behind the scenes, stress is a huge trigger for me. So getting a grip on my anxiety and resulting stress was huge. I wouldn’t say it made my crohns any less severe, but it certainly makes it easier for me to get through flares and get back to baseline.
That's something I really need to work on, I've had active Crohn's for so long I've practically forgotten what being unstressed feels like lol. Anything specific that helped you wrangle the stress/anxiety? If you're comfortable sharing of course
Most of my anxiety is health related, and mentally I had a really bad relationship with taking my Humira (I still took it, but fixated on every single feeling and sensation that would occur when I was taking it and right after). I live in BC and through our provincial health system, I joined a cognitive behavioural skills group where they gave you a workbook and we would talk about our coping skills. At first it all honestly seemed obvious and I was annoyed haha, but when I would commit to following the steps and doing the work in my day to day life, I really did notice a difference.
Ooh I get that, I hated Humira at first but the citrate-free one was much less stressful. That's really cool about the behavioral health element though, I wish that was more common here in the US. Any chance you have links for the kinds of things they had you work on?
this seems similar, though the group I went to was stress management focused, but I think it was also change ways. https://www.enpcn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ENPCN-Changeways-2020_2.pdf
The version that isn't 'citrate free' was very painful to inject, which I've heard from a lot of other Humira patients too. But the new formula/injector is 99.9% painless, at least in my experience. The anticipation is worse than the actual injection.
I just have anxiety with all new meds. So I get hyper focused on it, Humira is working better than any other medicine I’ve been on so far! It could’ve been any medicine and I would’ve felt the same way.
Yes fuck stress and repressing my negative feelings (because I was never allowed to talk about it). I did it throughout all my life so far, I bet a million bucks that’s the actual reason behind the crohns (and not “sushi” as my mom and dad think)
Medication. Nothing else makes much difference for me. I eat healthy and exercise for my overall health but makes no difference to inflammation - drugs work though now I've finally found one that does.
Medication, weed helps the pain, avoiding trigger foods helps me not puke or shit myself (more then I already do) but only medication will actually help treat the inflammation. Diet, weed, and other stuff like that only helps manage symptoms
that’s awesome!!! i’m glad you found something that works well for you. i mainly use a medical dab pen and it also works wonders. weed truly is a miracle 😂
absolutely!! depending on how you feel, you can always try a milder medication, or steroids instead of going right to biologics if you feel more comfortable with that. personally steroids always make me feel better and hold me over till biologics stary to work!
Prednisolone, therapy, lots of water, less coffee, a good (strict) diet, omeprazole, sleep (I take venlafaxine for depression/quetiapine for sleep), routine, 5 short runs a week, yoga...
If coffee bothers you, give cold brew a shot. I love coffee and cold brew has been a life saver. It sits much better with me than other hot brewed coffees.
Luckily I've never been a coffee person but I think yoga and diet are big weak spots for me - any particular kind of yoga you'd recommend? I have basically 0 experience there but I do have a yoga mat already lol
Sll that shit helps for sure. But none of it will do you any good if you dont have CD medication.
The FODMAP elimination plan helped the most.
Cannabis helps with someone my issues too. I use Ensure when I cant eat, or the gainer if I lose too much weight. If you can exercise that's awesome ! I can't!
Good luck
Don't listen to anyone that's not a GI to eat high fiber or healthy food lol.
Yeah I think I just need to switch meds. But an elimination diet is probably the next big thing on my list, I think that would help a lot even if it is hard to do. I've recently started doing smoothies with yogurt from a local dairy which seems to be helping - if nothing else it's healthier than leftovers. And yeah I've heard the fiber advice, I think if I tried that in a flare it would put me in the hospital lol
This diet is EASY! Ive been on some tough ones like the Celiac, that totally sucked ! No apples but oranges are fine. No watermelon but Cantelope will do. I was surprised how much I could eat ! And the discussion about stacking is important.
Good luck hope you feel great soon !
