Day 6 - Crohn's Flare-up...

Well, yesterday started out okay... but by the afternoon, I was experiencing the familiar lower right abdominal pain...

I have mild Crohn's Disease, which was diagnosed last year with a colonoscopy. I have two inflamed areas near my ileum, which is what's causing the pain. I've been several months without significant discomfort (little episodes here and there), but yesterday what pretty bad, which was why I didn't blog last night... I was lying in bed with a hot pack on my stomach.

I think what triggered it was, ironically, raw foods. You see, the SAD diet, devoid of fiber, doesn't irritate your intestines because there's nothing to scrape against the walls of your digestive tract. I think I flared up yesterday because I've been cleaning out my intestinal tract this week, and the fiber is too irritating to the areas in my ileum that are ulcerated.

Yesterday, I had 2 quarts of green smoothie with a lot of fiber, particularly from the kale. I started feeling ill about mid-afternoon, when the fiber started to pass through my system. I tried having a young coconut (water and meat) thinking that would be mild, but the pain increased. I even tried a few bites of cooked sweet potato, but it tasted awful to me, so I didn't eat it.

Last year, after my initial diagnosis, I had ordered David Klein's "Self-Healing Colitis and Crohn's," which is basically a raw foods approach to healing this condition. His book recommends basically a fructarian diet to heal your intestines. In the healing phase of his program, raw veggies, some fruits (like citrus and other acid fruits), nuts, and fats are avoided, and you eat mostly sweet fruits with some juices and steamed veggies, if desired. I thought that because I hadn't been experiencing a lot of pain for the past several months that I could skip this and just go directly on to an unrestricted raw foods diet. My body told me otherwise.

So, this means for now, no green smoothies, no salads - just fruits (no peels) and juices and lightly steamed squash or sweet potatoes. I'm going to try to just do the fruits and juices and avoid the steamed veggies, unless I really need to. I will do the healing phase of his program for at least another week, and will then probably start the healing juice phase over a weekend, as I need to rest while I do this. The juices obviously put no stress on the digestive tract at all and can accelerate healing.

David healed himself from ulcerative colitis and has helped a lot of people heal their colitis and Crohn's too. He has an impressive list of testimonials from doctors as well that his program works, so I'm going to go for it. Luckily, I love fruit!

I am probably going to call him for a consult, as I have some questions about when I can add green smoothies and other blended foods back into my diet. Meanwhile, I'll continue to make the green smoothies for my youngest son who has autism, because he loves them, and they are the only greens he gets in his diet, due to his rigidity around trying certain foods.

So, this will be my path for a while. Luckily, the solution is still raw foods, and I will obviously lose weight, but I would not have chosen something so restrictive to start, but I have to heal my gut for fear it will turn into something worse.

My food for yesterday:

Breakfast: green tea, 1 banana

Mid-morning: 2 quarts of green smoothie (oranges, bananas, several leaves of kale, bee pollen, coconut butter)

Early afternoon: 1 1/2 apple

Mid-afternoon: Cherry cashew Pure bar

Dinner: young Thai coconut, water and "meat"

a few bites of cooked sweet potato (because at this point, I was willing to try anything)

Evening: Sleepytime Wellness tea with honey

So far, my pain is less today, but all I have had is water and a few apples (peeled). I'm willing to do whatever it takes to heal, so it's going to be an interesting several months ahead...