A
alex036
Guest
I wanted to write about my experiences with the SCD (specific carbohydrate diet) diet, and how it completely cured my rectal fistulas, and put my crohn’s in complete remission . I want other people who may be contemplating this diet to know that it really and truelly does work. All you need to do is dedicate yourself to following it 100%, and you will see results. You do not need to be a slave to drugs. There is hope and you can take your life back from this dreaded curse called crohn's. It is as simple as just changing your diet. I am living proof.
I am a 35 year old female and all my problems started back in April 2007 when , at age 32, I started having bouts of watery and explosive diarrhea, and when not diarrhea, I was having BMs with a lot of white mucus and blood in them. At first I thought that may be I had picked up some parasites from traveling to South America, so I went and I had a number of different tests, but nothing was found. I then thought that may be it was a food allergy, so I tried eliminating different foods like diary, gluten, etc, but that didn’t seem to help either. No matter what I did, the diarrhea just continued to get worst, to the point where I was going to the bathroom 3 to 4 times a day. I also was starting to get abdominal pains .
Then in August of 2007, I started to develop two large and extremely painful external abscesses (fistulas) around the anus. I was in so much pain from these abscesses (fistulas), that I went to the ER to find some help. A colon-rectal surgeon took me into surgery and lanced the abscesses (fistulas) so they would drain. He also installed ctons to keep them open. While I was in surgery, he also did a colonoscopy to check to see what was causing the diarrhea. The colonoscopy showed severe inflammation in the first 8cm of the colon, and also in the small intestine where it meets the colon. This was later finally diagnosed as cronh’s and i was recommended to a GI.
Prior to going to the GI, I had done a lot of research on my own and I had found a lot of negative aspects and possible side affects to taking the drugs a GI will give you to control crohn's, drugs like pentasa and 6mp. Therefore, I was very hesitant about taking those drugs.
Also during my research, I came across a book called “Breaking the Vicious Cycle”. In this book, the author had put her daughter’s crohn’s in complete permanent remission simply by changing her diet to a low carb diet. I also found a lot of other information about how other people also controlled their crohn’s and put it in remission by using this special low carb diet. Being that I did not want to become a slave to drugs the rest of my life, I told the GI that I would like to pass on taking the 6mp and pentasa for now because of the possible side effects, and I would like to start on the SCD diet and give this a chance. He told me that this diet is not a proven method to control crohns and he can not recommend it officially, but over the years he has seen other people try it and have good success, so he said give it a try and if it does not work for you, you can always fall back on the drugs.
About a week after my surgery in Sept 2007, I totally committed myself to following the SCD diet to the absolute letter without any exceptions. I read that for this diet to work, you have to follow it 100% without any exceptions. If you only pick and choose parts of the diet to follow and you don’t commit to following it 100%, then you are just wasting your time, and the diet will not work for you. Therefore, I decided to make a complete life style change to see if this diet would really work for me and put my crohns in remission.
First thing I did was to buy a yogurt maker and started making all my own yogurt. One of the main theories behind the SCD diet is that you are trying to starve out the bad bacteria and yeast that has built up in your intestines from years of eating foods high in sugars and carbs by depriving them of the sugars they feed on. You do this by eliminating the carbs and processed foods from your diet. You also want to repopulate your gut with the good bacteria which you do by eating natural home made yogurt.
In order to starve out the bad bacteria and yeast from my intestines, I eliminated all milk and diary products from my diet, as well as all pasta, bread, whole grains, rice, potatoes, flour, sugar, starch, and any foods that contained chemicals or sugar.. I also eliminated all processed foods like sandwich meats, hotdogs, and all soda, etc. I stopped going out to eat at fast food restaurants and also stopped eating pizza. I started baking all my own cakes, cookies, pizza and bread using such ingredients as almond flour, honey and farmer’s cheese. When I did go to a restaurant, I made sure I went to a restaurant where I could get broiled fish. I followed the diet in the book to absolute letter without exceptions.
Because I was having diarrhea, I immediately started out on a special bland SCD diet that was in the book “Breaking the Vicious Cycle”. This special diet is used to get the diarrhea under control. It took about 4 weeks on this bland diet, but eventually my BMs became more firmer, and the abdominal pain stopped.
After my diarrhea had completely stopped and my BMs were somewhat back to normal in both form and texture, I started eating more solid foods that were allowed in the diet. Even though my BMs were now somewhat normal in form, I was still having a lot of white mucus and some blood in them, but nothing like before. Thank god there was no more diarrhea.