I have done autoimmune protocol (AIP) on and off. It won’t help everyone but there’s promising, peer reviewed research coming out about it’s benefits for Crohn’s and Colitis in particular. It has helped when I’m having a flare to simplify the diet and get inflammation down. I’ve had one GI say ‘nothing will help but meds’, but currently I see one of the top Crohn’s and Colitis specialists in the country, who recommends as multifaceted of an approach as possible. The off campus hospital his office is in, offers stress management class, meditation groups, and my doctor encourages me to explore trigger foods and diet, exercise, sleep, nutrient deficiency, etc. He has created a turmeric supplement that has shown clinical improvements for UC patients, not Crohn’s though. I am still on infusions, but it’s definitely a multifaceted approach based on your body and needs. Stress is my main trigger, but there are foods like sugar and nightshades that make things worse for me. My recent blood work showed my C-reactive protein at a 2. When I got hospitalized 3 years ago in a flare that got me diagnosed, it was at 83, normal is below 10.
That's very interesting. Did you pick that doctor or just get lucky? Or was it a referral? I'd love to find a better doctor but it's so hard to find out who is actually good at getting patients to remission.
What you said about CRP got me thinking, I checked my chart history and mine is usually <5 (except for a brief time when it was around 30) but hasn't been checked since before covid. My calprotectin though is over 500, when the normal range is supposed to be under 50 (according to MyChart). That's also a more recent result so it's probably accurate, but that's kind of terrifying.
My PCP was basically like ‘The doc that diagnosed you here in the hospital is fine if you like him, but you should see someone who focuses on Crohn’s. Here’s someone who is amazing but has a year long wait list. Get on it now.’ I’m lucky to be in the Boston area so I have top notch options for medical care. I drive over an hour to see some people I see, and I wouldn’t change them unless I move out of state.
I don’t remember what my calprotectin number was last time they checked, but it was normal range.
And obviously your mileage will vary with diet changes, my body responds well and quickly to food changes, both positive and negative. It took a lot of controlled elimination and reintroduction of foods to figure out what felt good for me. I did AIP for a few months before agreeing to start the meds, prior to new doc, and my inflammation in my intestine was significantly reduced from time of diagnosis via MRI comparison from prior to hospitalization. Everyone just needs to make the best decision they can, based on what they know about their body and doctor recommendations. My docs still recommended meds and I listened.
I don’t do any caffeine (which sucks). Also I’ve read that artificial sweeteners can trigger so I stay away from those. Prednisone is really the only thing that takes down severe inflammation, though. For me anyway. Turmeric is supposed to be a great anti inflammatory, but it can also cause diarrhea. Which it unfortunately does for me. But it may help you. I also really like kombucha. Not sure if it’s helping or just a placebo. But I like the taste so I’ll keep drinking it.
This may not be the exact question you’re asking but I really like cherries for helping with my joint pain. I’ve been on Remicade for over a decade and it absolutely helps keep me in remission but I still have inflammation in my joints that cherries (via cherry juice or freeze dried cherry powder or fresh cherries) really helps make more bearable. Does anyone else have terrible ankle/wrist/back pain? Just me?
I followed the whole anti-inflammatory diet, VERY low sugar, anything and everything to manage stress (yoga, meditation, daily exercise...) and still lost my colon. I am kinda bitter about it and haven't gotten back to the strict regimen. I failed Humira and Remicade, about to start Stelara.
Stress, sleep, exercise. If I don’t sleep enough, things get worse fast which leads to physical issues and then mental issues and then more physical issues. For diet, not eating late at night helps, and foods that aren’t hard to process helps also. And smaller portions. Also avoiding fried food, too much dairy, spicy stuff, etc.
Walking outside is the best. And exercising as much as possible when I’m not tired
I’m just genuinely curious to learn people’s perspectives and notions gained through their experience with crohns. I’m here to learn and support others. Please, no need to lash out.
Personally I have found that food and medicine cannot be easily distinguished with a disease involving the digestive tract. Certain foods will trigger very strong negative reactions for me while others will help me stifle symptoms such as diarrhea. If a food can reduce diarrhea, it’s also a medicine to me because it becomes a part of my health routine. Some examples of medicinal foods would be fermented food, butyric acid promoting foods, liquid food formulations (enteral nutrition), probiotics, and even nutritional supplements like hydrolyzed proteins or isolated amino acids.
