SCD LEGAL foods

Hello everyone! Very sorry for the delay in writing this post. With the holidays approaching things got really busy!

Before you read this post, I would like you to visit the Alternative Treatments section, and briefly review Stricture Heal Protocol. You might even want to check out Jini Patel Thompson’s website after that www.listentoyourgut.com.

I have some good news regarding my progress. Since my last post, which I believe ended with me complaining of gas bubbling around my stricture, I have improved significantly. In fact I want to share something really interesting. The night after I wrote the last post, I was feeling really bloated and scared that my blockage was getting worse. I laid a hot water bottle against my abdomen in bed and stretched my legs out while rolling from side to side. I heard the classic coffee-pot brewing “glug glug glug” sound (which all of you poor souls with strictures have come to know well) and then a sudden rushing of fluid through my stricture. My abdomen visibly flattened and my discomfort subsided. I believe this represented resolution of the partial obstruction I had been battling since being discharged from the hospital. To put this into perspective, this happened about one week into the diet and Stricture Heal Protocol. I felt amazing the next day.

My take on the first week on the diet and Stricture Heal is that I did suffer from a Herxheimer reaction (or “die-off”). But it did not last longer than one week. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a process of release of toxins and gases from dying bacteria, viruses, and fungi. The SCD effectively starves out these critters and the Stricture Heal Protocol includes several natural antimicrobial/antiviral/antifungal treatments, so they begin to die off at once. I believe combining the SCD and the Stricture Heal Protocol has been very effective for me.

After that rough first week eating only substances that would fit through a straw, I began to expand my diet. I started making omelettes with cheese and veggies, I started boiling baby carrots and other vegetables on the “low residue” list. I ate hard-boiled eggs for lunch with a little bit of cheese and a nice hearty bowl of home-made soup. Then I started having more and more fish for dinner and experimenting with sauces and spices to enhance the flavours. By the end of three weeks I got brave and made some asparagus. I cooked the hell out of it so it was basically falling apart. And I chewed the hell out of it before swallowing too. Side note: chewing is VERY important when you have a stricture! This all went down no problem and my bowel movements have continued to be perfect. I became increasingly more adventurous and made roasted vegetables that were deliberately overcooked. Red peppers, red onions, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, big hunks of portabello mushrooms and lots of garlic cooked in a combo of coconut oil and olive oil (drizzled on the top). Again consciously chewing these veggies to a near-fluid state before swallowing. Successful.

Now for Christmas. OH DEAR. I flew into Toronto, Canada to see my family. Nice cold, white Christmas complete with ice storms and power outages! Hurray! Dorothy is back in Kansas! The first few days I stuck well to my diet (although Stricture Heal went out the window because I simply couldn’t cart all the items in my case)… My mom baked me blueberry muffins and little cookies with almond flour and bought a bunch of gluten-free snacks which I was forced to reject. Gluten-free stuff is NOT SCD-friendly for the most part! Read your labels people! Well then Christmas day came. I drank one too many wines and sunk my face into mashed potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, gravy, and dressing! EPIC FAIL! For the rest of the week I ate whatever I wanted within reason, but essentially went off the diet. I even ate a double chocolate doughnut from Tim Hortons for breakfast on Boxing Day! Naughty Gypsy! I wish I could tell you that this behaviour is acceptable on a periodic basis. But it is NOT. I knew that while I was doing it but I think the holiday spirit and the wine really affected my cerebral cortex and I didn’t seem to care. My intestines knew better. By the end of the week I was bloated and gurgling. Definitely not worth it for the few moments of pleasure eating naughty things.

I have hopped back on board the SCD and Stricture Heal train however, and I’m feeling good. I have vowed to stick to this diet to the very best of my abilities for at least one year but preferably two or more before really experimenting. I am still taking Entocort and Pentasa. I have not gone back for a second Remicade infusion and I have not resumed Imuran. Once I have been on the diet without cheating for 6 months I plan to start tapering my drugs. That is as long as my bowels are behaving themselves during that time.

