Anyone tried the Paleo Diet?

hey bella. i've been following the diet since august 2012. i had been a vegan for years before that so it was a big transition for me. i've gotten used to it now and find that it has decreased some of my symptoms. it's not a cure all as i haven't found remission, but my bloodwork has improved dramatically. my iron still sucks due to not absorbing it at all, but my inflammation markers have dropped a lot and i've gained 13 lbs.

I'm with you on the fear of blockages, sister. Had a colectomy with permanent ileostomy (which also removed a troublesome stricture in the terminal ileum) in Feb this year, and the fear of blockages has not been removed by a long shot. That said, I have eaten salad, most veggies (I do avoid sweetcorn and mushrooms), and even popcorn without any obvious signs of a blockage. But it makes me nervous and I have my moments of being freaked out.

Personally, while I think the paleo is a lot better than a vegan one, I still think it's far too restrictive. I really would eat carbs without worrying about them, especially as most carbs are low-residue or can easily be made as such. Paleo only really gives you the option of meat, fish, eggs, nuts, fruit and veggies - limited.

I think I'm going to try it.  It can't hurt you know.  I just don't want to eat fruit and veggies all day long. 

Anyway, whatever, I don't know why I reply in diet advice threads. Come to that I don't know why people make them in the first place. Pointless, pointless, pointless, since all they invariably do is conclude that they're going to try the fad diet that they were asking about in the first place. I've never known any different result.

I'm done, knock yourself out on your ridiculous 'cavemen' diets. We'd all still be living in caves, too, if we were literally eating like cavemen. It was learning how to cook and process foods for easier digestion which gave us more energy to develop our brains in the first place.

Edit: Never mind... :-/

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 4/25/2013 7:02:09 AM (GMT-6)

NCOT: Clean eating is a real term if you look at all of the crap that most of us eat. If you read the ingredient list on most packages you still have no clue what you are eating bc the foods are highly processed and filled with chemicals instead of food. It isn't really food, for example I have a wheat intolerance, I can eat a tortilla made with white flour and not notice any problems but one bite of something made with whole wheat flour will set me off gagging and choking on mucus in minutes. Why bc once they process the **** out of it, it isn't recognized by our bodies as food anymore. I am sure that the human body would live for a period of time on eating just plastic food but at some point it would starve and things would start shutting down. The accumulation of all of the crap absolutely causes problems, serious chronic problems. There is not only an increase in the development of IBD but autoimmune disease and chronic diseases across the board. Before going off and saying that diet does not cause or cure anything look at the evidence, NOONE is cured from lupus, MS, IBD or any other auto immune diseases by medications alone however look at all of the people who have been able to cure or atleast heal or prevent progression of their diseases through diet. I have not seen anyone who claims to have healed themselves by eating packaged foods, soda and red bull. So the conclusion must be that eating foods in it's original form is healing, while eating foods processed beyond recognition is detrimental.

Certain genes may cause some people to be more susceptible or possibly it is related to how many generations in our families have been eating poor diets who knows. There was a study released months ago that showed a correlation to crohns and pesticide residue in our foods and water. So "clean" eating, eating organic, preventing the allowance of genetically modified foods to contaminate our food supply (especially without our knowledge) is an important issue for many of us. Some people are not willing to accept that the chemical pills that are the only thing studied or offered by our American doctors. We know that there is a better way than taking these meds with horrible side effects, then taking more to treat those side effects, and then another for the side effects caused by those. There are studies that have shown that certain diets can and do maintain remission, there is a recent study on the IgG reaction to foods in crohns disease causing symptoms. So, if you don't want to stop eating what ever you eat fine, eat to your hearts content but for goodness sake, please don't tell anyone else that it doesn't matter what they eat or put them down for wanting to explore other alternatives.

 I am sure you have valuable input and experience in having to live with this horrible disease, but just bc you read a thread does not mean that you are required to respond, so please take thumpers fathers advice "If you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say nothing at all".

