I am 21 and I was diagnosed at 16. I had a terminal ileum resection when i was 16 and that put me in remission for 4 years. Then last year i got a sinus infection and i was given antibiotics, and i got sick again. This time I decided to try experimenting with diet, and after a year and 3 months from when i was given the antibiotics that threw me off, I have been able to wean off all medication in favor of diet and supplements. but I don't think it's always about NO this and NO that. For example, I love ice cream, so I will have some frozen yogurt with very low sugar content sometimes. Above all, it's about maintaining a balance that makes you happy instead of restricting yourself to a certain lifestyle of rules that someone else has made for you. For me, the bottom line was replenishing my system with probiotics.
Ways I get probiotics besides by taking pills or powders: yogurt, kimchee, miso, raw sauerkraut, any fermented vegetable that is raw and refrigerated, kombucha
Also, I found this list of "prebiotics" found in common foods that help create a favorable environment for probiotics to survive in. (of course, if you are sensitive to any of these, don't eat them! but as you start to feel better, it's nice to know that enjoyable things like alcohol or grains aren't ALWAYS prohibited.)--
asparagus, bananas, barley, beans, beer (microbrews), berries, tomatoes, cherries, dark chocolate, eggplant, garlic, herbs (fresh), jerusalem artichokes, leeks, oats, onions, peanuts, peas, red wine, soybeans, tea, whole rye, whole wheat
It seems counterintuitive because the whole thing about the low carb diet prohibits a lot of the above foods. But I think maybe what happens is that these types of foods feed bacteria, and if your body is populated with bad bacteria, the bad ones will get first dibs at these foods, but if you're giving your body a lot of probiotics, the good bacteria also feed off certain specific alcohols and grains (in moderation of course).
What I did was follow the yeast syndrome diet and take anti fungal supplements plus probiotics for a while, then once i started to feel more energy (after 2.5 months of it, more or less "by the book" with just a few cheats), i encorporated low sugar fruits, and lately I've just started to have bananas + berries and a few grains here and there. I'm scared it's going to go out of control again, though. Once you incorporate a food back in, you get so excited about it and it's so easy to mess up...
I've read a lot of people's stories with their bacterial imbalance problems, but having crohn's on top of it makes it all the more complicated to get in control.
I realize this is not the way that is going to help every person but i thought I'd put in my 2 cents because I have a similar story to Arkade, and she is taking so long to tell us the story! ha ha.
Also, (to BWS) I used to use the word cure a lot, and I see why you don't like it. i haven't used it at all lately because I have begun to realize I'm going to be dealing with this crap for a long time. I go back and forth between telling myself i'm on my way to a cure and saying to myself that i'm diseased. One might be more accurate than the other, but either way, the word cure makes me feel a lot of hope, and so i don't think it's altogether a 'bad' idea.