Natural Approach of Colitis – 37 Weeks Pregnant

Hi Keek, I have had Crohn’s since about 1990, having one surgery in 2001, currently on Entocort, Lialda, Fish OiI, recently started taking Tumeric, and also inconsistly take L-Glutamine. My doctor wants me to start Remicaid but I am deathly afraid of it. I am so tired of putting poisons into my body. I read all the time about possible approaches to this disease. I am considering the Paleo diet but it would be a huge life change for me. I am afraid of failure but I should at least try. I love to cook, so I can try and make meals interesting I suppose. Have you always eaten very healthy? I don’t think I eat terrible but my job stress is high. And I am tired all the time so preparing meals is not always a joy. Do you eat chicken, or do you consider it red meat? Do you eat organic and GMO-free? How easy was it to switch over to the diet you currently follow? Do you ever slip and eat something you shouldn’t?
I think once I retire that it will be easier to get into remission. Weekends and holidays are easier on my gut than Monday thru Friday. I love my job, but it’s stressful. I work at home as a software engineer.
Best of luck with your upcoming baby! I wish you good health…

i recently started taking slippery elm. I have had good results from taking 2-3 grams of cucurmin/day. I would be concerned about taking the slippery elm while pregnant. Did you check with your OB? Good luck.

Hi Keek
I was diagnosed with UC in December 2006, after a lengthy build up totally missed by doctors despite my pleas for help. Just before my diagnosis I saw a homeopathist, in a last resort attempt to get some help and be listened to. I am still seeing her today, nine years later and I credit her for the state of health I reached.
Following diagnosis I was put on asacol and prednisolone; but also had problems coming off the steroids (again I feel, due to somewhat being let down by the medical system and it trying to fit an individual into a best fit) – this resulted in a relapse ten months later, and ending up back on prednisolone and additionally azathioprine (as well as the asacol).
Throughout all of this time I saw my homeopathist regularly, travelling some distance to get there – but also using email/phone when I couldn’t get to her. Through her unique advice, as well as homeopathic remedies to aid healing, minimise toxic damage from the chemical drugs and to cleanse and rebalance my system; she also provided nutritional advice (foods to avoid,supplements to take) and emotional counselling/coaching. I took slippery elm (which is brilliant), L-glutamine (but started only at the right point in recovery and for a short period of time), probiotics and flaxseed oil. I also looked at every aspect of my life and did a lot of work on ‘me’ – being a worrier and a ‘fixer’ by nature I took a lot of stress on from around me and that all got absorbed and pushed deep down to my solar plexus… I literally probably didn’t digest experiences, emotions properly and I lost my sense of self in worrying about everyone else around me. The irony is not lost on me that I ended up with an illness that quite literally over digested – whizzing food through me and failing to absorb any goodness from it.
As with anything regarding self, looking at and changing life formed habits takes time – it can’t happen overnight and it is hard to see the improvements initially because they take place on such a miniscule scale. But that, I feel, is what leads to healing – in 2010 I had managed to stop all medication (much to the horror – and total lack of interest in learning how I did it, or support – from the medical IBD team), had no symptoms, better bowel movements/health than ever in my life and a much greater, broader appreciation for food. I didn’t have to restrict myself eating anything. To reach that stage, I look back now, I can recognise a sense of being healed in the truest and widest sense of the word – it was totally freeing and I wouldn’t even class myself as just being in remission.
Unfortunately I now find myself currently in the midst of a flare – this came following a traumatic year last year involving two bereavements, redundancy from my job and then losing a much longed for baby through a miscarriage that went a bit awry resulting in hospitalisation and surgery. I was advised to take NSAIDs before, during and after my recovery from the m/c and the following weeks when I battled a subsequent infection and, what was eventually identified as, anaemia. So on top of the NSAIDs I was also on a bout of antibiotics and the medical profession tried to get iron in to me in various forms; all with horrific outcomes – not to mention the anaesthetic and pain relief in hospital. A toxic cocktail and shocking to all aspects of my core. I feel that at a point when I was utterly broken, low from a traumatic time and just wanting someone to fix me, the medical profession failed in connecting the dots and taking account of my previous history of UC or the concurrent issues going on health wise. The NSAIDs caused damage to my stomach (probably not helped by the antibiotics or iron either) and, I believe, the physical stress of dealing with this on top of the emotional stress of the cumulative events, has eventually resulted in inflammation spreading throughout my system.
I know I can heal this and resume a life free of medication – indeed in the last few months I have seen big leaps forward and homeopathy continues to be at the core of my healing. But the emotional and mental stress of last year has taken a toll and I don’t think I knew how to even begin processing it – so, after a nasty stomach bug which has laid me low again, I have recently, reluctantly, resumed asacol to try and give myself some respite. I am proof that mind over matter is possible (as on my first diagnosis, anything other than healing just wasn’t an option) – but I also think perhaps this time has taught me that sometimes we do need that bit of help/we can’t do it all on our own and the impact on our spirit or emotional self needs to be taken into account in determining a way forward. This doesn’t come naturally to me – I feel I need to be actively doing all I can to heal, but I can also feel the impact of this illness has dulled my edges and my resolve is not quite where it should be. I’ve had a taste of the freedom from this disease, and I refuse to accept how I have ended up back here when it’s something I feel very much has been done to me. It wasn’t preceeded by years of unhealthy emotional habits or months of deteriorating health – I had never been healthier when I was admitted to hospital for the m/c, and I came out a very different person in terms of health. It’s this aspect that I am still trying to let go of – which is hard when you have those unpleasant, unpredictable daily reminders of how UC affects your life.
I will continue with the drugs for now, as minimal as I can do – but I do acknowledge now that I do need that help. But homeopathy remains at the core of my beliefs and my treatment, it doesn’t interfere with conventional medicine but supports and soothes. More importantly it treats me as the individual I am, with the symptoms only I present – and as IBD is such a unique experience for each person, interlinked with the individual’s own life experiences, emotions and feelings – something medicine fails to acknowledge or address, so that it doesn’t make sense to me as a route to healing. I already feel extraordinary effects from the asacol – I imagine because I have managed a relatively long time away from these drugs – such as feeling spacey, nausea, burning feeling in stomach. And I know that homeopathy will support and enable me to come off them again in the future, and following that resume and maintain the level of health (on all levels, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) I enjoyed before this episode.
I can’t endorse a natural route enough – I am fortunate my experience has been like a firework in time, compared to the lengthy journeys some people have had with this. But this route does take commitment, an openess to examine oneself, to change and with time and patience; it’s not a quick fix (which the medicines do offer – though it is only a ‘fix’ and not a cure) and it’s probably only on reflection that it’s possible to see the enormous, profound and fundamental healing changes that have taken place.
I am heartwarmed to hear of your pregnancy and I really wish you so well in the remainder of it, the birth of your baby and your new family life. I would wholeheartedly recommend continuing to seek natural ways to manage your, and your family, health – and maybe the best way is to use both worlds to your advantage, accessing the medical world as needed/when required and supporting it with a natural lifestyle, until that supercedes the other.