Diet during flare?

[Whisperings]

Hi everyone,

I have had Crohn's Disease for 10 years and I'm currently in my toughest flare yet. We have bounced from different medications - Remicade, Skyrizi, and now Rinvoq (I'm a week into it). I'm also on Prednisone, and I started to feel a little better so we reduced to 30mg, and now I'm worse again. I foolishly had two slices of pizza last night out of just craving alone, I knew it was a bad idea lol, and it gave me the worst pain and diarrhea throughout the night. This morning I have a fever of 101.7.

I'm curious: Could bad diet choices keep me from achieving remission? Last night was the first time in months that I had greasy food like pizza, but I'm scared it's set me back and messed things up. Can diet choices affect inflammation? I feel like there are varying opinions on that in studies? I know you're supposed to avoid roughage/greasy foods/fried foods etc in a flare, but when I am not flaring I'm used to being able to eat almost anything.

Curious to hear what people think.

 

[kiny]

Generally you should eat a low-residue, low fiber diet. Food that is proximally aborbed, very bioavailable and lowers fecal content.

The easiest way to do this is through the use of EN.

The idea that you can find a "trigger food" or figure out an "elimination diet" is not something that makes much sense. Crohn's disease is likely not an allergic reaction against a food antigen. The immune response in crohn's disease is a drawn out process where pathogens enter tissue, encounter macrophages and APC activated T cells cause deep inflammation. This whole process can take several days. If you eat a piece of pizza and you feel unwell a few hours later, you weren't doing too well before and it's likely not the pizza to blame.