I think it does Tea,
I mean, I don't think SCD or Makers is the "cure all" miracle they both claim to be, but like you pointed out, it does improve things..
I think what happens, is alot of people "try" a diet change for a couple of weeks, don't see much improvement, and stop the diet saying "oh it doesn't work for me", when really there saying "it didn't work for me because I couldn't handle the cravings" which to me sounds more like it
Any kind of diet modification, rather its SCD, Makers, or something else, is going to take "years" to notice a difference, there is no magical diet cure for crohns just as there is no medical cure, but diet is just like medicine, in that, it does help...
even my surgeon says in his medical documentation, that Crohns IS a bacterial inbalance, which throws off the immune system causing inflammation, and the only way a bacterial inbalance can occur, is with Food allergies so to speak. bacterial overgrowth is what they call it... Many factors cause this, not everyone in the world has it because the allergic reactions are inherited, but everyone in this world has some kind of bacterial inbalance, but some can handle it and some can't, I like to think of it as an allergy.. Some people can put it in complete remission with a combination of a bacteria-starving diet, like SCD and makers, along with probiotics to balance out the bacteria levels to normal, but others have a more difficult time with it (like me for instance) I still have crohns badly even after combinations of antibiotics, probiotics, and bacterial starving diets, but I don't believe I got it from heredity either, I have relatives who have it, but they didn't develop it until their late 60's, so why am I the only one who got it so young? I didn't know until about a year ago when I read about late Rubella manifestations, now I know why I got it so young, because of the Rubella I got at birth that also took my eyesight, crohns just happens to be a late bloomer of that, so no matter what I do I'll have crohns the rest of my life, but I still use diet to minimize the symtoms, so I don't have to loose my intestines, or suffer thru years of flaires that aren't quite as bad as they could be if I didn't decide to do this...
actually how i think of diet, it prevents those sufferers who get frequent flaireups to not get those flaires anymoore.. thats the biggest improvement I've noticed anyway.. Sure, I still have inflammation, Fistulas, so on and so forth, but I don't have diarrhea anymoore, I've had perfectly normal stools for the past 3 years, probably more normal now then before I found out I had crohns... and I've gained weight back... I now weigh 172 lbs, which is ALOT better then the 129 I once weighed 3 years ago when my crohns kept spreading all over the place
and I'm a 6'2 single male, 129 is not normal at all for a guy that tall, but I'm happy with 172, so for me I think it has worked, but at the same time, I understand alot of people are not ready to give up their chocolate just yet, I understand that it was hard for me too
but after a couple of years on this, I realized, what foods we are addicted to is just like quitting smoking, sure its hard at first, but once you do you start to realize how bad the "tar" smell really is.. same with food, I can smell a French fry a mile away, and it smells like fried dog poop to me now, can't even stand to be in the same room with someone eating fast food because it smells so awful to me now, but I still have the cravings, but the smell alone keeps me away.. instead now, I get cravings for broccoli, cauliflour, carrots, fruit, etc like a woman would get a craving for chocolate. hehe What we eat is all habit, nothing more..
but for me, the thought of being without a colon, a rectum, or complete lost of control and having to wear adult diapers the rest of my life when I'm only 35 years old, scares me more then living without chocolate