If I had listened to my mother and other people when they talked about the pesticides and junk foods in stead of saying "if that were true then everyone would be sick" then maybe I would not have gotten sick. If my ahole Dr didn't tell me years ago that food had nothing to do with this and had ordered my allergy test, or if I had listened to the SCDers and not been so unwilling to give up certain foods and conveniences my disease may have never progressed to a point of needing surgery in the first place. We cannot go back, but we can be an encouragement for others, it is just diet, if they want to try then more power to them, it will not hurt them in the long run but it just might help them or reduce progression. Unlike say Remicade which can induce lupus symptoms, or the others which can cause permanent kidney or liver failure or lymphoma etc. If you cannot name a harmful side effect of "clean eating" don't bash it.

Unfortunately we have already had disease progress to the state of having surgeries and are missing parts of us we can never get back, but the least we can do is find better ways for our children or grandchildren and our friends.
I hope you have a better day.

Post Edited (skofbengsk) : 4/26/2013 8:14:18 AM (GMT-6)

I have indeterminate colitis (UC that might possibly be crohns) and have done paleo for years- definitely reduced/reduces my symptoms quite a bit, though have rarely got full remission on it. But since I don't tolerate any iBd meds with exception of pred, I can use all the help I can get.

Sorry NCOT, I broke up my previous post a little bit to make it easier to read.

As far as us "clean eating types doing as much harm as good" when I first got horribly sick my dr told me to "eat anything I could" he recommended Ensure, liquid Jello, chicken broth, etc. I also ate fried chicken and mashed potatoes. all of those things in fact made me sicker, bc of the additives that I am intolerant to, the sugar, and the fact that my body was in such a horrible state it wasn't capable of digesting and absorbing nutrients. If he had said to do the SCD starter diet then it would have made me better not worse. I went from 130lbs to 95lbs (I am 5'6) so though I was eating anything I could I was still starving to death.

Dr's are not trained in nutrition they are trained in medicine, they make their money prescribing medicine not food. A lot of them don't even keep up with the studies unless the patient shows them specifically. My first GI told me not to waste my time or money on probiotics bc they didn't do anything.

My youngest son had horrible cracked, oozing, and at times bleeding eczema starting at 4 wks old. I tried every cream, lotion, and remedy that his dr suggested and nothing. She never as much as hinted that it could have anything to do with food. When he was a year old we realized he was allergic to eggs and soy and his eczema got substantially better but he still had it pretty bad on his hands and wrists. When he was almost two he reacted to a peanuts the Dr finally tested him for food allergies and we found and cut out all of his allergens. His eczema completely disappeared and has not come back. He is now 5 1/2. If you google eczema and food allergies the only information you will find on medical sites say that food allergies do not cause eczema. But you can find hundreds of moms that will tell you food allergies caused their childs eczema. So my son suffered needlessly for two years bc I was never given that information. And his allergens were not processed foods simply good wholesome foods like eggs, corn, legumes and sesame. And his are IgE allergies.

I am Extremely intolerant to yeast (as are 60-80% of CD'ers) which I didn't find out until it was too late to save my colon, but the SCD is bakers yeast free and I think Paleo is bakers and brewers yeast free, so both of those would have helped me substantially. They probably would have slowed the progression of my disease to the point that my colon would have been salvageable by the time I finally found my Dr who actually did my IgG allergy test and was able to eliminate all of the foods I was intolerant to. Now that I know specifically what foods I cannot eat I know I will never have to take another pill or have another surgery. I can resume eating bread, processed and MSG laden food whenever I want to, but that would mean taking more Meds that do not work for me, and more surgeries in the future.

Obviously if 60-80% of CD patients are intolerant to yeast that means that 20-40% are not, so what has helped me so much will not help them. For them it might be dairy, or eggs or something completely unrelated to food, it may be medication who knows. I only wish to be helpful, when I got my allergy test I found that they have been doing scientific studies on CD and yeast since atleast the late 80's. Yet Dr's do not even know about it much less tell anyone about. They will test for ASCA as a means to diagnose crohns but either do not know or just do not tell people that if the test is positive they should eliminate yeast from their diet.

Now that a successful pilot study has been done on IgG food intolerances and crohns hopefully another larger one is around the corner. Then, though it is wishful thinking, it will be common practice to test for them in CD patients at diagnosis as a first step, as opposed to just starting on drugs that may or may not work. More likely I think that fact will be hidden and as patients we will have to push very hard to have it recognized by Dr's, bc why would they give us a $1200 test that could rid us of most or all of our symptoms when they could prescribe 10's of thousands a year per patient on meds, and 100's of thousands on surgeries.

