Hello all you crazy Crohnies and other followers of my blog! Happy New Year! I have been plugging away at developing the blog site and managed to link my Facebook page! Proud Gypsy!

Last I left off it was NYE and I was getting ready for my friend coming for a visit from Canada. Of course, as I predicted in my Gypsy crystal ball: there would be some failures this week. I tried my best but I was naughty and cheated a few more times. (I figured what the hell? I already screwed it up over Christmas!) Pizza and rice found their way to my esophagus. So did A LOT of WINE! Woops! However, overall I stuck to the diet. Dry wine is allowed afterall! 😉 StrictureHeal went out the window unfortunately. And you know what? I have suffered for it! As Elaine Gottschall pointed out: the SCD must be fanatically adhered to for it to be effective. I won’t say it’s an “All or None” situation, but it’s damn near. If you think of the diet as an antibiotic treatment, we all know what happens when antibiotics aren’t used as prescribed: RESISTANCE! I hate the idea of harvesting a robust population of bad critters in my gut! Ultimately making it harder and harder to get a handle on it each time I have a failure.

I have been back on the SCD and StrictureHeal for two weeks now and I’m starting to feel well again. I experienced mild Herxheimer reaction (“die-off”) for a second time. This involved gas and diarrhea that burned. Once again, it happened at the one-week mark. I hope I have learned my lesson and my alter ego (who is a little bitch, by the way) will keep out of it next time temptation leads me astray. It is most definitely not worth the set-back for a few moments of pleasure.

I have been delving into some wonderful looking cookbooks, which I ordered through Amazon. I am going to list these books in the references section as I go along. As I try some new and adventurous recipes I will post about them. The first book I will mention is Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, by Raman Prasad. The Forward and Introduction are marvelous and really instill confidence in the diet. The Forward is written by a pediatrician who has cured himself with this diet and has utmost confidence in it as a first-line treatment for Crohn’s disease. The Introduction provides a concise overview of Elaine Gottschall’s research, the science behind the SCD, and a beautiful chart featuring the legal and illegal foods. Although I have not yet tried any recipes from this book, I am very excited to start! I will let you know as soon as I do!

SCD Recipe Book