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Crohn's Life

This site is my personal experience living with Crohn's Disease and how this chronic illness has changed my life.

Links

The SCD diet

SCD Grocery List

There is more to come!
I have been medication and symptom free for the past three years. I am hoping my experience may help others.

I should first point out that I am not a medical expert, the information I am giving is just based on my own personal experiences.

I feel I have been able to remain in remission from this disease through a very controlled diet. A little over three years ago I bought a book called "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" by Elaine Gottschall. I had the book for several months before I finely took the plunge and radically changed my diet.

I can still remember the exact incident that prompted my to do this. I was on my way, with my boyfriend at the time (now my husband), to see a midnight show of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We had already seen the first two Indiana Jones movies at midnight shows the past two weekends and were looking forward to seeing the last one. However as soon as we got on the freeway the old familiar cramping started and we had to turn around and head back home, missing the movie the only weekend it was playing. Missing the movie of course in the grand scheme of things was not that big of a deal, but this was not the first time that sort of thing had happened. I could remember several car rides where I didn't think I was going to be able to make it to our destination. So it wasn't the first time, but it was the last.

I made up my mind that something had to change, and my diet was really the only thing I had control of.


A little background...
I began to experience severe symptoms of Crohn's Disease in April of 1999. I was 25 years old. I had already been experiencing some mild symptoms in the months before, but they weren't really affecting my life, I thought I might be developing IBS. In April though, severe stomach cramps and vomiting started. It would come and go every few days and after three trips to the emergency room and several trips to the doctor I heard the words Crohn's disease for the first time. I had to switch GI doctors, because the first one I had said I only had ulcers and that every thing that was happening was my fault. My new GI specialists recognized the symptoms of CD right away and put me on Predisone. This was early June. I think it was too late by then because when I tried to ween off the Prednisone in August the symptoms immediately returned and I ended up in the hospital. X-Rays revealed almost total blockage of my small intestine and surgery was scheduled for a few days later.

The surgery went fine, and after four weeks recovery I was back to work. Most of the time I felt fine, but I seemed prone to upset stomachs. I didn't have the pain I had experienced before the surgery so my doctor did not think there was any inflamation. Still the sudden upset stomachs continued. This brings us to where I decided to start the diet.

Though I was told everything would go back to normal, I realized that was really impossible. After all a foot of my small intestine was missing. Also I realized the cause the disease is unknown, so maybe my digestive system is just not normal. Maybe I cannot tolerate just any food that I decide to eat. I particularly wanted to avoid going through any of what I had been through again.

So it was time to do something, to take control of my digestive health (and my life) back. The SCD Diet.