Has anyone had medications reverse extreme dietary intolerances?

[InstantCoffee]

I've been off meds for several years now because they just straight up stopped working (remicade, humira, prednizone) and I've had to carefully manipulate my diet to avoid symptoms, but I've cut away so much.

I'm just worried meds won't really fix that either. Has anyone actually seen a dramatic change, like going from gluten intolerance to being able to eat it from medications other than humira /remicade?

I'm pretty jaded at this point about going back on drugs with all the side effects and stuff when they just straight up stopped doing anything for me. I'd like to be more optimistic that they might do something positive.

 

[ronroush7]

Make sure a doctor is monitoring your situation. There could be damage happening inside of you that you are not aware of.

 

[InstantCoffee]

Make sure a doctor is monitoring your situation. There could be damage happening inside of you that you are not aware of.

Well aware of that, cannot afford $3000 to verify though, so unfortunately that's a risk I just have to take and assume that, yes, damage is definitely happening, and I'm probably screwed, thanks US healthcare.

 

[ronroush7]

I am so sorry.

 

[Lady Organic]

Im just about to go for a food intolerance test with a naturopath, buts thats really expensive too unfortunately. I have tried so much manipulating my diet and nothing has proven efficacy so far.
In terms of medication, I see you haven't tried methotrexate and purinethol. Not so expensive medication. Maybe something to try? It is not because Aza is a failure that Purinethol will be. I had success with Purinethol and failure with Imuran. I just heard the same story from a CD patient a few days ago.
Wishing you well.

 

[InstantCoffee]

Im just about to go for a food intolerance test with a naturopath, buts thats really expensive too unfortunately. I have tried so much manipulating my diet and nothing has proven efficacy so far.
In terms of medication, I see you haven't tried methotrexate and purinethol. Not so expensive medication. Maybe something to try? It is not because Aza is a failure that Purinethol will be. I had success with Purinethol and failure with Imuran. I just heard the same story from a CD patient a few days ago.
Wishing you well.

The side effects on these is so off-putting =/

I'm gonna push for LDN and my cannabis card to try CBD oil as my go to when I see my doctors.

Idk if I 'failed' aza so much as I started on aza, remicade and prednizone to get my symptoms under control when first diagnosed because of my extreme condition and they dialed back to a single therapy.

I don't recall if I've been on aza again since 2004 or so.

I just don't have confidence in these anti-inflammatories to treat the bacterial problems causing food intolerance.

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

I just saw this thread and was also going to suggest LDN. I've been on LDN for a few months and have seen some improvement in my symptoms. It's not a perfect med for me but it definitely is helping (I'm still having issues getting off of pred but I'm doing better than I was a few months ago). LDN isn't too pricey - my insurance doesn't cover it, but even so it's only about $40 per month. The medication itself is very cheap, most of that cost is just to have it compounded. If you can compound it yourself then it would be even cheaper - I've read that you can dissolve a 50 mg tablet in a jug of water and then do some math and measuring to get 4.5 mg of naltrexone per cup of water and that would give you just slightly more than a 10 day supply of LDN. I'm not sure how advisable that is, though, and I prefer to just have my local compounding pharmacy do that part for me.

I definitely feel for you about the cost of healthcare in this country. It's a really terrible system that punishes us for being sick. I'm still paying off my multiple ER visits and my hospitalization from when this flare started last July, only about $2000 more to go. Ugh.

 

[Magnolia24]

I don't know about medication reversing food intolerances, however I have had the experience of starting SCD from the intro diet in a state where it felt like just about everything made me feel sick...gave myself time to heal, and slowly added things back in, got to a point where I was able to eat raw fruits and veggies, nuts, and some dairy products which I couldn't have eaten when I began.
I was on prednisone and Imuran at the time.
I recently had a flare after 3 years of feeling good...So I'm back to just a little past square 1, but hoping I can repeat a similar process.
I think it's a matter of giving your gut the chance to heal the inflammation (which for me has meant meds - recently did a round of pred, now on pentasa), while also simplifying diet to starve overgrown bacteria populations (which for me was SCD intro), then more variety of food can be reintroduced. But I think the food that can be reintroduced is food that was difficult to digest because of inflammation not because of an actual food sensitivity like many of us have with gluten, etc.
What is your diet like now?
Are you taking probiotics or any supplements?

 

[InstantCoffee]

I don't know about medication reversing food intolerances, however I have had the experience of starting SCD from the intro diet in a state where it felt like just about everything made me feel sick...gave myself time to heal, and slowly added things back in, got to a point where I was able to eat raw fruits and veggies, nuts, and some dairy products which I couldn't have eaten when I began.
I was on prednisone and Imuran at the time.
I recently had a flare after 3 years of feeling good...So I'm back to just a little past square 1, but hoping I can repeat a similar process.
I think it's a matter of giving your gut the chance to heal the inflammation (which for me has meant meds - recently did a round of pred, now on pentasa), while also simplifying diet to starve overgrown bacteria populations (which for me was SCD intro), then more variety of food can be reintroduced. But I think the food that can be reintroduced is food that was difficult to digest because of inflammation not because of an actual food sensitivity like many of us have with gluten, etc.
What is your diet like now?
Are you taking probiotics or any supplements?

I've gone through these steps but there are foods I can never re-introduce like gluten, high fructose corn syrup, canola oil, apples, spices etc.

No matter how much I recover or how stable I get these will always trigger a flare.

I'm wondering if it's even possible to reverse these with standard crohn's treatments or we're screwed until they can approach it from a bacterial standpoint (i.e. FMT or treating MAP).

I've never heard of anyone really reversing extreme trigger foods, just sensitivities to hard to digest food.

 

[Magnolia24]

I've never heard of anyone really reversing extreme trigger foods, just sensitivities to hard to digest food.

Yep that's what I was getting at.

Allowing the digestive tract to heal makes it better able to digest a variety of foods, but doesn't cure food sensitivities.
I've just accepted that gluten for sure, and a few other foods are not part of my life any more.

 

[ronroush7]

I, right now, don't feel safe going back to foods that have gluten, dairy or caffeine especially.

 

[Tuff]

I have had food allergies for 30 years, diagnosed by allergy testing and elimination diets. After going on Remicade and Azathioprine, I can now eat eggs without getting sick. I wonder if it's happened to anyone else. I used to get severe pain after eating even a little egg. There are a few things that I still can't eat, like chocolate or coffee, or too much fat. But it's hit and miss, sometimes its ok, next time it makes me sick. Overall, my diet is much better with my meds.

 

[Bufford]

I found Tumeric curcuma helps to improve my symptoms, as I have found that the treatments do fail or wear out with time and the side effects in many cases become too much for me. I have had better success with diet and using herbals and supplements.