Hello I am new and here is my story

This is about 3 pages long but please read it all because I have a lot of good information about vitamins and diets to share. It helped me and I believe it will help you. Thanks.

Hello everyone. My name is Jonathan and I am 27 years old. I grew up on Long Island and now live in Kansas. Growing up my stomach would be irritated from time to time and I have more pain while trying to use the bathroom. It wasn't anything serious enough to do anything about and I never even told my Mom about my bowel movement issues.

Let me introduce you to my family a little: My Mom well besides smoking since she was seventeen she has numerous problems. First off she has had lots of bowel problems and has IBS right now. She also is only working with one kidney and has had a full hysterectomy due to a tumor. She also has type II diabetes and controls it with diet. She is struggling every day with pain and lives in NY still which is stressful enough.

Moving on to my sister. Well she has Chrons, mitro-valve prolaps (problem with heart valve), she also has Chrons very bad along with several other things. She just got married luckily and can get meds on his health insurance now.
I found out a cousin on my father's side has had surgery for chrons and my Mothers mom died of pancreatic cancer.

I joined the US Army after high school and stayed in for 4 and a half years. I made one tour in Iraq and during my stay in the Army I met my wife who was going to college nearby. In the Army my eating habits weren't very good but I exercised every day and was always active.

After leaving the Army I began to feel worse and worse, probably because I stopped working out, got lazy and my eating habits were still poor. Mined you I still did not know I had chrons at this point.

Finally during the summer of 2007 I was going to the doctor (BTW my father in law is a family doctor) for pain. My doctor referred me to another doc who was knowledgeable in bowel disorders. He performed a colonoscopy on me. The results pointed towards chrons and he referred me to a Gastroenterologist 45 minutes away.

When I finally met with this doctor he agreed that it was chrons especially with my family history and I was officially diagnosed with chrons in August 2007. He started me on Llalda which is an anti-inflammatory medicine. I stayed just on that drug for about 10months to a year when I had a flare up.

The doctor then put me on prednisone in September of 2008 to help with the flare up. After taking prednisone which is a steroid for 3 months I gained 30 pounds and looked like a damn chipmunk. I had to get off of it.

The doctor discussed other medications such as Imuran and Remicaid. We decided to give Imuran a try and around the beginning of December I switched from prednisone to Imuran.

Those of you who don’t know what Imuran is, it is an immunosuppressant which means it lowers my body’s defenses. As of right now research shows that for some reason our body is attacking itself for some unknown reason. The Imuran helps to reduce the response our body makes towards our digestive track (in my case color and small intestine) in hopes of causing less pain and flare ups.

After several months of Imuran and being off prednisone I lost the 30 pounds and was feeling better than I had been. I was still tired, had constant dull pain and had at least 5 or more bowel movements a day.

As you know stress can affect you as well and make symptoms worse. I work as a Corrections Officer in the County Jail so my stress levels can increase from time to time dramatically. Not good so this did not help at all either.

I pretty much lived this way until recently. In January of 2010 I picked up a book by Dr. Atkins and began to read about vitamins and how they can help just about with any disease. I was intrigued and amazed that a lot of chrons patients have been symptom free while using this diet.

Now Dr. Atkins wanted me to take 25 different vitamins a day. Wow that is a lot of pills besides that it would cost a fortune and of course health insurance doesn't cover vitamins because they are not prescribed. Great, now what.

Well I read further into some of the vitamins he wanted me to take and chose the ones I thought would be most effective; vitamin A, D, E and C plus I am taking probiotics. Now these are not your daily recommended doses. We are talking much higher to combat your body and the fact that it isn't absorbing these nutrients naturally from foods.

I also discovered that milk is a big no for most people with chrons. Anytime I drank milk I would get lots of pain. I tried lactose free milk. Nope still no difference. Well the only other choice I had was soymilk and yes I know what a lot of you are thinking, ewwww.

Let me tell you regular soymilk is nasty and too thick for me to get down. Well my wife found light soymilk and oh my god this stuff is great! The taste is not bad at all and the consistency is very close to milk. I was so happy that I found something so good and it cause no pain at all!

At this time I joined another forum and found people talking about low sugar diets. Wow, sugar a problem. Well I do like my sweets and at least two cans of soda a day. I read lots of articles about sugar and chrons.

I found out that sugar has no good qualities for your body at all, it just makes food taste better. Well apparently if you did not know this sugar scrubs the good bacteria from your intestines which are so very important for chrons patients.
Time to reduce my intake of sugar and I knew it would be hard but it was necessary for my well being and general happiness in everyday life.

