my own worst enemy

Hi dawn,

No, I can't say that I would deviate from my/a restrictive diet if my Crohn's is active, inflammation, Etc.
If I am tempted by foods I shouldn't eat, I just remember the pain I'll have to endure for eating or drinking something I shouldn't. It's just not worth it to me.

Thanks pb4, you're right it has to do with severity and willpower, which you seem to have datawraith. Better days are coming.

For me it's a matter of resetting the baseline. After a long time of feeling great I think it is natural to forget what bad feels like for real. So yeah, have your two cups of coffee. I bet you won't do that again anytime soon, LOL!

dawn227 said...
Thanks pb4, you're right it has to do with severity and willpower, which you seem to have datawraith. Better days are coming.

You know what it is for me too dawn? I've had the disease for decades and I am so accustomed to doing things certain ways which absolutely includes how I eat, what I eat.
I do have an advantage I guess one could say that it's very rare that I will really consider veering off what I normally eat.
It's honestly to the point where people have said to me that I eat such bland food and I just shrug, "sure, I guess you could say that." I don't think about it again.

I hope you're feeling better and remain that way.
Best wishes.

Post Edited (Datawraith) : 8/26/2013 4:03:37 PM (GMT-6)

Thanks everybody, feeling much better today. I'm new to this forum and it's nice to know there is a place to share our feelings. Stay well.

Don't beat yourself up. I can be my own worst enemy too. I've gone the extremely rigid route out of necessity so I know what that's like, but as my situation changed (due to surgery for instance) I had to relearn what I could and couldn't handle, which meant reintroducing foods that had once been forbidden.

After more than forty years with Crohn's I've found that foods can affect me differently at different stages. Some things I couldn't touch before (such as milk) I can do in small quantities, and others that never bothered me I can no longer eat. So occasionally I have to experiment. Of course I pay for it when I get it wrong. But it's a treat when I find I can enjoy it without problems.

girlzilla said...
I am very stubborn, and have refused to really alter my diet much at all. I stick to relatively similar foods, but if I enjoy it, I will eat it, darned be the consequences.

I don't suggest my path if you can avoid it. I have no doubt it probably brings me more pain than it's worth!

I was exactly like this; ate all the foods that Crohnies are meant to be wary of - popcorn, spicy food, berries, vegetables, seeds, hamburgers and fries, milk, black coffee, etc. Was gonna suffer anyway, so I truly didn't care if I suffered a little bit more. I had no forbidden foods.

But eventually I was just forced to change. Partly because I developed a stricture which caused obstructions - it didn't take very many of those before I decided that pain was not worth it - but also because my flare-ups became so much worse. Couldn't function, could barely eat. Went on a couple of liquid diets. When I could eat solid food, I kept it bland. Only times I dared eat a bit more riskily was when I was on 40mg Pred.

Bit like Datawraith said, it actually was not hard for me to eat blandly. The disease had won; I couldn't eat anything I liked and (more-or-less) get away with it. But I was so tired and worn out by it all, I actually didn't very much care any more.

Eventually gave in and had colectomy surgery in Feb of this year, which left me with a permanent stoma. For a few months afterwards, I was pretty cautious. The fear of blockages was still with me. However, I'm slowly returning to my original diet.