Scar Tissue Healing Methods???

My name is Kyle. I am a 29 year old male. I am currently teaching 7th grade. I have an amazing wife that has been at my side through thick and thin for the past two and half years. I love Jesus. I thoroughly enjoyed this past years NCAA tournament. Oh, and I have Crohn's disease.

I am currently MED-FREE, that's right I said it, I am not taking any medications to treat my Crohns and things have been going very well. I am following the SCD, 6 months strong baby, and as of the last few weeks have just started adding raw food back into the diet. But definitely going super slow with everything. Not taking any chances on throwing the body off! But I had forgotten how good a nice crisp, cold apple tasted, my first one was like heaven in my mouth! : )

Anyways, wanted to ask my UC/Crohns family a quick quick question: Have you guys ever dealt with gut pain caused by scar tissue? I am not sure if that is what I am dealing with but it's really the only thing I can point my finger to as the reason I am still dealing with tightness and cramps in my gut. I recently went and chatted with a naturopath and that is what she eluded to being the problem. I am taking fish oil, L-Glutamine, and doing Hot Castor Oil packs at night but nothing seems to relieve the tightness and/or pain. Am I alone in this? I have chatted with my GI about this and it seems that if I am not experiencing obvious "Crohns" symptoms than I am doing alright but this gut tightness is really hindering me on the day to day life.

As I said, I am not in pain, I am pretty sure I am not in a flare, but I just have the gut tightness/pain going on. Mainly right around the belly button area, but it does rotate from the left side primarily to the right side. Usually wakes me up in the morning and during the night I am getting up two to three times to use the bathroom (#1), Anyone else relate to me here?

If so, how long do things take to get healed up in there? I am not in any hurry, it would just be nice to know how long of timeline I should expect here, or if I need to get into my GI and ask a few more questions. I would love to get some feedback from you guys on what you have done to help with this and/or get rid of it. Get at me UC Family, Love you guys!

Current supplements: Probiotics, L-Glutamine, Fish Oil, Multivitamin, and Vitamin D (ALL SCD LEGAL) - Also take a 1/4 tsp of royal jelly each morning :)

Blessings,

Kyle

Congratulations on your success with the SCD diet. I have been on the diet for 7 years and healed two rectal fistulas and have been in complete remission without one flare or pain since 2007.  The only drug I take is pentassa 1000mg 3x day.  This is a very mild drug with no side effects like humira or remicade or 6mp. 

The SCD diet seems to work best in people with UC or people with CD in the colon, and not so good for people with CD and inflammation in the illium.  If you never had surgery before, you don't have scar tissue, so that is not your problem. 

It sounds to me that you have some minor CD inflammation going on in your small intestine, probably in your illium.  I would go to your GI and get prescibed a course of steriods for 3 months and see if this stops the pain. If yes, then you know you have some inflammation there.  Like I said, SCD does not do good at reducing inflammation in the illium, but it can help greatly to keep you in remission once the inflammation has been eliminated by using another drug like steriods.   Once the inflammation is gone, a combination of the scd diet and a mild drug like pentassa could be all you need to be completely symptom free like I have been.  Really, you need to see a GI to see what that pain is caused by.   

It is not true that if you have never had surgery you do not have scar tissue. Crohns causes inflammation in the lining of the intestine which in turns causes scar tissue so you very well could be experiencing scar tissue build up. You will probably need a colonoscopy and/or a CT scan. Only your GI can advise you on that. Again good luck, this disease is a *****.

Possibly the term you're looking for is adhesion? Adhesions can happen with surgery or internal damage that causes things to stick together inside the body. For instance, after a surgery, part of my left colon stuck to the abdominal wall. It felt like a constant pulling and would at times cause spasming. I also have a history of endometriosis and adhesions are common with it.

You might want to research the term. The only thing that helped some of my adhesions was surgery, basically freeing the stuck colon (actually I had that part of the colon removed due to the CD).