In the meantime, there is nothing harmful in trying to eat a healthy diet for a period of time and see if it helps.

Okay, thanks - does make it a lot easier to read... <_<.

Hmm. Okay, the gist of your first post seems to be 'diet worked for me'. Which is absolutely fair enough. I do believe that diet works for some people. But there's the nub of it: 'some' people. Not 'all' people. From reading many, many threads during my time at HW, my unscientific guess is that diet works brilliantly for a few, partially for some, and not at all for the rest. So why does diet work for some and not for others? Nobody knows. IBD definitely has a genetic basis - Crohn's more strongly than UC. Genes loads the gun; x, y, and z pull the trigger. Trouble is, what are x, y and z? Dunno. Could be food, bacteria, antibiotics, smoking, contraceptive pill, pesticides, toothpaste, etc. Maybe it isn't even anything, maybe the genes for Crohn's or UC just switches on randomly. Why does any genetic disease start when it does?

By the way, I am not saying every single case of IBD is rooted in genetics. I would not be remotely surprised to find in the future that some cases turn out to be bacterial in origin, for example. That's certainly Thomas Borody's belief. (Australian gastoenterlogist, google his name if you're interested.)

Back to diet. You appeared to have reacted very badly to processed foods. I am sorry that you lost so much weight and got so sick. It's just possible you weren't absorbing nutrients because you were so sick, rather than the food itself. Simply being in a starved, malnourished state drastically increases digestive distress and can even bring on temporary intolerances to, eg lactose. But on the other hand, maybe you were just intolerant to the foods you listed. I dunno. I do know that most people can eat jello, mashed potatoes, chicken broth, etc. without any dire consequences - in fact for some folks with Crohn's it's the only type of food they can eat. People go on and on about how bad modern food is, but we are living longer lives than ever - I do wonder how we live to 80, 90 and 100 if the food most people eat is so poisonous to our bodies. Yeah, I know, modern medicine is part of the reason, but not the only reason.

Anyway, if you truly are kept in remission through diet, then I suppose you are one of the lucky ones. I personally never felt that what I ate made any difference to my symptoms, never felt that I was intolerant to anything. I tried a gluten-free diet, and two types of liquid diet, none made any difference. Maybe there was a miracle food or two or five I could have cut out, and, hallelujah! I would have been cured or at least in remission. But I do think that was really, really unlikely. I had pretty severe Crohn's disease. I say 'had', because for now surgery has got rid of it, but before that it was severe and refractory. It was much milder when I was diagnosed 13 years ago, so who knows what would have happened back then if I had started the SCD diet, gone to bed at 10pm every night, not got so wildly stressed out, etc.? It might have made a difference, it might not have not. Alternatively, my mild disease could have stayed mild, without any dietary or lifestyle changes. I have seen exactly that with my brother. He was diagnosed with Crohn's about 15 years ago, his disease has remained on pretty much the same level for all that time. He's a pretty stressed out type of bloke, too. Doesn't eat junkily, but certainly doesn't follow anything like an SCD or Paleo type diet. Anyway, I'm getting off topic here, but fair play to him. At least one of us got off relatively lightly.

Okay, I'm gonna stop typing in a minute before this turns into a 5000 word essay. Re your son and eczema. Glad that a simple dietary cause was found in his case.

PS: I'm not a massive fan of the anti-TNFs, but I think personal experience has soured me there. On the one hand, they work. On the other hand, I think too much reliance has been placed on them. I actually agree with you: time and money would be better spent on trying to find the causes of IBD, rather than simply developing ever more biologics. I think the problem is that when Remicade was brand new, there was a lot of hype about it: people were literally proclaiming it as a miracle treatment for Crohn's. But Remicade and the subsequent biologics failed to sustain the hype. Some people have bad side-effects; the very long-term side effects are still unknown; and finally, above all, the biologics tend to stop working eventually. They are not the answer to IBD. We need a better treatment than the biologics. So yes, pretty much in full agreement with you there.

