My long battle with Crohn's and how I overcame it

My journey with crohn's began when i was 13. I was about halfway througj eighth grade. I started getting some minor abdominal pain a few times a week. Nothing that really worried me. I kept to myself for a while but then it got worse. The pain worsened, and i began to get it more often. After a few weeks trying to treat it as a stomach bug with no luck, i saw a gastroenterologist. By now the pain was pretty bad. My doctor thought i had an ulcer so i was put on a medication for an ulcer (i dont remember what it was). It did nothing, but i wanted to beleive it was working so i hid my symptoms. The pain began to get so bad that i had to crouch down a few times a day and i couldnt stand up for a minute or two. This was about a month after getting the meds. Now i also started to feel sick, lost weight, developed a fistula, and got severe diarrhea. I began to live in complete hell. I had the worst of crohns, and every day was a blur. I went back to my doctor and got a colonoscopy scheduled. When the day came for the colonoscopy i was so sick it was hard to keep my eyes open and it was painfull to walk because of the fistula. After the results came back they found severe ulceration and inflammation in my large and small intestine. I was put on prednisone and a nutrition plan. After about a month of laying in bed i began to feel better. I was gaining weight, and felt happier. However my journey was far from over. Eventually i had to be weened off the prednisone. I was going to be put me on remicade. I was happy until i read the pamphlet for it. I saw all these side effects and they scared me. I then began to get really scared for my future. Am i going to go in and out of flare ups my whole life? Am i always going to have to be on meds? From what i was told the answers to those questions seemed to be yes. I couldnt accept that. I thought there had to be a better way. I then came across the specific carbohydrate diet. I wanted to do it but doing the diet alone was not advised by my doctor so i did it with methotrexate. As the months went by, i stayed fairly sick, but stayed in control. At this time i was a little into freshman year of high school. I then went into a severe depression, and began to lose interest in life. I didnt see the reason to live anymore. I had been sick for so long i had forgot what life was all about. I was alone at school most days, had few friends, and i was really skinny and small (90 pounds) I will include a picture of me from that time. I was really depressed and hated life. But slowly, i began to get better. I went in and out of symptoms, but began to see change. I started researching everything about crohns i could get my hands on. After I was noticeably better I decided to stop taking methotrexate and see how it goes, but monitor myself very closely. I stayed the same and felt no change from going off methortrexate. I stayed skinny and slightly sick for a while, but i stayed very strictly to the diet. I also started taking ldn , a much safer, but experimental med to keep it from returning. I kept getting better, gained weight, and started to feel normal again. My sophomore year was a year of healing. It had ups and downs, but by the time junior year came along i weighed 140 and could finally say i felt normal. I got obsessed with lifting and stuck to the gym. I had a pretty normal year, and then went off the ldn. About 9-10 months after going off the ldn I am still free of crohns and I never even think of crohns anymore. It isnt something thats on my mind. The diet isnt hard, it is just a part of life. I am now 17 and what am I if not cured. What i learned is you have to approach crohns like anything in life. It is literally a struggle for success. You cant just lay back and take pills. You have to FIGHT for your right to be free of crohns. It is a journey, just like starting a buisness or committing to anything. Most people look at it like they just have to find the right med for them. If you do that you will most likely be like everyone else. In and out of flares, on meds ypur whole life etc. I cant emphasise enough howuch of a fight it is. This story is really condensed and i didnt really portray very well how long it took. I got it when i was 13 and now i am almost 18. I have been better for a little over two years, and sick the rest. So i was sick for about two years as well. I was sick for a very long time and fought for a very long time with one dissapointment after another. There were times when the diet seemed like it wasnt working, in fact weeks upon weeks where it seemed useless, but i stuck with it. Now If you choose to take the path of fighting like i did, you still need to be monitored. One of the most powerfull thing is confidence in your body. What i mean is the feeling like you really are in control. Anyone can say that to themselves, but to really beleive and feel it is hard. But now i am at the point where i have 100% control over my disease. And that is what you really need to work for. If you have any question feel free to ask, and sorry about any typos, I am doing this on my phone and it is hard to do. Thanks for listening and i wish the best for all of you!

I'm glad you found what is working for you. Are you being monitored by a doctor do you have regular testing? We have found this disease to be sneaky. My 15 year old son was doing well on LDN so we thought. He was diagnosed at 10. He felt great on the LDN but no matter what we did he did not gain weight. It ended up he had a lot of inflammation going on in his intestine that did not show up in labs. We've done the diet route, LDN, methotrexate, azathioprine/Imuran. The only thing we've found that works for him so far is remicade, he has been on it for a little over a year and has grown 7" and gained 40 pounds, he has caught up with his peers and is enjoying a happy healthy life and is not held back from doing anything.
My husband has been diagnosed for over 20 years, diet/healthy lifestyle alone for him equaled many hospital stays and abscesses and fistulas. We have found in both cases diet alone was not enough to reach and/or maintain remission.
I hope you maintain remission for a very long time but please make sure you are being monitored I've heard of too many people who have gone off medication and have even managed to be in remission for a very long time only to end up in a desperate situation in the hospital.

sounds like you have some good control over your disease. its unlikley you are cured though, you are likely maintaining a remission.

Read the link below this post for more info about what has already been "reported" in medical journals to have cured a case of crohn's and U.C. some patients have been free of all symptom's ranging from 25 to 13 years.