New to this website and want to talk to people that went through what I did

[HR_85]

Hi,

My names Hibi and I was diagnosed with Chrones in February. Last December, I was at work one day and all of a sudden I started throwing up, really badly. I worked in Market Research which was really stressful. I was also going though a rough patch with my boyfriend and started eating loads of crap, smoking and getting really stressed at work. I spent a month hopping between doctors, who gave me all the usual, omeprazole, cyclozine, everything under the sun. None of them would take me seriously. Bloody doctors. Anyway, I was lying in bed for months throwing up bile every morning, got so thin, and couldn't keep anything down. I really thought I was going to die eventually. I went into hospital around the new year, brought along all my letters and prescriptions, and finally, they started doing tests. Over the next month, I had drugs injected in my bum, xray, CT scan, blood tests, you name it, finally had the colonoscopy and endoscopy, and wa diagnosed with chrones. I started with prednisone for 2 months, then was on mercaptopurine for 6 weeks. I finally started to feel better. For a bit. The after a while, the mercaptopurine started taking its toll. I felt drowsy all the time, and had to quit my job. I couldnt stay awake for a full 24 hours. Ive been drug free now for 3 weeks for the first time in 6 months, nothing at all, and controlling the whole thing through diet. Ive done extensive borderline, spychotic research online about this disease and controlling the whole thing through diet. I feel like I am so lucky i can manage this drug free, it wasnt easy. Easily the worst 6 months of my life, my body packed up and I was lying in bed and watching TV for a long time. I so very much want to learn and talk to other people, and let you know about my little secrets that I found help. I haven't spoken to a single person who has this disease, not one. So here I am. I hope I can learn a thing or two, get to know some people, and hopefully I can be of help. I am looking to this as hopefully somewhere I can talk openly about this.

 

[NancyHany]

Hello Hibi,

Welcome to the forum and congratulation on controlling this disease. I used to be a media analyst and before it a marketing manager. I know how stressful it can be and I too had to quit cause I couldn't focus any longer. I'm in the stage where I can't move out of bed currently cause I'm off meds for Crohn's and on meds to control my liver inflammation which the doctor thinks is from the amount of meds I took. I'm really interested to know if you found a way to control it without medications.
People here are awesome and they are very supportive. I hope you are able to control it for a lifetime

 

[LittleChloe]

Hi and Welcome,
I'm sorry you've had such a tough time. Unfortunately your story is a familiar one around here ,so yes, this is the place to come and talk about it and we are glad to have you. I'd love to know your secrets that help and what kind of diet you are doing!

 

[HR_85]

Thanks for the support, im overwhelmed. Well, I guess the first think I did when I was taking time of work, was not worry about going back and try and get rid of the stress. I had a nasty manager who made my life unpleasant and I had to realise that I needed to control my emotions before curing what was in happening in my gut. So learning that being in a state of stress and anxiety for prolonged periods was not doing me any good.

To bring down my blood inflammatory markers while waiting for treatment, all i had was vegetable soup with pearl barley, and no stock - full of MSG. Other key foods included bananas (good for the stomach lining), manuka honey (UMF 10+) which is a natural anti-inflammatory and prohibits the growth of h-pylori - a bacteria commonly found in chrones, and oats. The only meat I had was chicken, boiled or roasted. At the start i couldnt handle any dairy either, so id be careful about dairy, if so, only low fat probiotic is good. I cut out all salt - this aggrevated my ulcers, spices too, and anything fried. All red meats are also very acidic especially beef. Try and have as much greens, and grains - quinoa is good and has lots of amino acids. At first, also stay off all fruit juices and citrus fruits.

I then started reading about uric acid, I just gathered on my own that from all the bile I was producing / vomiting, my body ph was incredibly acidic and I needed to alkalanise this. So i started to research foods which were alkaline and started reading into this philosophy quite carefully. I also have psoriasis which flared up, more than I have ever seen. Then one day it all clicked, It is an auto-immune disease and i have a leaky gut. The more acidic the foods I eat, the more uric acid I am producing. I then realised that the mercaptopurine (immuno-suppresant) which is designed to over-ride anything I eat creates an excessively high amount of uric acid in the body, which made me feel so tired - the equivalent of going into mcdonalds and eating cheeseburgers all day. Because whatever you eat, your stomach will need to work overtime to digest - the more acidic the food, the more uric acid will be released into the blood stream when trying to break down these proteins.

My doctor was very good, but I dont know why he would say to me - here - take this immuno suppresant and you can eat anything. To me thats ludicrous. Being able to eat anything with a digestive problem?