*wilts* Phew >_>

This is barely being recognized, I have only found one pilot study of only 8 people, But IgG food intolerances do cause crohns symptoms, maybe not in everyone, that has not been determined by any study. But the IgG test for ASCA (yeast) in crohns only effects 60-80% and it has been in studies since the 80's, so that means for the others it is something other than yeast. For me it was a fairly mild reaction to 12 foods and a high reaction to bakers and brewers yeast 154 foods were tested. ASCA positive patients are shown to have a more severe course of disease and more likely to require surgery, I was also always sick and meds didn't work, and it only took 5 years from my first flare to a sub-total colectomy. It didn't matter what I ate, everything made me sick. Yeast was the main culprit for me, and yeast is naturally occurring and so is in almost everything packaged either as an added ingredient or just naturally formed from being exposed during processing and sitting in a box.

Hopefully, since the pilot study showed 100% to return crohns activity when those foods were challenged another much larger one is in the works. But I can tell you that since my IgG test, the only time I get CD symptoms is when I challenge a food.

Which is exactly why I believe what works for one does not for another, SCD may work for those who are intolerant to bakers yeast bc it is bakers yeast free, but not for someone who is allergic to other legal foods like tomatoes or celery or something else. But if we all have different IgG reactive foods then there is no single diet. And since they are delayed reaction they are hard to pinpoint without the test.

And yes, the hormones produced during pregnancy can help, there is one I think it was relaxin, it is a immune suppressant that is produced by your body during pregnancy to prevent rejection of the fetus.

Wait, what? You have had a subtotal colectomy?! Does that mean you have a permanent ileostomy, like me? <_<.

Anyway, literally too tired to know what to think right now. I don't know enough about the food intolerances tests, that's the problem. Have heard they're unreliable, but not sure why. If I have the energy, perhaps I'll look more into IgG testing tomorrow. My interest has been piqued. Of course, post-surgery it will be considerably harder to tell if diet is working or not, since presumably right now my Crohn's isn't active. (I'm presently suffering deeply, but for reasons other than Crohn's. Yes, oxycodone, I'm thinking of you... :-/)

@bella - Sounds like you have it pretty bad with the Crohn's. Congrats on the pregnancy at any rate, that's at least something other than being miserable with Crohn's to look forward to! If you do try the Paleo and it genuinely makes a difference, let us know, 'cos I'm kind of curious... <_<.

Ah okay. My surgeon refused to do a reconnection, so I was left with a stoma and bag. To be fair, I was told beforehand what type of operation I would be having, so I didn't wake up to a massive shock or anything. The surgeon said that 'cos I'd been on steroids for a long time, attempting to remove my colon and reconnect me during a single operation would be too risky. Trouble is, she doesn't seem to want to do a reconnection at all now :-/ Can't decide whether to try to push for a reconnection about a year down the line or just accept having a stoma permanently.

How are your Crohn's symptoms now? I was told that even if I got reconnected, I would never have normal bowel function again, and I'm inclined to believe that. But I can take going 7-8 times a day, as long as I'm reasonably healthy and well, and not in pain. Frankly, I could take going 10-12 times a day. Have done so in the past, not fun, but no worse than living with a stoma...

By the way, I think the words 'doctors' and 'god complexes' go together >_>. Or at least certainly used to. The internet and breakdown of respect for authority has changed that, at least superficially. I suspect the doctors with god-complexes are still around, but usually have to find more subtle ways of exerting their god complexes these days - refusing you medication when you are at the end of your tether with insomnia or anxiety seems to be the most popular way. If they can wag a finger of disapproval in front of your despairing face, so much the better. That's really about GPs, though; surgeons I dunno enough about. Only one I know is the one who did my operation; she's mostly been really nice, but there's definitely a changeable side... I have a feeling you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her, really. But hell, I prefer somebody like her to the usual robots you get at consultant level.

Anyway, the only suggestion I can make if your surgeon won't yield any info is to ask another doctor who has access to your medical notes. I wouldn't have thought the sigmoid colon could have been moved as far right as the terminal ileum, but tbh I don't really have a clue; just guessing. In diagrams, the small intestine seems to go straight down the centre to the rectum, but reality might not match diagrams.

PS: I'm still on steroids, but at a very low dose now: 3mg, soon will be off them entirely. But of course it'll take a long time for my adrenal glands to fully start working again, 'bout a year, probably. Not on any other immunesuppressant meds as of this time. (And preferably never.)