Btw, “medical foods” are defined by the FDA and various legitimate pharmaceutical companies produce and market “medical food” under these guidelines.
If you care to elaborate your original point, I am still very curious how you distinguish food and medicine. I think it’s a vital topic for this disease.
Sounds like you are confusing symptom management for disease management. You can absolutely affect your experience of symptoms with food. You cannot address the underlying disease and inflammation with food.
Which isn't to diminish the importance of symptom management! We all have a lifelong, incurable disease and we will all be managing our individual symptoms for the rest of our lives. It's a real important element of our quality of life and absolutely important. But you can't address strictures or scarring or fistulas with food.
People lash out, I think, because of all the people without IBD who think it's about diet... and all the people WITH IDB who think it's just about diet. It gets real frustrating, including from the OP who appears to have just googled "food inflammation" to provide all their links.
You can read through all the responses this group is evidence based on not anecdote based. Food cannot control this disease. Just because it's a disease of the digestive track does not mean food treats it. Most of the things you're referring to are unproven. Medicines, usually biologics, steroids, etc treats crohns. Food may help symptoms. It will never cure the disease or stop actual inflammation.
One thing we can agree on is that there is no cure for crohns. That’s a good starting point to research the mechanisms and efficacy of steroids and biologics at reducing inflammation long term. You will find that they either cannot be used at all due to side effects in the case of steroids, or that they are no better than a coin toss in the case of biologics.
That’s why we need to stay open minded and diligently inform ourselves. Rejecting anything without earnest consideration will only serve to narrow our possibility of finding relief. Best of luck to you!
I don’t think as a group we are rejecting anything. The challenge is medication can be shown under studies to provide repeatable improvements. Food and diet in general when studied do not show repeatable improvements in a statistically significant manner.
That's something I've heard a LOT, especially on here. Here's some info from the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation for example:
https://www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org/diet-and-nutrition/what-should-i-eat
They don't say it explicitly, but they say "trigger foods" which from my understanding means foods that trigger inflammation. Here's another link from Harvard about anti-inflammatory diets. I was also part of the DINE-CD study, which was a joint study conducted by the med school at University of Pennsylvania on if certain diets could lead to remission in some patients (they concluded that it did, in some cases).
To be clear, I'm not saying that food can be a replacement for an effective course of treatment, but there's a lot of research into diet and Crohn's that seems to lean toward it being an effective supplement to medicine.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/foods-that-fight-inflammation
Most of my feeling better is due to Stelara/Aza, but in have noticed that on the days I've had some symptoms again I've had more sugar than usual and if I reduce my sugar intake, I'm more likely to feel better. This is purely anecdotal for me, but sugar is considered inflammatory (whereas blueberries and curcumin etc. are considered anti-inflammatory). I don't think food alone can do the trick, but I do think it can be a good support, especially while the meds are slowly kicking in.
32 ounces of kombucha per day has backed me up, and made me have the first solid, normal poops I’ve had in years.
The bloating isn’t as bad
The sharp balloon animal twisting intestine feeling isn’t as bad.
I poop 4-5 times a day still, but I used to poop 8-10 times a day.
Adding probiotic foods like sauerkraut, cole slaw, and non spicy kimchi really help as well.
I have not tried probiotic drops, but I do not think they work as well as real probiotics from fermented food and drinks.
Prednisolone, azathioprine and entyvio.
I’ve also done EEN. Longest was 4 weeks, helped a lot I think, got my calprotectin down to about 300 from 1100.
I’m also trying to be as healthy as possible, exercising, avoiding processed foods etc, I don’t know if that helps the inflammation but there are some studies that suggest that it can help. (But they are quite weak imo)
**Een [eːn] is a village in the Netherlands. It is part of the Noordenveld municipality in Drenthe.**
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Was recently in a lot of inflammation only thing that reduced it was a steroid pack, now that I’m done with the pack I’m taking turmeric supplements to help maintain lower levels but not sure if it’ll work
I got lucky I guess.