I also have psoriasis, and I find it so ironic that this is what saved my life. It wasnt till I started taking mercaptopurine that my skin got really bad, I read about psoriasis like a maniac to get it under control untill i realised its all connected. So researching this helped too. I have a limited palette now, but im being more creative with what i can have, and realised for the first time in my life - less is definitely more. Here in an idea of what i do and dont eat:

Things I can eat:

Mineral Water with Lemon / Lime
Herbal Tea / Chamomile / oolong / elm tea
Porridge with water
Soya milk (only drink by itself)
Plain low fat probiotic yoghurt
Fruit – Grapes, Cherries, Mangoes, Pears, Apples, Bananas
Veg, Carrots, Celery, Parsley, Spinach, Raw onion, Romaine lettuce, Sweet potatoes, Asparagus, Broccoli, cucumbers, Fennel, Leeks, Courgettes, coriander, artichokes, soybeans, lentils, peas, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, chicory, pumpkin. Beets, turnips, avocados, squash
Meat – Chicken (preferably breast), Lamb, Turkey
Cheese – Only Feta cheese
Fish – Salmon, Sardines, Mackarel, Tuna (no fried fish) - i never buy any tinned stuff any more, only from the fishmonger. Yup - i now know how to cuts off a fish head and not squirm.
Carbs – Brown rice, wholewheat pasta, plain unsalted rice cakes, rye bread (only type of bread i believe is good)
Dairy – Soy milk, almond milk, low fat crème cheese, plain yoghurt, unsalted butter, eggs
Snacks – Almonds, Manuka Honey (normal honey is ok too), natural jams, olives
Lentils
Oils – Olive oil (only olive oil and sesame oil are alkaline, stay away from vegetable oils, it makes a huge difference).
Other – Sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seed oil, sunflower seeds, evening primrose.

Things i cant eat:

Do not mix citrus and dairy; or citrus and wholewheat as this results in a bad reaction.
All white flour products
No fizzy drinks
No Cane sugar
No booze
No White potatoes
No paprika
No Tomatoes
No peppers
No shellfish (lobster, shrimp, clams, oysters, crabs, mussels)
No anchovies
No breaded or buttered fish
No beef or ANY processed meat
Whole milk
NO white bread
No strawberries
No sauces made from tomatoes
Butter
Shellfish
Hot spices
No white rice
No artificial sweeteners
No margarine
No pastry, sweets or cakes
No cabbage

Diuretics: Make sure you try and pass as much urine as possible at first. Parsley and ginger are great blood cleansers.

I also read around digestion times to make sure that I ate small and often, than that when food was going into my stomach, it was relatively free. So I also did some reading around digestion times for different foods. I also read around food combinations - not all foods react well together due to their composition, e.g. citrus and dairy is bad, and citrus and wheat are bad.

If you can handle dairy, one of my favourite things that I have is a milkshake I made up. I would invest if two bits of kitchen equipment also - A blender for making soups, and a cocktail shaker for making milkshakes and smoothies. I have what i cool my 'supershake' every morning. Mix the following into a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously:

2-3 heaped tablespoons of flaxmeal (very high in fibre)
a teaspoon of manuka honey (umf 10+, the higher the better)
2 cups of soy / almond milk
a tablespoon of probiotic yoghurt (I like using vanilla flavoured yoghurt)
4 big ice cubes

Take this on an empty stomach and dont eat anything else for 1-2 hours.

I drink a lot of tea also - lemon and ginger (only have lemon if you can handle it), dandelion and milk thistle are also good, and parsely is a good diuretic too. I have a teapot with a filter in it, so i try and make as many as poss without tea bags - essentially its flavoured water.

Try to stay away from all processed foods. Its hard but once all the toxins are flushed out, you dont want to keep putting it back in. Try to watch your salt intake too.

I hope this helps and ill add anything else I can think off. Pls remember this is only what worked for me and may not work for everyone.

Much love

Hx

 

[carrollco]

Welcome to the forum! What a lot of research you've done. I am impressed!

 

[NancyHany]

Thank you so much, that's so helpful. Funny I too had a horrible manager, he would call me anytime even in the middle of my wedding! As much it's worse financially now as much I'm relieved to be away from this stress!

It's been close to two years now since I had coffee or fizzy drinks. I don't drink anything with sugar and pure juice only no nectar. I don't remember last time I had anything fried. I'm very careful with carbs and I hope to cut them out entirely eventually. Tomatoes and lettuce or anything leafy doesn't work for me. I invested in a small juicer and saving up for a better one. I can't drink black tea ( makes me throw up badly) I only drink green tea with some mint or herbal teas in general.

I will use your tips as by experience the things you said do work on making it easier to digest