Eat Your Broccoli

This article makes the claim that broccoli and plantain have compounds that prevent e. coli from moving in the intestinal cells. E. coli is a known instigator of Crohn's disease.

WedMD Article on Broccoli

Zac Bush and Restore

We tried Restore, and every member who tried it had challenging die-off reactions, and were never able to take this product enough to produce any good results.

Dr. Gundry's Prebiothrive: Can Prebiotics Selectively Feed Only Your Good Flora?

Things have changed in the world since GAPS and SCD diets came out. Now the big buzz is to eat enough prebiotic foods in order to feed your own good flora and become healthier. But what if you have dysbiosis and are overwhelmed with bad bacteria?

Well, I had heard reports that PHGG, a form of guar gum, could help Crohn's disease,by selectively feeding gram positive bacteria like bifidobacterium. Good Gut Solution at Crohns.net has a new product called Perfect Pass Prebiotic that they claim will help. And recently I tried Plant Paradox Diet from Dr. Gundry, and I noticed he has a fiber product that included guar gum. Dr. Gundry claims it would resolve leaky gut.

So I decided to do a Prebiothrive trial this summer, about a month ago. I started out with 1/4 teaspoon. Normal dosage looks like about a tablespoon or something. Prebiotics actually usually give me no die-off reactions, but this one did.

About 3 weeks into it I started having colon issues: diarrhea, nausea, dehydration, and also body pain, headache and joint pain.

My issue with this product is that I can't know what the prebiotic fiber is really feeding, and I cannot take the risk that it is feeding something that is bothering me or is actually more core problem. So I'm done with this product for now.

GUNDRY MD PREBIOTHRIVE: 5 FIBER-RICH PREBIOTIC INGREDIENTS

1Acacia Gum

Acacia Gum is one of the most fiber-dense prebiotic ingredients on the planet.1

2Agave Inulin

Agave inulin comes from the blue agave plant and is an excellent source of dietary fiber. Fiber-rich agave inulin tastes sweet…while having minimal impact on blood sugar levels.2

3Flaxseed

Flaxseed is one of the great prebiotic foods readily available. It’s a great source of fiber and omega-3 fatty acids to help with heart health. It also has antioxidant properties to help protect against free radicals.3

4Galacto-oligosaccharides

Galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) are a group of carbohydrates that are used to improve bowel function. These prebiotics can improve mineral absorption and support your immune system.4 Some prebiotic foods rich in GOS are beans and lentils–but due to their high lectin content, it’s advisable to get GOS from the best prebiotic supplement available.

5Guar Gum

Guar gum is a fibrous substance made from guar beans. Guar gum can increase fiber content in some foods and help maintain regular bowel movements.5

Metagenics SPM Active: What a Pain in the Gut

Late this spring, I was experimenting with a new supplement called Metagenics SPM Active. My understanding is that this is a partition of fish oil that helps resolve inflammation in the body. The idea is that the body produces substances to reduce and resolve inflammation when it is no longer needed, but with long term illnesses, the body cannot keep up with the need for these substances, and inflammation becomes chronic, like in autoimmune disorders.

So this product is actually supplying a needed nutrient that the body is lacking if it is in that state. Sounds great, right? How could that cause die-off or detoxification reactions?

Well, I started out at a high dose, thinking that it could only make me feel better, not worse, right? After a few weeks of it I had a little bit of increased symptoms, so I backed down to one third the dose. But then toward the end of May, I started having incredibly bad stomach pain, so bad I thought sure I needed to go to the hospital. I stopped taking the product. These events would last several hours, or a whole day, and then be gone. But then I would also have other signs of die-off/detoxification like body pain and digestive symptoms. This went on for the next three months, gradually lessening over time.

I even went to see my gastroenterologist to make sure that I didn't have gallstones and to get her thoughts on the situation. She diagnosed gastritis, after an ultrasound showed no stones, and prescribed an acid blocking medicine. I have not taken this.

High Dose Thiamine Can Help Treat Fatigue in IBD?

I came across this article that mentioned that high dose thiamine supplementation can help the fatigue associated with IBD and fibromyalgia:

http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=18187

https://www.prohealth.com/library/high-dose-thiamine-improves-fibromyalgia-symptoms-31178

I tried taking three 500 mg. capsules three times a day for a few weeks but I did not notice an improvement in my levels of fatigue.

