Digestive Enzymes?

Hey guys!
I was wondering if any of you take digestive enzymes for your Crohn's disease? I was considering taking Papaya fruit enzymes? I was hoping that by taking digestive enzymes it would help break down my food so that my body could more easily absorb it, and hopefully help me gain weight. Thoughts? If you don't take papaya enzymes what do you take/recommend?

True digestive enzymes that contribute to breaking down food are rarely used because they taste truly nasty (like vomit I've been told by my sister) and must be taken by mouth. They also cost a fortune and are prescription. She said the OTC stuff like papaya enzymes don't really do anything according to her GI.

I suggest you start drinking Boost or Ensure to supplement your diet and be sure to eat high calorie versions of food like using cream/half and half instead of milk and butter instead of margarine.

Be sure your doctor knows if you have started losing weight.

I am taking DPPIV, just started taking it in July

I tried all kinds of enzymes - the sorts you can buy in healthfood shops, but they made no difference either to my symptoms or my weight. If you're not absorbing food properly, really the only way to help with that is to try to get your disease under control (which of course is often impossible) or try to take in more calories to make up for the loss.

I used Ox bile digestive enzymes for a while. My protein levels in my blood went up a couple of points while using them. That is the only measurable thing they did.

They can help if you have had your gall bladder removed if taken before meals.
Not sure whether papaya helps or not.

Dan

I take Rainbow Light Advanced Enzyme System, and they seem to work pretty well. I haven't experimented with other brands, so can't compare them to anything else. They're really nice because they contain a wide range of enzymes for digesting different types of food, and have extra ingredients such as ginger, peppermint, and turmeric to further improve digestion.

I have just started using digestive enzymes - just this week. I was really bad on Monday - in constant pain and lost count of the BMs, >15. I started taking a basic OTC enzyme called Enzyplex, and today and yesterday I had just one BM and no pain. I kept going to the toilet out of habit...and found there was no reason to be in there. Not sure if this is the silver bullet, but I have to say they work really well.

My regimen of enzymes started on Monday and it has been peculiar. The first 2 days everything was going right through me like a SuperSoaker 5000. Day 3 was better and today was loosely formed.

I started taking Bilex. It has ox bile and pancreatin. Those are animal derived which are supposedly more effective than vegetable based enzymes like betaine-hcl. I went with it after reading up on DrlWilson's article on GB-3: http://drlwilson.com/Articles/gb3.htm He mentions in several other articles that Bilex is another option.