I continued following the SCD diet to the absolute letter without any cheating, and after about 4 months on the diet, my BMs were once again completely 100% back to normal. The white mucus and the blood had completely disappeared. The other thing that I was noticing was that my rectal fistulas were also starting to heal. The skin was actually starting to close up around the ctons, and the draining had completely stopped.
After 8 months on the diet, one of my two rectal fistulas had healed up so much, that the surgeon decided to remove the cton because the cton was keeping the fistula from healing up completely. The surgeon was so amazed at my progress that he asked me what drugs I was taking, and when I said I was not taking any drugs and only following the SCD diet. The surgeon said “ that is fantastic, and just keep doing what you are doing because it looks like it is working.”
The surgeon then went on to say that over the years he has had other patients that also healed their fistulas and put their crohns in remission with this SCD diet . He said that officially he can not recommend this diet because the SCD diet is not recognized by the medical community, but off the books, he suggests it to his patients as an alternative they could try. He said that one of the reasons the vast majority of people don’t have good success with the diet is because they just don’t have the will power or motivation to change thier bad eating habits and to follow the diet without exception as my I had done.. He said that in his few patients that did have the motivation and determination to follow it a 100%, they also had had great success.
After one year on the diet, the surgeon finally removed my last remaining cton so the last fistula could heal up and close. He also did another colonoscopy on me and he found absolutely no inflammation where there had been a lot a year ago. The only signs of crohns that he did see was a some scar tissue where the inflammation and fistulas had been, but other than that, the doc said I looked like a normal person without crohn’s.
It has now been almost two years since my diagnosis, and I have not had one reoccurrence of the fistulas, and no more symptoms of crohns like diarrhea or abdominal pains. I am still following the SCD diet but not quite as strict as before. Now I will occasionally eat a dinner roll or some bread when we goes out to dinner, or sometimes I eat a sub at subway, but other than that, I still follow the diet to the letter.
After being on the diet for so long, I really don’t have any more desires for things like pasta, soda, potatoes, pizza, fast foods, etc. My husband doesn’t have crohns, but he also greatly benefited from this diet too because his overall cholesterol went from 220 to 160 and his triglycerides went from 320 to 70 from being on that diet with me.
Everyday that goes by, I thank god for giving me the will power to start and stick with this SCD diet. I also thank god that I am not a slave to drugs. I hope by reading about my s success with this diet, it will give others here some motivation to may be try it.. You have nothing to loose and all to gain. If anything, just do some research on the internet about the SCD diet and become informed, it could change your life like it did for me.
I am a 35 year old female and all my problems started back in April 2007 when , at age 32, I started having bouts of watery and explosive diarrhea, and when not diarrhea, I was having BMs with a lot of white mucus and blood in them. At first I thought that may be I had picked up some parasites from traveling to South America, so I went and I had a number of different tests, but nothing was found. I then thought that may be it was a food allergy, so I tried eliminating different foods like diary, gluten, etc, but that didn’t seem to help either. No matter what I did, the diarrhea just continued to get worst, to the point where I was going to the bathroom 3 to 4 times a day. I also was starting to get abdominal pains .
Then in August of 2007, I started to develop two large and extremely painful external abscesses (fistulas) around the anus. I was in so much pain from these abscesses (fistulas), that I went to the ER to find some help. A colon-rectal surgeon took me into surgery and lanced the abscesses (fistulas) so they would drain. He also installed ctons to keep them open. While I was in surgery, he also did a colonoscopy to check to see what was causing the diarrhea. The colonoscopy showed severe inflammation in the first 8cm of the colon, and also in the small intestine where it meets the colon. This was later finally diagnosed as cronh’s and i was recommended to a GI.
Prior to going to the GI, I had done a lot of research on my own and I had found a lot of negative aspects and possible side affects to taking the drugs a GI will give you to control crohn's, drugs like pentasa and 6mp. Therefore, I was very hesitant about taking those drugs.
Also during my research, I came across a book called “Breaking the Vicious Cycle”. In this book, the author had put her daughter’s crohn’s in complete permanent remission simply by changing her diet to a low carb diet. I also found a lot of other information about how other people also controlled their crohn’s and put it in remission by using this special low carb diet. Being that I did not want to become a slave to drugs the rest of my life, I told the GI that I would like to pass on taking the 6mp and pentasa for now because of the possible side effects, and I would like to start on the SCD diet and give this a chance. He told me that this diet is not a proven method to control crohns and he can not recommend it officially, but over the years he has seen other people try it and have good success, so he said give it a try and if it does not work for you, you can always fall back on the drugs.