I also thought it might not be good to take just an isolated B vitamin by itself, that it might cause a deficiency of other B vitamins.

Boron Detox

After being told through the BioMeridian that I was low in boron, I began supplementing boron at 12 mg. a day. After a couple weeks, I experienced an optical migraine that started out as a small blind spot in my vision that gradually grew after several minutes and expanded in an arc with bright black and white jagged edges. I also had increased nausea and diarrhea. I later read that die-off or detox is common, as it is potent at killing candida.

Here is a great overview of why boron is important:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712861/

I was mainly interested in arthritis aspects, as I have a lot of arthritis that travels from joint to joint that is common in Crohn's disease.

After the reaction, I cut back to just one milligram per day and will work slowly up to two milligrams per day. I have not had any reactions since then.

http://www.health-science-spirit.com/borax.htm

This article shows the alternative medicine usage of boron and description of Herxheimer reactions.

8/15/18 update: I am now able to take 1-2 mg. a day with no increased reactions.

Naturopath's Order of Operations for Gut Healing

Our naturopath recently responded to a question about prebiotics:

1. You mentioned taking prebiotics. Are these now considered safe for SIBO and IBS and will not grow bad bacteria? Are they selective in feeding only good bacteria and not gram negative bacteria? Recommended brands?

Step 1 is getting "bad" gut bugs under control. For this, I recommend the EPF oil. 

Step 2 is getting the "good" guys to grow and this requires a healthy gut wall and some prebiotics. I like Fumaric and Fulvic acids for this - both are in the Kona Gold mineral supplement. I also like arabinogalactins found in GlutAloeMine. I don't usully see patients getting better without this. However, I do agree there is a correct order of operations.

I cannot do Step 1 because my detoxification pathways are blocked, and it causes me to have too much reaction when taking a bacterial killer. So I have decide to use diet to minimize bad gut flora, continue going up on probiotics, which moves out bad bacteria, and then also try Kona Gold again for the fulvic acid in it. This is a product I took years ago and did not seem to react to much.

Restore (https://shop.restore4life.com/) has humic and fulvic acids in it, but it causes too much reaction for me to tolerate. 

I will also try arabinogalactins.

Blocked Detoxification Pathways - Blockade on the Path to Healing

Uni and I have both been told that our detoxification pathways are blocked, after visiting naturopaths. Our symptoms are that we are not able to tolerate various methods of healing, whether herbal antibiotics such as oregano oil, or detoxification protocols such as chlorella, citrus pectin, and things that remove heavy metals. Uni is much less sensitive than I am. For me, this is my greatest blockade toward healing, and it keeps me from being able to do so many things that I know would help me get well.

Our naturopath recently addressed this concern with the following:

Regular bowel movements, dry skin brushing, breath practice - slow, long, deep, focused breaths for 10-20 min daily, lots of water and urinating, plenty of minerals, rebounder and sweating regularly 

I think we need to do as much as possible that isn't supplements to get your excretion pathways open!! 

Binders are the next step and chlorella and charcoal are the gentlest binders. Others to consider are spirulina, citrus pectin and clay which I believe you are on.  

Uni and I both know that we have liver stones, since they have come out at various times in response to added oils in the diet and candibactin. So we have considered doing the liver/gallbladder flush that involves 1/2 cup olive oil, grapefruit juice, and espson salt. In response to questions about liver flushes our naturopath says:

Are liver flushes (olive oil/citrus) recommended? Do you have a recommended protocol? Dangerous in any way? We both know we have liver stones.

I don't think these work overly well. I think a better idea is using herbs to dissolve stones over time. 

 

Human Para Foundation: Test and Treat MAP to Cure Crohn's Disease

This article recently appeared in my inbox from Human Para Foundation:

https://humanpara.org/2017-Philly-Oken/

The fascinating videos on this page describe a case study of a woman with some Crohn's features to her disease who was successfully tested for MAP and treated for it with a cocktail of antibiotics. The first video describes the study, and the second video is the question and answer session that followed.

Also on this page is the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CELZLY2X9c

In this video, a man testifies that he was cured of severe Crohn's through antibiotic anti-MAP drugs. It also says that there is a doctor in New Mexico that treats Crohn's with anti-MAP drugs.

There is also now a test that is claimed to detect MAP:

https://www.otakaropathways.co.nz/product/order-your-test/

It is $250, and you must get your blood drawn locally and have them send it to the lab, which is in New Zealand. The test is also not FDA approved.

