Your daughter's symptoms sound a lot like my daughter's (age 13). So I'll recap our "story thus far" for you because of that similar presentation. A change in diet has been a remarkable success with her.
This fall, our daughter had fevers and stomach aches and fatigue and weight loss. Pediatrician kept saying it was probably a virus, but I insisted on bloodwork, and that showed pretty much the same things as you described. High inflammation levels in CRP and Sed rate, low protein, low iron, low Vitamin D. Pediatric gastroenterologist suspected Crohn's, to our astonishment. No family history of inflammatory bowel disease.
Endoscopy and colonoscopy and biopsies and MRE confirmed the Crohn's diagnosis despite her not having the kind of severe symptoms such as diarrhea that we thought were the markers of Crohn's.
The doctor started her on Pentasa, no effect noticed. Prednisone helped but did not have the enormous benefit that Malorymug's son experienced (above) and that I had heard about anecdotally elsewhere. Doctor started urging us to start giving her 6MP.
We did a ton of online research, mostly in the medical journals. My husband is a health care researcher by profession, and I know a lot of people, so between us we came across a lot of alternative treatments. Early on, someone told me about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and we bought the book about it, "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" by Elaine Gottshall, but it sounded so goofy, we didn't take it seriously.
We tried a lot of dietary supplements such as turmeric, tart cherry juice, probiotics, cat's claw, wormwood, and some others. Also supplemented with B vitamins, zinc, Vitamin D3, and lactoferrin, because of her anemia and malabsorption. Wheat seemed to be a problem so we cut that out. Somewhere along the line she had a week on an antibiotic called Rifaximin, and that seemed to help, but she was still sick.
We went so far as to fill the 6MP prescription, but couldn't quite bring ourselves to start administering a chemotherapy drug to our daughter without trying one last thing. With no great expectation, but considerable desperation, we started the whole family on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.
It worked.
Our daughter had had a fever essentially every day for four months. Sometimes as high as 103. She had stomach aches and fatigue every day. Weight loss. Facial flushing. No appetite even though she was on 40 mg of Prednisone.
She was better after only one day on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Four days after starting the diet -- no fever, no stomach ache, both completely gone. Tons of energy and appetite. It was like a miracle.
After two weeks, all the inflammatory markers in her bloodwork were back to normal. In fact, low normal. After another month, virtually everything else in her bloodwork was completely normal as well.
She's now been on SCD for three months. We tapered her off the Prednisone and other supplements, and now all she's taking is the Pentasa and zinc and Vitamin D3. (Not sure if the Pentasa is doing anything at all, but we will reassess when it comes time to renew the prescription.) The only aspect that has not resolved is a certain amount of facial flushing, and we have no idea what that is all about.
We spent a week in England over Spring Break, and she was perfectly fine the whole time. Eating was a bit difficult, but we had rented a flat that had a kitchen, and thanks to good restaurant advice from some Paleo blogs, we worked it out OK and stayed meticulously on the diet.
SCD doesn't work this well for everybody, but it does seem to help a lot of people. We have become SCD evangelists, spreading the word that this is something that is worth a try. At the very least, we think doctors should give the information to their newly-diagnosed patients, even while they are waiting for the first appointment or the endoscopy, or for prescription meds to start working. "This diet helps, for many people, and it's very healthy, and if it works for you it will be obvious within a month," they could say.
We know there will be some bumps in the road, that's the nature of this disease. Still, for now she's doing well, and we are continuing to educate ourselves.
There is a lot of information online about SCD, and you should definitely read Gottshall's book. (My husband complained that the science behind the diet is not explained very well, but that's OK.) The story of Elaine Gottshall and her determination to help her young daughter recover from Ulcerative Colitis, is quite inspirational. She then devoted her life to studying how and why the diet works, and spreading the word in order to help others suffering with inflammatory bowel disease.
There have not been any large well-run medical studies yet. Because -- who would pay for it? Not the drug companies! But some studies are in the works, I understand.
All I can say is, it's worth a try. It worked for us.
Don't know if it is psychological, or the treatment worked that quickly, but we'll take it!
