Five steps to combat Crohns

Outlined are the steps I have most founds useful coping with my Crohns Disease.

1. Stop Smoking
2. Stay away from yeast (or whatever you may be intolerant to)
   
3. Eat Well
4. Exercise
5. Listen to your body and rest up when required
   

I went out this weekend and broke rule number one. First time in a long while I had smoked. The next day I really suffered and it served as a good reminder.

Not smoking is most certainly the biggest factor in my recovery. I will not be going back to that habit, and I urge anyone with Crohns to stay away from the smokes.

Yeast intolerance migth only apply to me, but thought it worth mentioning. A lot of people with Crohns seem to suffer some form of intolerance. Try to monitor what causes to feel bad. Perhaps do an intollerance test.

I would recommend an exclusion diet to find out the route cause of your Crohns if you follow these steps you still do not feel well.

Stay Well!

Super Juice

A good friend of mine has recently launched a super juice ingredient called Gojiflax. He thinks it will help people with bad Crohns and would love for people to give him some feed back.

I haven't tried any myself yet, but it looks promising and I think this kind of thing could really help settle down a bad bout.

Let me know if anyone tries it or has any other tips for Chrohns combat.

Baking Business

As mentioned in the previous post, I have found certain yeast products to be okay. Namely those without fast acting Yeast.

Check out this interesting Guardian article and comments on the subject.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been baking my own bread with dried yeast and find that this is okay. Although it is proving to be a messy job and my baking skills need a little refinement.

The plan is to get a bread maker in the not to distance future. No mess, a good loaf, and timed to freshly bake bread for me and the mrs in the mornings. Quality! Hopefully it won't end up as another gadget stuff under the cupboard.

Update

Apologies for not keeping this blog as up to date as I should..

The reason excuse is that I have simply been quite well.. Which is great news!

I still get the odd bad day. As mentioned in previous posts I have come to find that yeast and smoking really effects my condition. Staying off the smokes helps the most and trying not to consume to much yeast keeps me tip top.

Juice diet is out the window.. Although the juicer is still kool and will continue to use it sporadically.

Recently I have notices certain yeast products are worse for me. I think this is because they contain high levels of fast acting yeast. Certain breads and real ales seem to be okay for me.


Hence I have recently staying baking my own bread and continue to buy Paul Ranklin's great yeast free goods.

I will endeavor to do better with the updates in 2010 (perhaps that should be my belated resolution).

Internet Research

It is amazing how little people research conditions they may have. I include myself in this generalization. I would be an authority on Crohns if I were to spend the same amount of time researching the Crohns as I do looking at motors on the internet.

So this lunch I decided to have a look and see whats out there (weather pretty poor outside). At the same time I have updated my links section of the blog, after BlogSpot decided to wipe them all.

The NACC seems to have some good stuff. This Crohns FAQ article was very insightful. Must do some more reasearch on this Infliximab drug, as I don't want to be on Azathioprine forever.

Another interesting site was Medical News Today. This seems like a good place to go for up to date research and developments news. I've added their RSS feed to my reader, and will keep an eye out for interesting bits. There was one article on the discovery of a Crohns Gene which caught my eye. Quote below;

"The protein encoded by the Crohn's disease susceptibility gene NLRP3, cryopyrin, is an intracellular bacteria sensor that plays a key role in initiating immune response," - sounds like there are some good in roads being made into the cause of Crohns.

Anyways.. I will report back if I find any other interesting peices.

Juice Diet

Was feeling rough again the other day.. Not sure if it was some kind of tummy bug. Knew I needed to watch my diet and give myself some recovery time. Been feeling crap a lot recently!

I recalled hearing about a guy was cured from his Crohns by switching to a juice diet. He was so pleased with the results he set up a juicer website call UKJuicers.


So I decided to get myself a juicer and give it a go. In the end I went for a Philips number from Amazon. I bought all the fancy ingredients for the recommended potions; bio acidophilus, spirilla, and wheatgrass. It wasn't cheap, but it should last a while.

Near enough everyday I have been having juice for breakfast and I feel great. My Crohns has been really good, despite smoking recently ( I am a mug and have stopped now). Not only does my body seem to agree with the juice, it is also pretty healthy. My muffin top (paunch) seems to be shrinking slightly now I drink this super juicer and walk to work.