Does this happen to anyone else?

[croney]

does this happen to anyone else?

Hi so during my crohn's flare ups i lost a tone of wait i know thats normal (for a crohn's flare up) but now that im in remission im inexplicably much fatter than I was before crohn's im not sure if my medicine has made me gain wait or if I started eating more once i was in remission to compensate for having no appetite whatsoever when I was in flare up. Im just knida confused because im now fatter than ive ever been in my life I htought crohn's made you lose wait not gain it. anyone else experience this?

 

[Rebecca85]

Yes, this happened to me too. Although I'm not fat, but my BMI was around 21 pre Crohn's, it went up as high as 24.9 (25 would be overweight). My theory is that my body was trying to compensate for when I was ill, by laying fat stores down. Also I had got into bad habits, as a low res diet isn't exactly healthy, and I had got used to eating as much junk as I wanted without gaining weight.

 

[ameslouise]

Hi Croney - What meds are you currently on?

Also, now that you are in remission and presumably able to eat better than you have in a while, it's natural to pack on the pounds. I agree with Rebecca, too, that the way we tend to eat to keep ourselves from flaring, ie low res diet, can really pack on the pounds too.

- Amy

 

[Lee]

A low-residue diet will make you pack on the lbs. I'm maintaining my weight because I only followed the low residue diet for a couple of days. I went back to eating fish and spinach (low carb)----even eating peanuts again and every Friday I splurge and eat lots of carbs. I'm only like 5 lbs under weight for my height as far as Wii is concerned but I'm still in the "normal" range.

 

[tiloah]

I think this experience is more common than people recognize. There is a long list of things that make people with our condition gain weight:

Prednisone
Low residue diet (or the types of food we are able to eat being "low density" "empty calories")
Exhaustion (lack of/inability to exercise)
Our bodies know we're sick, so they keep the calories they can get when they get 'em
After a flare and not being able to eat, many of us "binge" when we can eat again
Among others.

My theory is that the reason people lose weight with this condition is because they don't eat (because eating causes awful symptoms, like pain). Not the condition itself necessarily, but the way people respond to it.

I really think the medical community does a disservice to people with our disease by telling us weight loss is a major symptom. It confuses the medical community (they think if you're not underweight you don't have it), and I think it makes people with our disease feel even *more* guilty for not being thin because it should be "easy" with this disease, right? There have been a lot of people asking about this on this forum, which I think is a real testament to the fact that you can be incredibly sick with this disease but not look like it.