Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I was diagnosed with Crohn's last spring after years of discomfort, but I must say, my discomfort thankfully never reached the extreme levels to require hospitalization. I was told my condition was a mild case, but that I would have to take medication for the rest of my life. I experimented with various elimination-type diets while taking the drugs. Nothing seemed to help, and the drugs seemed to aggravate my problems. My doctors (I saw a few) were, like you've described, not inclined towards alternative methods of treatment. After unpleasant experiences with Asacol and then Sulfasalizine, I have been eager to hear what others have to say about their successes with the SCD diet. I am determined to do whatever I can to avoid medication. I have now been on the diet for 3-1/2 weeks, but it has been stressful when I still feel sick even though I'm adhering to the diet 100%. I know I have to give it lots of time, but I worry about the inflammation (and worry about the effects of stress on my condition), and now I'm thinking that perhaps a combination of drug therapy and the SCD diet would be beneficial to me until I am "symptom free." This is scary for me, because I really felt that the drugs made things worse - and after reading so many accounts of similar experiences, I swore that I would never take medication again. Now I'm confused - and with my next doctor's appointment coming up, I know his advice will be to take the drugs again. That's my story (as brief as I could be) - I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on starting out with the drug/diet combination? Thanks for listening! Y Hi Y,
Thanks for writing! I'm so glad you were able to find my site and can get some ideas about the SCD!
From what I have heard, many people do combine medication with the SCD when they are just starting out. I completely understand about wanting to avoid medication - I really hated having to take it myself, and that is why I wanted to try the SCD too. I did keep taking Asacol, (similar to Sulfasalizine) for more than a year, just to be on the safe side. But I tapered the dose down, after checking with my doctor, to just one pill a day (instead of 12!) after several months on the diet. Then I took that one pill a day for a year. I don't think it really did much, but I was scared of getting symptoms back and wanted to make sure everything was healed inside.
The diet eliminates the bacterial problem, which in turn helps your body tissues to heal. That healing process can take some time, though. While it heals you may feel some symptoms for a little while. One idea is that if the medication makes you worse, you could talk to your doctor about a different kind of medication. For example, I have heard that some people don't tolerate Sulfasalizine but do tolerate Asacol, and vice-versa.
When it comes right down to it, though, it's important to remember that you are the one who cares the most about your body and the doctor can't really ethically recommend that you stop taking the medicine that he prescribed for Crohn's. So as you continue on the diet and see that you don't have any more symptoms, you will come to the place where you have to personally decide to stop taking the medicine or to continue it. (If you're taking Prednisone, it needs to be tapered off of very slowly, under a doctors guidance.) For me, I didn't see any reason to continue the Asacol when I didn't have any symptoms left!
I hope this helps! Take care, Erin
_______________________________________________ Wow! What a great resource! Thank you for putting this together for us! I was just diagnosed in November 2009, after 35 years of apparent health. The doc wanted me to go on Entocot and Immuran right away, but I wasn't comfortable with that. A friend told me about BTVC, I bought it, and by the end of the first week after the diagnosis I was on this diet. Almost 4 months later I am still doing well, but have needed new recipes, so your site is just what I need! I feel I CAN make a difference with diet! Quick question....I am seeing a Naturopath and taking supplements. Do you take supplements or do it just with diet?
I look forward to trying out lots of your recipes!
Blessings to you! EJ
Hi EJ,
Thanks for your note! I'm so glad to hear that you've been responding so well to the diet! I'm happy that the website has been such a good resource for you.
The only supplements I take are the SCD legal multivitamin from www.freedavitamins.com, a Vitamin D supplement from Trader Joe's that looks to be totally legal and a natural fish oil capsule made by Kirkland. There can be illegal fillers in a lot of supplements, so you have to watch out for that since the goal is to be 100% on the diet for it to completely work for you.
