10 Month Update

It has been 10 months since my last flare, which started the first two weeks of April 2021. As soon as my flare started, I implemented dietary changes to put myself in remission. Specifically, I started drinking medical meal replacement shakes for half of my calories and eating a whole foods plant based diet for the other half. My intervention was based off of the Crohn’s Disease Exclusion Diet currently being researched by Dr. Arie Levine in Israel. There are a number of meal replacements out there, like Nestle Modulen, formulated specifically for Crohn’s disease. I used Kate Farm’s chocolate nutrition and standard 1.0 shakes (vegan and organic). Perhaps more important than what I did eat is what I DIDN’T eat; I eliminated the foods typically known to cause inflammation or allergic response. So no soy, dairy, wheat, corn, peanuts, and also no meat or animal products.

The first few months were very restricted, but the shakes helped me easily meet my calorie requirement for the day. Most days I ate a smoothie with banana and berries (and sometimes spinach although green smoothies are not my favorite), fresh vegetable juice (beet carrot ginger celery apple), a hot veg soup pureed, and potatoes that had been baked, cooled, and then baked again (tossed in a little olive oil). This was very boring and I nearly went insane.

I noticed major improvement in my energy around 2 months, in mid-June. I started trialing foods to add back in to my diet around that time. Corn and peanuts were no problem. I ate a lot of blended foods, however, and it took a few more weeks for me to be able to tolerate raw vegetables. Soy, dairy and wheat still caused problems. Adding in legumes caused a noticeable change in my guts, but after a couple days it evened out and I was good to go with lentils and beans. Vegetarian refried beans really helped with the transition!

At around 6 months I was eating raw fruit and veg, cooked veg, nuts, corn flour, oats, beans and legumes, all pretty much without incident. But it took until month 10 to really see some BMs that I recognized as absolutely regular 4s. 10 months! I am now also tolerating wheat in limited portions.

It is amazing to me that it took 10 months to heal from a 2 week Crohn’s flare. It is likely that I had underlying and ongoing inflammation from my July 2020 flare that I treated with steroids. But it’s also possible that it just takes the body a REALLY LONG TIME to get it’s shit together.

I think it’s also really important to note that in addition to diet, I made major changes in my work life to reduce stress. I took April and May 2021 off work, then had the summer break, then after about a month of being back at school quit classroom teaching and switched to a remote work from home situation. I don’t want to play around with stress anymore, it’s not worth it for my overall health. I don’t have a permanent work from home situation worked out yet, but I am in graduate school for education now and I hope that an advanced degree will give me more flexibility with my future work. I might also be able to go back into the classroom, but I think the coronavirus pandemic will need to chill out a lot more for me to be able to do that without it giving me insane levels of stress.

These days, I am no longer drinking meal replacement shakes and I get 100% of my calories from solid foods. I have been eating grains, beans, raw and cooked veg and fruit, nuts, and some processed foods like vegan egg and cheese. We live in a pretty magical time of food science where there are delicious and not-soy-based vegan products in the world. Totally different scenario than when I went vegan in 2007!

I would also like to brag that I finally figured out a whole foods plant based quiche that is damn good, after many many trials. Many a quiche was harmed in the making of that recipe.

Finding inspiration to keep eating a very restricted diet has been important for me getting this far. I read a lot of medical studies about diet and IBD to give me hope. I read a lot of testimonials and listen to videos of doctors and individuals living with Crohn’s where they talk about their research and experience treating Crohn’s with diet. It is so very, very important to hear from people who have been successful in doing the damn thing to keep my hope and resolve alive. It’s also very important to track my symptoms and know that I am improving. It helps to look back at a food and symptom diary from early in the process and say, okay yes this is making a difference and I am healing even though it is taking a long ass time.

It can also be helpful to stray from the diet and then get feedback from my body that what I was doing was working, and that my body will let me know when I am or am not ready to eat something. It’s about a 48 hour feedback loop.

If you are dealing with IBD or a Crohn’s flare, I really do feel for you. It is scary, expensive, exhausting, and can feel very hopeless at times. I hope you can find a medication that helps you. If you have difficulty with medication, don’t give up — diet is another possible way to address this disease. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it might work for you! Most importantly, I hope you have a doctor that listens to you and takes seriously the things you tell them. Hopefully one day I’ll find a GI specialist that does that for me.