- I'm about a third of the way through it, and I'm very intrigued... I've read a lot of the posts here on this board about people's experiences with the diet and many compelling stories abound! Even on other sites and Amazon reviews of the book, people seem to have a lot of life altering circumstances. From my limited knowledge of the book/diet thus far, I've realized that I eat very similarly (all organic) but I don't eat meat and I eat some processed organic cookies and refined sugar. I fell like I'm ready to give meat a try if this diet really has changed people's lives the way it seems to have- I guess I need to read the book in its entirety before I make that leap, but I had some Q's. I have some pretty harsh dairy issues currently- even yogurt seems to give me gas/cramps/D. Also, it seems that raw veges/fruits/nuts are heavily incorporated into this diet- I know I need to read the entire book to fully understand, but I just can't help myself- I want to know if this diet is possible with these issues, and if these issues were corrected because of this diet in some of you. Sorry about the long windedness, but I just wanted to give some back ground. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

If you're going to read Maker's Diet, then I suggest "Breaking the Vicious Cycle." Rubin was strongly advised by the author (Elaine Gottschall), and I suspect Rubin got better because of BTVC, not eating "essential soil organisms."

Another option is "Life Without Bread," and if you're not much into eating meat- tough luck. More precisely, good luck in getting the carbs out without eating meat. I can save you the cover charge and say: reduce your total dietary carbs to 72 grams/day and no more. It takes a while, but it works 85% of the time according to the author.

I'm on something somewhere between LWB and BTVC, off all my meds and doing great- but there's LOTS of chicken for lunch and dinner.

just wanted to say thanks so much for all of your helpful replies. i will definitely look into the SCD- Breaking the Viscious Cycle and LWB. I will also finish the MD and report my findings. Thanks again!

Hey Osprey...I took a quick peek at the SCD site to see what they say about yogurt and lactose. Elaine put it this way: "As the yogurt bacterial culture breaks down the lactose into simpler forms, we will absorb the simpler carbohydrate molecules instead of their feeding overgrowth of bacteria in the lower intestine."

http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/beginners_guide/yoghurt/yog_importance.htm

Also, here's an explanation of why store-bought yogurt is much higher in lactose--actually higher than milk! Did I read that correctly? Who knew?

http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/knowledge_base/kb/yoghurt_commercially_produced.htm

This might be interesting, too, since you mentioned Lactaid:

http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/knowledge_base/kb/lactose_hydrolized_milk.htm

Lastly, this website actually mentions Klebsiella pneumoniae and how FOS/Inulin are thought to feed it and possibly yeast, as well. This page was pretty interesting to read!

http://www.healingcrow.com/ferfun/conspiracy/conspiracy.html

Okay...done with my break. Back to work...

>I dont know if you ever going to 100 percent be in remission forever on anything, especially just a diet.

That depends upon what the root cause is. If the cause is truly autoimmune, no- probably not. But what if Crohn's is not an autoimmune disease? What if the infectious disease whackos are right, and it's something like MAP or Klebsiella pneumoniae or something weird like Tropheryma whipplei?

Take a quick peek at the history of the human diet. 10,000 years ago, there were no grains. Even after their introduction, they were never as prevalent as they are today; between corn, wheat, rice, barley, and related species, along with potatoes, that's a HUGE slug of complex carbohydrates in the diet. Add on top of that the 150-170 pounds a YEAR the average American eats (plus a whopping 46 pounds of artificial sweeteners, as if the sugar wasn't enough), and one has to ask themselves- is this healthy? If not, how might this manifest?

And then read the Ebringer work on Klebsiella pneumoniae, and how the starch debranching enzyme pullulanase causes the immune system to be sensitized to certain types of collagen. Then if you're HLA-B27 positive, the body- in its attempt to purge the klebsiella from the intestines- attacks its own collagen, starting in the spine, causing ankylosing spondylitis. But if the individual is HLA-B27 negative, the affected collagens are in the intestines- causing Crohn's.

From that perspective, maybe getting the starches and sugars out of the gut- to stop feeding the klebsiella- might indeed be a "cure." I put that in quotes as it's like cancer- one is rarely (if ever) "cured" of cancer; it's a remission which may last months or years, but one must be vigilant. In the same vein, if someone who is sufficiently abstemious in their consumption of carbohydrates, perhaps they can rid themselves of my disease.

In my case, I'm off all my meds since 19 December, 2007. And I feel normal. Frankly, I don't care if it's a "cure" or not; I'm in relief and I think I know why.

There is never going to be an agreeing opinion on this for right now and thats just the sad truth. But for the majority of people its not going to be enough. Unless your getting by on very little medication then I would definetly be willing to try it.

>it is just hard for most of us to believe cos it sounds too simple. we're predisposed at an early age
>that in order to get better you need medicine, surgery, or both.

Let's turn that around, and view it from a historical standpoint. A hundred years ago, the intake of refined sugar was a fraction of what it was today- maybe 5-6 pounds per year, versus 150-170 pounds per year. Corn wasn't so pervasive in the diet, as the vegetable or corn syrup. Wheat was common, but not in the vast quantities that it's consumed today. Moreover, the technology to separate the germ from the wheat wasn't developed, so whole flour was your only choice- and, being whole wheat, it spoiled quickly so it had to be fresh. More importantly, as whole flour has a lower glycemic index, it wasn't the big "sugar rush" that white flour is.

It it little wonder that Crohn's wasn't named until the 1930s, when industrial farming permitted vast quantities of sugar, white flour, rice, and other starchy foods to become pervasive in the diet? Our great-great-grandparents would be in awe at the supermarkets of today, but wouldn't know what to buy! Yogurt- with high fructose corn syrup? Breakfast cereals that consist of little more than fortified wheat and sugar? Peanut butter- with sugar added? They'd want real food- vegetables and bacon and eggs and meat, not these industrial products that are boxed and shelved by corporations.

What's most remarkable about all these diets that have shown to improve one's outlook when diagnosed with Crohn's is that they all rely upon "honest" foods, the sort of stuff that has been around for... centuries. Lutz, Gottschall, Atkins, Rubin- they tell the reader to stop swilling soda and eat something *real*. And when it works, it's met with skepticism because pharm companies (making $2.2 billion a year on Humira) have studies, but nobody will pay for a study on carbohydrate restriction and Crohn's.

That's been Saturday's Rant of the Day. Additional rants are available for $9.95 on CD, DVD, cassette tape, and 8-track.

But, IBD more than likely goes way farther back then when Dr. Buril Crohn discovered it...King Alfred is often called "Alfred the Great," or "The Scholar-King" for his devotion to learning and literacy. Surprisingly, he did not learn to read until after he became king.
In his lifetime he was successful in defending his kingdom from invasion by the Danish, and captured London in a move that united all the English under his rule. He is therefore considered to be the first King of England.

A biography written by his contemporary, the Welsh scholar Asser, asserts that Alfred suffered a painful, recurrent illness throughout his lifetime. It is now suspected that the scholar-king suffered from Crohn's Disease. He was born in 849 and died in 899.

So clearly it isn't diet alone, but as researchers already know, genetics and envrionmental aspects are involved...although IBD is much more prevalent now then ever before.

:)