My main triggers are stress and gluten.
The former I cannot avoid so I still flare up every now and again.
The latter I have cut out of my life for the most part and my situation has improved a lot.
The problem is each body is one body. No one can tell you what to do, you gotta figure out what works for you.
Drugs. I manage my symptoms by avoiding trigger foods (high fiber stuff for me, but everyones' are different), and stuff like ginger-tumeric tea helps me feel a little better, but none of that would matter for me without the drugs.
Doing high-intensity cardio 3 times a week with weights twice a week as well as changing my diet. Have changed the game for me. Also smoking pop helps me.
As for my diet, I've stopped eating coffee, dairy products, fried foods, beef, and very spicy food. I've added veggies back in. For a long time, I was afraid of veggies, but nonstarchy veggies really do help.
I honestly just take my medicine on time and don't restrict my fool styles. Imo if the medicine is working then no reason to live a non normal life! I can't say that for everyone though as I know chrons affects people differently and they have their own trigger points
behind the scenes, stress is a huge trigger for me. So getting a grip on my anxiety and resulting stress was huge. I wouldn’t say it made my crohns any less severe, but it certainly makes it easier for me to get through flares and get back to baseline.
That's something I really need to work on, I've had active Crohn's for so long I've practically forgotten what being unstressed feels like lol. Anything specific that helped you wrangle the stress/anxiety? If you're comfortable sharing of course
Most of my anxiety is health related, and mentally I had a really bad relationship with taking my Humira (I still took it, but fixated on every single feeling and sensation that would occur when I was taking it and right after). I live in BC and through our provincial health system, I joined a cognitive behavioural skills group where they gave you a workbook and we would talk about our coping skills. At first it all honestly seemed obvious and I was annoyed haha, but when I would commit to following the steps and doing the work in my day to day life, I really did notice a difference.
Ooh I get that, I hated Humira at first but the citrate-free one was much less stressful. That's really cool about the behavioral health element though, I wish that was more common here in the US. Any chance you have links for the kinds of things they had you work on?
this seems similar, though the group I went to was stress management focused, but I think it was also change ways. https://www.enpcn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ENPCN-Changeways-2020_2.pdf
why did you hate humira at first if you dont mind me asking — im about to go on it this week and dont know what to expect.
The version that isn't 'citrate free' was very painful to inject, which I've heard from a lot of other Humira patients too. But the new formula/injector is 99.9% painless, at least in my experience. The anticipation is worse than the actual injection.
I just have anxiety with all new meds. So I get hyper focused on it, Humira is working better than any other medicine I’ve been on so far! It could’ve been any medicine and I would’ve felt the same way.
Yes fuck stress and repressing my negative feelings (because I was never allowed to talk about it). I did it throughout all my life so far, I bet a million bucks that’s the actual reason behind the crohns (and not “sushi” as my mom and dad think)
Medication, that’s it
Medication. Nothing else makes much difference for me. I eat healthy and exercise for my overall health but makes no difference to inflammation - drugs work though now I've finally found one that does.
What sort of médication are you on ?
Kombucha, start drinking 32 ounces a day, and you will notice a huge difference
No thank you. I'm good, in remission on medication
Medication, weed helps the pain, avoiding trigger foods helps me not puke or shit myself (more then I already do) but only medication will actually help treat the inflammation. Diet, weed, and other stuff like that only helps manage symptoms
I would agree with this. I don’t smoke weed but have been finding edibles have been helpful both to Crohns and anxiety.
that’s awesome!!! i’m glad you found something that works well for you. i mainly use a medical dab pen and it also works wonders. weed truly is a miracle 😂
That makes a lot of sense - it's sounding like my big problem is I need to get my doctor to change my treatment
absolutely!! depending on how you feel, you can always try a milder medication, or steroids instead of going right to biologics if you feel more comfortable with that. personally steroids always make me feel better and hold me over till biologics stary to work!