About a week after my surgery in Sept 2007, I totally committed myself to following the SCD diet to the absolute letter without any exceptions. I read that for this diet to work, you have to follow it 100% without any exceptions. If you only pick and choose parts of the diet to follow and you don’t commit to following it 100%, then you are just wasting your time, and the diet will not work for you. Therefore, I decided to make a complete life style change to see if this diet would really work for me and put my crohns in remission.
First thing I did was to buy a yogurt maker and started making all my own yogurt. One of the main theories behind the SCD diet is that you are trying to starve out the bad bacteria and yeast that has built up in your intestines from years of eating foods high in sugars and carbs by depriving them of the sugars they feed on. You do this by eliminating the carbs and processed foods from your diet. You also want to repopulate your gut with the good bacteria which you do by eating natural home made yogurt.
In order to starve out the bad bacteria and yeast from my intestines, I eliminated all milk and diary products from my diet, as well as all pasta, bread, whole grains, rice, potatoes, flour, sugar, starch, and any foods that contained chemicals or sugar.. I also eliminated all processed foods like sandwich meats, hotdogs, and all soda, etc. I stopped going out to eat at fast food restaurants and also stopped eating pizza. I started baking all my own cakes, cookies, pizza and bread using such ingredients as almond flour, honey and farmer’s cheese. When I did go to a restaurant, I made sure I went to a restaurant where I could get broiled fish. I followed the diet in the book to absolute letter without exceptions.
Because I was having diarrhea, I immediately started out on a special bland SCD diet that was in the book “Breaking the Vicious Cycle”. This special diet is used to get the diarrhea under control. It took about 4 weeks on this bland diet, but eventually my BMs became more firmer, and the abdominal pain stopped.
After my diarrhea had completely stopped and my BMs were somewhat back to normal in both form and texture, I started eating more solid foods that were allowed in the diet. Even though my BMs were now somewhat normal in form, I was still having a lot of white mucus and some blood in them, but nothing like before. Thank god there was no more diarrhea.
I continued following the SCD diet to the absolute letter without any cheating, and after about 4 months on the diet, my BMs were once again completely 100% back to normal. The white mucus and the blood had completely disappeared. The other thing that I was noticing was that my rectal fistulas were also starting to heal. The skin was actually starting to close up around the ctons, and the draining had completely stopped.
After 8 months on the diet, one of my two rectal fistulas had healed up so much, that the surgeon decided to remove the cton because the cton was keeping the fistula from healing up completely. The surgeon was so amazed at my progress that he asked me what drugs I was taking, and when I said I was not taking any drugs and only following the SCD diet. The surgeon said “ that is fantastic, and just keep doing what you are doing because it looks like it is working.”
The surgeon then went on to say that over the years he has had other patients that also healed their fistulas and put their crohns in remission with this SCD diet . He said that officially he can not recommend this diet because the SCD diet is not recognized by the medical community, but off the books, he suggests it to his patients as an alternative they could try. He said that one of the reasons the vast majority of people don’t have good success with the diet is because they just don’t have the will power or motivation to change thier bad eating habits and to follow the diet without exception as my I had done.. He said that in his few patients that did have the motivation and determination to follow it a 100%, they also had had great success.
After one year on the diet, the surgeon finally removed my last remaining cton so the last fistula could heal up and close. He also did another colonoscopy on me and he found absolutely no inflammation where there had been a lot a year ago. The only signs of crohns that he did see was a some scar tissue where the inflammation and fistulas had been, but other than that, the doc said I looked like a normal person without crohn’s.
It has now been almost two years since my diagnosis, and I have not had one reoccurrence of the fistulas, and no more symptoms of crohns like diarrhea or abdominal pains. I am still following the SCD diet but not quite as strict as before. Now I will occasionally eat a dinner roll or some bread when we goes out to dinner, or sometimes I eat a sub at subway, but other than that, I still follow the diet to the letter.
After being on the diet for so long, I really don’t have any more desires for things like pasta, soda, potatoes, pizza, fast foods, etc. My husband doesn’t have crohns, but he also greatly benefited from this diet too because his overall cholesterol went from 220 to 160 and his triglycerides went from 320 to 70 from being on that diet with me.
Everyday that goes by, I thank god for giving me the will power to start and stick with this SCD diet. I also thank god that I am not a slave to drugs. I hope by reading about my s success with this diet, it will give others here some motivation to may be try it.. You have nothing to loose and all to gain. If anything, just do some research on the internet about the SCD diet and become informed, it could change your life like it did for me.