30 yrs old 19yrs with painful crohns. need natural remedy advice

[toddadamm]

Hello all, this is Todd

I have been sufferring since age 11 with crohns and am now 30. the last year and a half has been an excruciating nightmare and I need help. Traditional medicine isnt cutting it and I am extremely interested in the naturopathic approach.
I am taking 500 mg fish oil daily, cheap chewable acidophilis tabs and my normal medical regimen ( immuran). since i had started the fish oil and probiotics, I have been symptom free for roughly 40 days....til yesterday. the inflammation is back and i had to leave work sick...yet again.

please anyone out there i cant go on like this. i know it will take time to get symptom free i just dont know what to take. i see a bazillion things on the web claiming to control crohns whats the best probiotics? does psyllium husk work? what can i do to be myself again?

the pain is excruciating.

 

[Guest]

hey Todd - i replied in your other thread

 

[pb4]

Hi Todd

If you want to try the natural approach, here are the things I've found some success with;

probiotics
bee propolis
omegas 3-6-9
fibre supplements
vitamins A and C-calcium ascorbate
chamomile tea with honey
regular exercise
altering diet, no more junk foods, fast-foods, processed foods, caffiene, animal fats as these are all known to exacerbate symptoms, including msg's, refined sugars, sugar substitutes, artificial sweetners.

I'm either allergic or non-responsive to traditional oral RX so I had no choice but to put my huge skeptisism aside and go this route with the naturals and altering my diet...I have still not reached full remission in doing so (likely because of complications with my perianal crohn's skin tags) but I've gone from going 30+ times/day down to 5 and with no bleeding or lower back pain and I now have fully formed stools.

Keeping in mind, what works for some doesn't work for all and often it's a combination of things rather than just taking one thing that aids...and starting one thing at a time is best so you know what (if anything) it's aiding with.

I started out with taking the bee propolis first (aprox 5ish yrs ago now), with great improvements from that alone, within the next day my 30+daily bm's cut into half the amount, the bleeding stopped and the lower back pain too, it also cut back some of my mucus...then I added the fibre supplements daily as strongly suggested by my GI, that pretty much bulked my stools up, helped completely eliminate the mucus and cut my daily bm's to about 10/day from there, then I added the probiotics and the rest I mentioned above which brought me to where I am now at about 5/day, formed, no bleeding, no excessl mucus, no pain, but remember, diet and exercise has also played a huge role as well (as I mentioned above)...I've had CD for 17 yrs now and about 5ish yrs ago my GI also suspects that I have IBS as well, he also tested me for lactose intolerance which was also confirmed and severely to boot, thank goodness the primadophilus reuteri probiotic that I take aids with that, I no longer have to rely on lactaid products...and just so you know re; the bee propolis, don't take it if you're allergic to bees, but my GI encourages me to continue with it daily and indefinitely because it has helped symptoms so much and he assured me it's 100% non-toxic, so no worries taking it daily and indefinitely, he also said even if it didn't help my symptoms (which it does) that it's still an excellent source of dietary supplementation for IBDers whom don't get all the nutrients via food alone.

Good luck and feel better soon...I know what it's like since in my entire 17 yrs I've never once been in full remission (I do have perianal crohn's skin tag compications which I've been told by a colon/rectom surgeon that I likely never would reach full remission because of). But 5/day beats 30+/day with awful pain, bleeding and consistancy anywhere from D to mush to semi-formed.