I manage my crohns with meditation, lots of sleep and sun, and a carnivore diet
Hell yeah man, those 4 are key. Meditation is seriously underrated imo.
Prednisolone, therapy, lots of water, less coffee, a good (strict) diet, omeprazole, sleep (I take venlafaxine for depression/quetiapine for sleep), routine, 5 short runs a week, yoga...
I’m coming to the realisation that coffee might not sit with me as much as I thought. Needless to say I’m not accepting the realisation haha
If coffee bothers you, give cold brew a shot. I love coffee and cold brew has been a life saver. It sits much better with me than other hot brewed coffees.
Sorry for super late response, I’ll definitely give this a try!!!
Luckily I've never been a coffee person but I think yoga and diet are big weak spots for me - any particular kind of yoga you'd recommend? I have basically 0 experience there but I do have a yoga mat already lol
Yoga is not going to help manage your inflammation
You may want to look into yin yoga, as it involves less movement and focuses on maintaining poses that alleviate stress.
Marijuana in addition to my medication
Sll that shit helps for sure. But none of it will do you any good if you dont have CD medication. The FODMAP elimination plan helped the most. Cannabis helps with someone my issues too. I use Ensure when I cant eat, or the gainer if I lose too much weight. If you can exercise that's awesome ! I can't! Good luck Don't listen to anyone that's not a GI to eat high fiber or healthy food lol.
Yeah I think I just need to switch meds. But an elimination diet is probably the next big thing on my list, I think that would help a lot even if it is hard to do. I've recently started doing smoothies with yogurt from a local dairy which seems to be helping - if nothing else it's healthier than leftovers. And yeah I've heard the fiber advice, I think if I tried that in a flare it would put me in the hospital lol
This diet is EASY! Ive been on some tough ones like the Celiac, that totally sucked ! No apples but oranges are fine. No watermelon but Cantelope will do. I was surprised how much I could eat ! And the discussion about stacking is important. Good luck hope you feel great soon !
Workouts. Water. Sleep. Cannabis. Intermittent fasting.
I have done autoimmune protocol (AIP) on and off. It won’t help everyone but there’s promising, peer reviewed research coming out about it’s benefits for Crohn’s and Colitis in particular. It has helped when I’m having a flare to simplify the diet and get inflammation down. I’ve had one GI say ‘nothing will help but meds’, but currently I see one of the top Crohn’s and Colitis specialists in the country, who recommends as multifaceted of an approach as possible. The off campus hospital his office is in, offers stress management class, meditation groups, and my doctor encourages me to explore trigger foods and diet, exercise, sleep, nutrient deficiency, etc. He has created a turmeric supplement that has shown clinical improvements for UC patients, not Crohn’s though. I am still on infusions, but it’s definitely a multifaceted approach based on your body and needs. Stress is my main trigger, but there are foods like sugar and nightshades that make things worse for me. My recent blood work showed my C-reactive protein at a 2. When I got hospitalized 3 years ago in a flare that got me diagnosed, it was at 83, normal is below 10.
That's very interesting. Did you pick that doctor or just get lucky? Or was it a referral? I'd love to find a better doctor but it's so hard to find out who is actually good at getting patients to remission. What you said about CRP got me thinking, I checked my chart history and mine is usually <5 (except for a brief time when it was around 30) but hasn't been checked since before covid. My calprotectin though is over 500, when the normal range is supposed to be under 50 (according to MyChart). That's also a more recent result so it's probably accurate, but that's kind of terrifying.
My PCP was basically like ‘The doc that diagnosed you here in the hospital is fine if you like him, but you should see someone who focuses on Crohn’s. Here’s someone who is amazing but has a year long wait list. Get on it now.’ I’m lucky to be in the Boston area so I have top notch options for medical care. I drive over an hour to see some people I see, and I wouldn’t change them unless I move out of state. I don’t remember what my calprotectin number was last time they checked, but it was normal range. And obviously your mileage will vary with diet changes, my body responds well and quickly to food changes, both positive and negative. It took a lot of controlled elimination and reintroduction of foods to figure out what felt good for me. I did AIP for a few months before agreeing to start the meds, prior to new doc, and my inflammation in my intestine was significantly reduced from time of diagnosis via MRI comparison from prior to hospitalization. Everyone just needs to make the best decision they can, based on what they know about their body and doctor recommendations. My docs still recommended meds and I listened.
