So, I vented about my Crohn's to a mental health professional...

This is my first time on here but I have a friend with Crohn's and have also heard of others that suffer and I'm sorry for your pain. I don't have Crohn's but I do suffer from "eating". I go on diet after diet and I think stress it what causes me my problems. If I'm really busy I do OK. I just started a new Meal Replacement Wellness program and so far so good - 6.8# in 3 weeks. I "cheat" but thankfully the weight is still coming off.
Best of luck to you!

@chocolatelady - no offense, but I'm not trying to lose weight. (Unless I have misinterpreted your post?) I am underweight and need to gain weight if anything. But thank you for the well wishes.

@ivy - It wasn't like she was entirely unsympathetic, but I did feel she was having a hard time putting herself in my shoes. But then I probably didn't explain it very well. I feel paranoid and scared to talk about my true feelings, they seem so extreme - like a feeling of not being able to bear this for a moment longer or feeling like I want to jump off a cliff. I'm not bipolar (I can safely say I don't have any manic phases) but my moods are just much more volatile than they used to be. And the thing is: I do relate it to eating just as I relate the abdominal bloating, discomfort and pain to eating. I'm calmer and less depressed when my intestines are empty or near empty.

(Obviously, I do have other problems in my life other than the Crohn's, but that's getting onto a whole new subject strand I don't want to get onto. I just want to keep it strictly to the Crohn's for now.)

I'm currently trying to work out a diet I can tolerate, but it's not easy. Banana smoothies sound like a good idea. I do eat soup but tbh I don't think I find it any easier than well-cooked regular veggies to digest :-/ Basically, if it provides calories it gets awkward. I'm considering continuing with cereal for lunch, but changing to a liquid dinner (not alcohol <_<). Something like a banana smoothie would be good for that, 'cos it would be quite calorific.

*sees time* I'd better be off to bed now. (Took me forever to write this reply because I'm tired.) *hugs* back. Thank you :p

Randy, unfortunately I agree with you. Even more unfortunately, it's miles too late for me =/ I have at least avoided being locked up (luckily psychiatrists don't have access to my old posts on the internet), but I have not avoided accumulating a medical record longer than a Tolstoy novel.

I wish I'd been able to keep all the mental stuff "off the record", that's for sure.

PS: you may want to ask for a nutrition referral before starting enteral feeding so you can get help figuring out how much you should be drinking to meet your body's caloric, fluid and nutritional needs. A nutritionist should also be able to counsel you on what foods may be contributing to bloating, etc. or be helpful in treating your particular symptoms. For example, applesauce is binding but pears fixed any way (especially with skin on) are helpful in treating constipation.

In my experience with my son and with quite a few kids on the DP board, exclusive enteral feeding is rarely a long term solution to Crohn's. There have been a small number of kids/young adults who have been able to manage their Crohn's by using exclusive enteral nutrition when they are flaring and then return to a full or partial "regular" diet once their flare has stopped.

What is more typical is that it is used in addition to traditional meds like AZA or Remicade to treat flares rather than going on pred or increasing/changing meds. It is also often being used now to bridge the time between changes in treatments. So if you just started 6-MP and are very ill you might do enteral nutrition for 2-3 months while you are waiting for the 6-MP to kick in.

It is also very helpful for supplementing your diet when you need to gain weight.

You might want to try (if you haven't already done so) eliminating gluten and lactose from your diet completely for at least 2 weeks and see if that improves some of your symptoms. These molecules are very large and are the hardest for your gut to digest. So they are the most likely to provoke GI symptoms.

It took me about 7 to find one that I actually clicked with. I absolutely agree with Sniper mind and body are connected, and if some doctor says it is all in your head is not much of a doctor.

This isn't drugs so I assume will be ok posting it. I have about 16 sachets of Calshake in the cupboard doing nothing(choc,banana and strawberry) you add it to full fat milk(are you ok with milk?). it is highly calorific but it isn't a nutritional supplement drink(in that it does not contain all the nutrients your body needs-just loads of calories) Dietician got them for son however he prefers to drink less volume so is on something else now. They taste good honest(I have to try everything he has ;) ) Let me know.

I don't know if this is true in England but around here there are some low cost mental health services available. A lot of the colleges and universities have training programs for mental health professionals. They usually run clinics where the people in training treat people from the community at very low cost. That might be one way you could find help that you could afford.

Reducing the gluten and lactose would just be for now to help your gut while it is in bad shape. Ideally you would eliminate them altogether but even reducing the amount might be helpful. Because they're so hard to digest you don't get as much nutritional benefit from those foods as if you ate other foods that don't have gluten or lactose and they may be making your symptoms worse.