Today is New Year’s Eve. I am pleased to be ringing in the new year with one of my childhood best friends from my hometown in Canada! Just as with travel, with company comes dietary challenges as you venture out to restaurants and try to entertain. I will follow up on my experiences next week. Wish me luck!

Happy New Year! May 2014 bring good health to your intestinal lining! xx

SCD Bible

One week ago I started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). I also started a Stricture Heal protocol which I will detail in a later post and reference my source for the protocol as well as the products I am currently using. You can read more about these topics in my Alternative Treatments section. This will have content in the upcoming weeks. Please be patient! Things have been extremely busy for this Gypsy!

One month ago I was hospitalized for an acute small bowel obstruction after an incident with a large floret of broccoli. After 48 hours of intense agony and projectile vomiting, I ventured to the ER. This was my second obstruction in the past year. After 3 days with a nasogastric tube, the sorest throat I have ever experienced, and 5 days NPO I was determined to shake this hideous disease from my body… And hopefully without the help of TNF drugs and other potent immunosuppressants. Henceforth I am known as Crohn’s Gypsy. And I am here to guide you through my journey of discoveries, successes, and failures.

As some of you fellow Crohnies might know, the SCD is a diet backed by 50+ years of scientific and medical research. The book Breaking The Vicious Cycle, by Elaine Gottschall will teach you the science behind the diet as well as provide many convincing examples of cases where it has worked. And not just helped but CURED the patient.  This book should go home with every newly diagnosed Crohn’s, Celiacs, or Ulcerative Colitis patient in my humble opinion. However if your experiences with gastroenterologists have been anything like mine, you were probably told “There is no diet. You have to figure it out by trial and error”. Doesn’t it seem like common sense that treating a digestive disease would involve dietary modification?

After painstaking examination of the “legal” and “illegal” foods lists of the SCD, I embarked on this diet trial.  I started by buying organic produce and pureeing soups. Carrot and ginger soup has been good during this past week. I fear I will turn orange if I keep up this intake of carrots. I have also eaten a lot of eggs: hard boiled, scrambled and omelets. Many cheeses are allowed. I have taken advantage of this legal food to help get calories and because I am a cheese swine. Avocados are a good addition to the omelets and will help get some calories in. I invested in a juicer and have been having juices in the mornings with my vitamins and other supplements. I am pescatarian so my protein options are limited. I have eaten cod several nights with soup as a side dish.

After 3 days on this diet, along with the Stricture Heal protocol, I experienced a normal bowel movement. This was not earth-shattering for me, as I have not historically had diarrhea, but my BMs had not been normal since my hospitalization a month ago. I consider this good progress. I have not experienced intense carbohydrate cravings, but I have definitely suffered gas and bloating, as well as brain fog. I am hoping this is all part of a Herxheimer reaction, or “die-off” of pathogens in my gut. Today was particularly bad with a lot of gas and cramping. Gas with no place to go because of this damn stricture. It just loops back and forth under my ribcage. I presume the soup I had yesterday containing roasted peppers contributed to this gas. I eliminated this today and I’m hoping after a good night sleep I might have some relief tomorrow.

I am new to blogging, so if anyone has constructive criticism I’m happy to hear about it. I will post on my progress weekly. I also plan to discuss the supplements I am taking, as well as Stricture Heal, over the next few days. Stay tuned! Be well and keep your guts in your abdominal cavity where they belong.

Lunch in Athens, Greece

This is my very first post to my very first blog. I will be making a lot of adjustments to the site and introducing myself properly in the next few days. So far a lot more challenging than I thought it would be! Welcome to Crohn’s Gypsy. This site will be a place for me to share my experiences in suffering with Crohn’s Disease.  I have done tons of research and plan to share that information with anyone who is interested.  I want to help others by taking them through my own personal journey to healing and wellness.