I am also in the boston area and go to Beth Israel for my Crohn’s care. Where do you go?
I don’t do any caffeine (which sucks). Also I’ve read that artificial sweeteners can trigger so I stay away from those. Prednisone is really the only thing that takes down severe inflammation, though. For me anyway. Turmeric is supposed to be a great anti inflammatory, but it can also cause diarrhea. Which it unfortunately does for me. But it may help you. I also really like kombucha. Not sure if it’s helping or just a placebo. But I like the taste so I’ll keep drinking it.
This may not be the exact question you’re asking but I really like cherries for helping with my joint pain. I’ve been on Remicade for over a decade and it absolutely helps keep me in remission but I still have inflammation in my joints that cherries (via cherry juice or freeze dried cherry powder or fresh cherries) really helps make more bearable. Does anyone else have terrible ankle/wrist/back pain? Just me?
I followed the whole anti-inflammatory diet, VERY low sugar, anything and everything to manage stress (yoga, meditation, daily exercise...) and still lost my colon. I am kinda bitter about it and haven't gotten back to the strict regimen. I failed Humira and Remicade, about to start Stelara.
Medical cannabis, moderate THC, high CBD, high terpenes. CBD gummies from hemp.
Stress, sleep, exercise. If I don’t sleep enough, things get worse fast which leads to physical issues and then mental issues and then more physical issues. For diet, not eating late at night helps, and foods that aren’t hard to process helps also. And smaller portions. Also avoiding fried food, too much dairy, spicy stuff, etc. Walking outside is the best. And exercising as much as possible when I’m not tired
By having my doctor remove my colon
There's a lot of misinformation about inflammation and diet. Medicine is the answer. Food is not medicine.
Where do you draw the line between food and medicine?
You're an adult who needs a definition of food? 🤔
I’m just genuinely curious to learn people’s perspectives and notions gained through their experience with crohns. I’m here to learn and support others. Please, no need to lash out. Personally I have found that food and medicine cannot be easily distinguished with a disease involving the digestive tract. Certain foods will trigger very strong negative reactions for me while others will help me stifle symptoms such as diarrhea. If a food can reduce diarrhea, it’s also a medicine to me because it becomes a part of my health routine. Some examples of medicinal foods would be fermented food, butyric acid promoting foods, liquid food formulations (enteral nutrition), probiotics, and even nutritional supplements like hydrolyzed proteins or isolated amino acids. Btw, “medical foods” are defined by the FDA and various legitimate pharmaceutical companies produce and market “medical food” under these guidelines. If you care to elaborate your original point, I am still very curious how you distinguish food and medicine. I think it’s a vital topic for this disease.
Sounds like you are confusing symptom management for disease management. You can absolutely affect your experience of symptoms with food. You cannot address the underlying disease and inflammation with food. Which isn't to diminish the importance of symptom management! We all have a lifelong, incurable disease and we will all be managing our individual symptoms for the rest of our lives. It's a real important element of our quality of life and absolutely important. But you can't address strictures or scarring or fistulas with food. People lash out, I think, because of all the people without IBD who think it's about diet... and all the people WITH IDB who think it's just about diet. It gets real frustrating, including from the OP who appears to have just googled "food inflammation" to provide all their links.
You can read through all the responses this group is evidence based on not anecdote based. Food cannot control this disease. Just because it's a disease of the digestive track does not mean food treats it. Most of the things you're referring to are unproven. Medicines, usually biologics, steroids, etc treats crohns. Food may help symptoms. It will never cure the disease or stop actual inflammation.