I understand about waiting to talk to the GI before you start exclusive enteral nutrition. But you may find it helpful to just add a can or two of OTC formula to your diet now because it is likely to improve your nutritional status and might be easier to consume than "real" food. Poor nutrition leads to gut inflammation - gut inflammation leads to poor nutrition. It's a vicious circle. That's why I sometimes suggest making temporary dietary changes until you can get into the doc if you're flaring. Unfortunately, starving yourself doesn't necessarily make your gut feel better. :(

If you've been on 6-mp for more than 4 months with no improvement then it is time to try something else. I'm not sure why the GI would have put you on it for 6 months last year, stopped and then again this year for 4 months if it didn't work the first time. That's not how it's given here in the US because it takes up to 4 months to determine whether it's working. Once you've got past 4 months, if it's not helping then there's no point in taking it anymore.

I know that the medical system there is quite different from here and that the use of remicade can be much more limited due to government policies. But is that something that's available to you? Have you had it in the past but it was discontinued? It sounds like that may be what would help you so maybe you can talk it over with the GI when you get in to see her.

I would be sure to tell the GI about voluntarily restricting your food intake and how bad you feel physically *and emotionally*. She needs the whole picture and may need you to volunteer the information as doctors don't always think to ask about this stuff.

Best wishes

It's seriously late but I think I will reply now, rather than leave it until tomorrow...

@rls - I haven't heard of such low cost mental health services, but there might be something along those lines. I'm not incredibly hopeful it does, but maybe a mental health website like SANE could give more info...

Even a few months ago I would've said gluten and lactose made no difference. Now I just don't know. I was thinking of making myself some egg custards, which would be incompatible with a low lactose diet :-/ Milk is the basis of most bland foods, as far as I can tell!

What about having an OTC formula drink for dinner? I can cope with lunch but dinner seems to be one meal too many for my beleagured intestines, unless it's ridiculously tiny.

Stopping the 6MP was my doing =/ I'd been on it for 6 months, had seen improvement around the 3 month mark, but then all the symptoms came back and I was in more pain than before. In frustration and annoyance I stopped it cold turkey. My symptoms didn't get any worse and so I didn't go back on it. But a few months later I had a colonoscopy which showed really bad disease, so from that point of view I rather wish I had stayed on the 6MP - even though I doubt it was, and is, doing much of anything at all.

Remicade is out =/ Long story short, I thought I was going to get it (albeit only 3 doses, 'cos that's all this particular hospital will pay for), but I didn't. GI said I had narrowings, which could be made worse by the Remicade. I did my usual thing of biting my tongue at completely the wrong moment, otherwise I would have asked a couple of things about that. But I didn't and will have to ask in October, provided I don't bottle it.

Surgery was mentioned but also ruled out. Pretty much, diet is all I have left to manage this disease and I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job of it, to put it mildly.

I will try to tell my GI about restricting my food intake, etc. It goes against my natural tendency to clam up (partly because I feel like an idiot whenever I try to explain myself) but I really have to fight that just for once.

@vixen - There is a backstory, but basically if I didn't get serious, proper counselling after the events of last year I don't think anything would make me get it. I did get over it for a while, without any help from anybody in the NHS I might add, but this year I have plunged the depths of serious depression again. The only reason I got to see this woman at all was because I spoke to my GP about it, otherwise I wouldn't have seen anybody. He is quite good, my GP.

I'll email you about it if you like, 'cos I'm not sure if the entire story would be suitable on this board. And unfortunately this site doesn't have Private Messaging...

PS: I'm glad your relative was helped well enough to make such a good recovery.

And now I'd seriously, seriously better go to bed... :-/ Thanks massively, the both of you.

Vixen, if you email me your email address, I'll email it to NCOT.

Thanks Ivy will do that now.Lol. I was wondering whether to set up an un-identifying email account quickly until contact was made!

Thank you :)

NCOT - I skimmed through the posts, so someone else may have mentioned this, but i wanted to throw it out there.  I think most mental health care professionals would have a difficult time truly understanding all implications of crohn's unless they were close to someone with crohn's.  However, there are mental health care professionals that specialize in coping with chronic illnesses.  That type of specialist may or may not be any more familiar with crohn's, but at least they are familiar with how illnesses can affect mood.  I'm not sure where you are located but I know of one in the Philadelphia area (a family friend).  If you are interested and let me know where you are located I can always ask her if she knows of any psychologists/psychiatrists in your area that specialize in chronic illness.

Melissa