I cut out soda completely, began drinking no sugar juice (crystal light or store brand), eating less sweets and watching everything I eat that contains sugar. I also began to eat more things with salt just because it did not contain sugar and salt does help with water absorption.

I began what I like to call food trials. I would eat something to see if it bothered me and waited a day or so, if I had no pain then it was added to the food list. Otherwise it was trashed. During this time I discovered that red meats caused me pain as well. This meant I had to reduce eating steak and beef. Not too happy about this but nothing I could do about it.

Another thing that is bad for chrons are gas producing foods, mainly beans but broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage is included. Have to reduce those items as well.
Conclusion

After three months on this new diet and vitamins I have had little to no pain. I say little because after eating red meats I get some pain but I cannot get rid of my steak completely now can I? Just have to endure some pain for a day or so after eating it.

I have not had a single soda or even a sip of soda since I started this diet. I am eating sugar everyday but in moderation. I can eat ice cream at night (cream popsicle or a couple of scoops of ice cream) plus I like pop tarts. As long as I keep the sugar intake low I am fine.

Let me give everyone my recommendations on vitamins to take daily:
Vitamin A - 50,000 IU per day - Source Naturals Active A on ebay (4 pack)
Vitamin C - 3,000mg per day - Walmart - Spring Valley
Vitamin D-3 - 800 IU per day - Walmart - Spring Valley
Vitamin E - 400 IU per day - Walmart - Spring Valley
Probiotics - 1-3 capsules a day (I take 2) - Garden of Life Primal Defense Ultra - Found on amazon.com

I take all these including my regular medicine and like I said have been virtually pain free with about 2 or 3 bowel movements a day. I have less diarrhea and more regular stools.

With all these pills which is 17 per day I feel so much better and am much happier. I recommend this diet to everyone. I bet if I worked out some I would have more energy as well.

Sorry this was so long but I felt it was necessary for everyone to read this because I think it would work for almost everyone with chrons. Enjoy and please let me know if you try this and how you feel after starting it. You will feel better in two weeks for sure.

:banana: YAY! glad all this is working for you

welcome to the forum jrs!

Thank you for all the info, which will be smashing for all newbie Crohnies!
A lot of oldie Crohnies have been using a lot of these methods for years with great results, there is also a lot of info on here about diet, vitamins etc
Interesting about Dr. Atkins tho, I read the book, and agree with what he says about refined flour and refined sugar being a killer for all of us, but wouldn't recommend his diet cos of all the red meat, but everything in moderation, a little of what you fancy....

The thing with Chrons is that everyone is different. Yes there are somethings that are generally bad for all of us but to stick to a low sugar diet and vitamins I really think is the key. I wish I knew about this all sooner.

No doctor would have mentioned the diet and vitamins so I discovered it on my own and by reading other forums. I just wanted to post it as another confidence booster that there are ways to fight it and win. With the help of all of us and support we can all be pain free or at least close to it.

My biggest problem now is traveling. I can't drive 45mins away without my stomach getting upset. Anyways around this? Would Dramamine work? Haven't tested yet but in June I will be driving to NY from Kansas for vacation with family. I am dreading it unless I can find something to settle my stomach during long trips. Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forum! Glad you're feeling better with your new diet and vitamins. Like you said, everyone is different and needs to find the diet and/or meds that will work for them.

Have you always gotten car sick? Maybe you can test the Dramamine out on a shorter trip before you take the long drive to Kansas.

Good luck! -Amy

It was great to read your story, I think it will be very helpful to many. I know I have to cut my sugar intake down... and while I have quit cow's milk and soda, I am a sucker for chocolate (soy)milk and fruit juices.

Thank you for sharing, and welcome!!

Gravol has a non-drowsey tablet out now.. not sure if that is the same as Dramamine. I also get car sick (usually only long distances and windy roads). Roll down the windows and it helps me if I am the driver (distraction?). Papaya helps also. They have crystalized/dehydrated papaya and papaya juice (which helps once you are already nauseaus). Ginger has the same effect. There is also the bracelet you can get. Don't know the name but didn't work for me - worked for my friend's husband though. I went on a Hawai'ian cruise and was on the floor almost the entire time. I shudder just thinking about it! They gave me something called "sea ease". It worked fairly well (sea was really rough) and I brought some home. Worked on car sickness.
Anyhow, I'm fresh out of ideas... hopefully one of these work for you
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