Should we do this? I do not know.

Colonoscopy Without Sedation

The following is a post I made about my experience of having a colonoscopy without sedation on the IBDSupportFoundation online community website.

Hi, Anyone ever had a colonoscopy while awake? What are the considerations [...]

Posted by @rochel in IBDSF Online Community

Hi,
Anyone ever had a colonoscopy while awake? What are the considerations for doing so and how did it go?
I am being scoped soon and plan to try to do so while awake. I hate being put to sleep. It is very traumatic for me, probably due in part to post traumatic stress from a previous incident.
Any tips for getting through the procedure while awake are welcome.
Would be interested in hearing if anyone knows how sensitive the scope is. I am told I am not allowed to move, but how fussy are they about that? My goodness, we move even just by breathing! And talking! Any of that allowed?

Posted by @motherfish

Yes. I did it.

I did it for very similar reasons. I was traumatized by having general anesthesia for an operation and not being able to wake up well. I also did it because cumulative anesthesia events are a risk factor for dementia.

So how was it for me? Well....I thought it was pretty hard to do. I could do it again, but it was a thing to get through. It is uncomfortable, although not extremely painful, at least for me. It is naturally highly invasive, and that is the most negative aspect to it. It just feels really weird and crampy. The worst part was getting through to the ileum area and getting biopsies there, but that was critical to my diagnosis. I don't remember being told not to move.

I also tried doing the endoscopy (upper scope) at a later time without anesthesia. That did not work at all. That was really awful and I had to be put out for that! The gag reflex! I wouldn't try that again without anesthesia.

So I would say that if you are determined to do it and feel strongly about it, you can get through it, but it is kinda hard, and kinda long for so much hard. But it is possible to get through.

BTW, I am a woman and I consider myself sensitive and squeamish, but very determined. So that's how I got through it.

Also, I made sure my hospital used the kind of cleaning method talked about on mercola.com for cleaning the endocopes. And one more thing. I did not use the colon prep stuff they recommend. It is toxic, and I just used milk of magnesia and electrolytes. I also cut way down on eating for several days beforehand. I got no comments on how my colon wasn't cleaned out enough.

NAET and Crohn's Disease: Can Allergy Elimination Help?

When I first heard about Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET) I laughed at the ridiculousness of it. But the person telling me about it was Dr. Nelson, of the Center for Advanced Medicine, in Encinitas, CA, and I actually had a great deal of respect for this man. So I decided to give it a try.

The idea behind NAET is that if you balance your body energetically in the presence of an allergen, that your body developes an acceptance of it. This is accomplished with acupuncture or acupressure, and the patient holds small vials of water that have the "energy signature" of a substance.

I have been around for quite some time, but this was a new paradigm to me, the idea that there was an "energetic" side to me, that is unseen on the body, but has meridians that have very specific pathways throughout the body.

After "clearing" to the first couple of "mixes", I tried the vitamin C mix. This clearing caused me to have dizziness, light flashes, nausea, and most disturbingly, angioedema, which frightened me enough to go to the emergency room.

Now I knew there was something real to this. And in my typical steely determination, I was going to conquer this and move ahead in my health. I went on to try the calcium mix. This caused a week long bought of illness, but in the end overcame an allergy to milk! I was hooked!

Then I tried the sugar mix. This time, immediately after being treated, I began to get very ill. I was so ill that I couldn't drive home from the appointment for three hours. I went on to have a week long period where I was extremely ill, as ill as I have been with a bad flu. I also had angioedema then too, just not as bad. Toward the end of the week, my blood pressure spiked very high and my heart hurt, and I almost went to the emergency room. But it got better.

After that, I continued to have feelings of hand tingling and throat closing, constantly for months, then only when I was sick. It has been ten years now, and I basically have never recovered from it. I even visited Dr. Nambudripad up in Buena Park, but she could not help me recover.

So...I do not really like NAET. It is tremendously powerful, and it taught me the power of the energy system of the body. It is not a silly parlor trick. My experience though is not typical. Most people do not have this much trouble!

Can NAET help Crohn's disease? I would definitely recommend other therapies first, over NAET. For one thing, many food allergies and sensitivities can be resolved by resolving leaky gut using such things as Restore, Enteragam or probiotics. I would recommend trying NAET after you have done everything else, and there is a pesky food allergy you want to get rid of.