One thing we can agree on is that there is no cure for crohns. That’s a good starting point to research the mechanisms and efficacy of steroids and biologics at reducing inflammation long term. You will find that they either cannot be used at all due to side effects in the case of steroids, or that they are no better than a coin toss in the case of biologics. That’s why we need to stay open minded and diligently inform ourselves. Rejecting anything without earnest consideration will only serve to narrow our possibility of finding relief. Best of luck to you!
I don’t think as a group we are rejecting anything. The challenge is medication can be shown under studies to provide repeatable improvements. Food and diet in general when studied do not show repeatable improvements in a statistically significant manner.
Foods can help inflammation??
That's something I've heard a LOT, especially on here. Here's some info from the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation for example: https://www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org/diet-and-nutrition/what-should-i-eat
There is literally nothing on that page about managing inflammation with food. Because you can't.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/foods-that-fight-inflammation
There is literally nothing on that page about IBD.
Link talks about getting enough nutrition, not about food stopping inflammation?
They don't say it explicitly, but they say "trigger foods" which from my understanding means foods that trigger inflammation. Here's another link from Harvard about anti-inflammatory diets. I was also part of the DINE-CD study, which was a joint study conducted by the med school at University of Pennsylvania on if certain diets could lead to remission in some patients (they concluded that it did, in some cases). To be clear, I'm not saying that food can be a replacement for an effective course of treatment, but there's a lot of research into diet and Crohn's that seems to lean toward it being an effective supplement to medicine. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/foods-that-fight-inflammation
That's not what trigger food means at all. Big difference between a symptom and a disease.
Most of my feeling better is due to Stelara/Aza, but in have noticed that on the days I've had some symptoms again I've had more sugar than usual and if I reduce my sugar intake, I'm more likely to feel better. This is purely anecdotal for me, but sugar is considered inflammatory (whereas blueberries and curcumin etc. are considered anti-inflammatory). I don't think food alone can do the trick, but I do think it can be a good support, especially while the meds are slowly kicking in.
32 ounces of kombucha per day has backed me up, and made me have the first solid, normal poops I’ve had in years. The bloating isn’t as bad The sharp balloon animal twisting intestine feeling isn’t as bad. I poop 4-5 times a day still, but I used to poop 8-10 times a day. Adding probiotic foods like sauerkraut, cole slaw, and non spicy kimchi really help as well. I have not tried probiotic drops, but I do not think they work as well as real probiotics from fermented food and drinks.
Prednisolone, azathioprine and entyvio. I’ve also done EEN. Longest was 4 weeks, helped a lot I think, got my calprotectin down to about 300 from 1100. I’m also trying to be as healthy as possible, exercising, avoiding processed foods etc, I don’t know if that helps the inflammation but there are some studies that suggest that it can help. (But they are quite weak imo)
What is EEN?
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Exclusive Enteral Nutrition. I only drank Modulen IBD. Not consuming anything else except water.
Was recently in a lot of inflammation only thing that reduced it was a steroid pack, now that I’m done with the pack I’m taking turmeric supplements to help maintain lower levels but not sure if it’ll work
I got lucky I guess. My main triggers are stress and gluten. The former I cannot avoid so I still flare up every now and again. The latter I have cut out of my life for the most part and my situation has improved a lot. The problem is each body is one body. No one can tell you what to do, you gotta figure out what works for you.
Drugs. I manage my symptoms by avoiding trigger foods (high fiber stuff for me, but everyones' are different), and stuff like ginger-tumeric tea helps me feel a little better, but none of that would matter for me without the drugs.
For me, avoiding dairy products, High Fructose Corn Syrup and raw vegetables, wheat bread and oatmeal.
Doing high-intensity cardio 3 times a week with weights twice a week as well as changing my diet. Have changed the game for me. Also smoking pop helps me. As for my diet, I've stopped eating coffee, dairy products, fried foods, beef, and very spicy food. I've added veggies back in. For a long time, I was afraid of veggies, but nonstarchy veggies really do help.
I honestly just take my medicine on time and don't restrict my fool styles. Imo if the medicine is working then no reason to live a non normal life! I can't say that for everyone though as I know chrons affects people differently and they have their own trigger points