At the suggestion of 723crossroads I've decided to share my success, as for the first time in a long time I feel well and have sustainably felt well for many months now.
There was a day I could eat anything on the menu as long as I had my Remicade infusions, and shortly before my infusion period I would get sensitivities, and symptoms like foul smelling burps.
In time though I experienced severe stomach cramping, pain, and diarrhea, it got to the point where I was curled in a ball in my bed with chills and severe pain and the light in the room seemed to be pulsating.
In time I discovered that my stomach no longer tolerated skinned fruits, at least this was the culprit as I understood it, and I removed peppers, tomatoes, and onions eventually onions, apples, pears and virtually all skinned fruits from my diet.
As time went on so too did my intolerance grow, I had to give up all fruits and many vegetables, some could sneak by like bananas and oddly beans for a while, but in time those got the boot too.
When I thought I got it all my symptoms started coming back, but different and worse, and I became very ill, food wouldn't leave my stomach, I was constantly in extreme bloated pain, vomiting, all sorts of bad things. I'd developed an ulcer and the sphincter to exit my stomach had become inflamed.
The light clicked when someone got me thinking about the rise in gluten intolerance, and my symptoms all came shortly after consuming wheat products like bread, pasta, etc. I cut gluten to great improvement but still with chronic diarrhea and some on-and-off. I thought I was just doomed to suffer crohn's symptoms and there was no more dietary issues, but I was still wrong!
Next on the chopping block was cooking oils.
Finally I called enough was enough and decided I needed an ANSWER, this needed to make sense some how, someone must understand why this happens and I began digging and digging and what I discovered was that leaky gut explains most of my symptoms.
For those of you new to the concept, leaky gut is basically when your intestinal wall is compromised and leaks partially digested food proteins into your bloodstream that are seen as a foreign invader and cause auto immune reactions. The solution is to heal the gut, but HOW you attack this solution is different from situation to situation.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/19/paleo-diet-solution/
This particular link shared with me by hugh in the nutrition section was helpful in my piecing some of the puzzle together and resulted on me following a mostly ketogenic diet.
Information on it can be found here
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=132598293
It's very similar to a Paleo diet except as yet I cannot tolerate most fruits and vegetables so my sugar intake is mostly limited to ice cream and honey.
Unfortunately I know many IBD sufferers also suffer lactose intolerance, this is not my case but you may be able to find a way around this with non-dairy milk replacements and the like depending on your particular case.
What I've taken away from this is that the western diet is not necessarily the cause of Crohn's but definitely goes a long way to making it worse if you aren't careful about what you're putting in your body.
Keeping a food diary is very helpful, if you're having symptoms start tracking what you eat and comparing symptoms. Try eliminating common trigger foods like lactose, gluten, and I especially recommend avoiding HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP as that was the leading cause of my chronic diarrhea, energy loss, constant feeling of thirst, and many other issues, and it's in nearly every sweet product.
Consider trying an elimination diet and it could save you a lot of pain in the long run, break your diet down to only fundamental foods, the basic, purest things you can tolerate, and adding back new foods one at a time, giving each one at least a day of its own to digest and check for symptoms.
The hard part is that, like me, I wasn't intolerant to many of these things all along, they developed over time, and I'm hoping some things like fruits and veggies I can eventually add back no that the things causing my leaky gut have been removed.
There was a day I could eat anything on the menu as long as I had my Remicade infusions, and shortly before my infusion period I would get sensitivities, and symptoms like foul smelling burps.
In time though I experienced severe stomach cramping, pain, and diarrhea, it got to the point where I was curled in a ball in my bed with chills and severe pain and the light in the room seemed to be pulsating.
In time I discovered that my stomach no longer tolerated skinned fruits, at least this was the culprit as I understood it, and I removed peppers, tomatoes, and onions eventually onions, apples, pears and virtually all skinned fruits from my diet.
As time went on so too did my intolerance grow, I had to give up all fruits and many vegetables, some could sneak by like bananas and oddly beans for a while, but in time those got the boot too.
When I thought I got it all my symptoms started coming back, but different and worse, and I became very ill, food wouldn't leave my stomach, I was constantly in extreme bloated pain, vomiting, all sorts of bad things. I'd developed an ulcer and the sphincter to exit my stomach had become inflamed.
The light clicked when someone got me thinking about the rise in gluten intolerance, and my symptoms all came shortly after consuming wheat products like bread, pasta, etc. I cut gluten to great improvement but still with chronic diarrhea and some on-and-off. I thought I was just doomed to suffer crohn's symptoms and there was no more dietary issues, but I was still wrong!
Next on the chopping block was cooking oils.
Finally I called enough was enough and decided I needed an ANSWER, this needed to make sense some how, someone must understand why this happens and I began digging and digging and what I discovered was that leaky gut explains most of my symptoms.
For those of you new to the concept, leaky gut is basically when your intestinal wall is compromised and leaks partially digested food proteins into your bloodstream that are seen as a foreign invader and cause auto immune reactions. The solution is to heal the gut, but HOW you attack this solution is different from situation to situation.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/19/paleo-diet-solution/
This particular link shared with me by hugh in the nutrition section was helpful in my piecing some of the puzzle together and resulted on me following a mostly ketogenic diet.
Information on it can be found here
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=132598293
It's very similar to a Paleo diet except as yet I cannot tolerate most fruits and vegetables so my sugar intake is mostly limited to ice cream and honey.
Unfortunately I know many IBD sufferers also suffer lactose intolerance, this is not my case but you may be able to find a way around this with non-dairy milk replacements and the like depending on your particular case.
What I've taken away from this is that the western diet is not necessarily the cause of Crohn's but definitely goes a long way to making it worse if you aren't careful about what you're putting in your body.
Keeping a food diary is very helpful, if you're having symptoms start tracking what you eat and comparing symptoms. Try eliminating common trigger foods like lactose, gluten, and I especially recommend avoiding HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP as that was the leading cause of my chronic diarrhea, energy loss, constant feeling of thirst, and many other issues, and it's in nearly every sweet product.
Consider trying an elimination diet and it could save you a lot of pain in the long run, break your diet down to only fundamental foods, the basic, purest things you can tolerate, and adding back new foods one at a time, giving each one at least a day of its own to digest and check for symptoms.
The hard part is that, like me, I wasn't intolerant to many of these things all along, they developed over time, and I'm hoping some things like fruits and veggies I can eventually add back no that the things causing my leaky gut have been removed.