If you are suffering from this... can you be cured?

Question

I'm 17 years old and I have been suffering from Crohns Disease for the past year. Sometimes it really gets to medoesn'tometimes it doesnt. I was wondering can I ever be cured with this disease or will i be suffering with this disease my whole life?

Answer 1

Just to say that the last answer was very good.  I suffer from crohn's (diagnosed at 17 but had it for at least 2 years before - now 28) and have been in a flare up since Feb but you can go years and years without having a flare up - there is no way of telling.  CROHN'S CAN NOT BE CURED BY DIET ALONE. It is not IBS. You will be put on meds that help control it and yes agree that you should start a food diary as it is different for every person.  You will go through some mental difficulties in accepting this disease and you should (when you feel ready) find a support group - every country has a national one and there are other groups (a good one that I am with is Crohns Zone - if you join my name on there is Honey if you wanna chat).  All my love and hope that you don't have many problems.

Answer 2

I heard that this can be cured through diet alone. See a nutritionist.

Answer 3

crohns disease does not have a cure yet.

as you get older, you will figure out, what foods are to avoid, and know or feel when a inflammatory period is coming.

mostly it is controlled with medication.

in some cases, surgery is needed to remove a section of intestine.

crohns and colitis or inflammatory bowel disease has a website:i read this from my Imodium packages!

Answer 4

I really feel for you.  I had a friend with it, and my significant other  (I'll just refer to "him" as a "he" for purposes of this answer--also S.O.) has serious ulcerative colitis, so I know it can be debilitating at times.  No one knows what causes Crohn's disease, but it is more common in males and in people of Jewish heritage.  

Treatments:  see if you can find anything that triggers your bouts of diarrhea/cramping.  The best way to do that is to keep a detailed journal.  You will probably start to notice a pattern, like stressful situations, certain foods, illness, etc., may be possible triggers.  

Some people have very frequent bouts and have to have surgery to remove parts of their colon, possibly even ending up with a permanent colostomy/ileostomy (bag to catch your p**p) on their abdomen.  Sometimes, having an ileostomy is done to give your intestines (bowel) a period of rest.  Then there are other people who may have a few episodes and it seems to go away.  

Do your research.  Look online.  We have both spent a lot of time online researching.  Read, read, read.  Ask questions of your doctor.  When you meet other people with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, diverticulitis, or any other colon disease with similar symptoms, pick their brains.  Ask them what they do, what they eat, what they avoid.  

What we have found works for my s.o. is:

1.  Unusual stress usually triggers an episode.  The worse the stress, the longer it goes on, the more serious his diarrhea, cramping he will have, which results in more blood & mucous and more lost weight.  I can count on him/her getting sick if he gets involved in a big argument with someone, especially about something dear to his heart.

2.  Natural and whole foods are the best for both healing and prevention.  If he eats things like brown rice, home-made whole wheat bread (we now grind our own flour sometimes), lots of fibrous veggies like dried beans, and just a mostly veggie diet in general, then he is less likely to have symptoms.

3.  Yogurt and acidophilus bacteria.  Yogurt has become one of the first things my s.o. starts eating when he has a bad attack.  And it helps.  It is usually the only thing he eats for days, and sometimes it is only a spoonful or two so as not to trigger diarrhea/cramping.  We now get concentrated acidophilus from the health food store, and you can even get tablets, but it isn't as pleasant to take a pill when you can just eat the food.  If we could find a source, we'd even try making kefir because it is supposed to be so healthy.  

4.  Very little sugar or refined foods.  Pizza and bread products often get my spouse's UC started again.  His last attack came when he got stuck doing a three-day shift (even having to sleep at work) and only being able to eat pizza & snack foods that his boss ordered in.  He quit using artificial sweeteners too, and that seems to have helped.

5.  There was a study being done on meds that help with ulcerative colitis, and my S.O. was able to get in on it.  The medication really seemed to help a lot, but it was very expensive--about $100 per month.    It was a derivative of aspirin, or somehow it broke down into aspirin in the intestines, and helped relieve inflammation.  Ask your doctor if there is something like this you can take.  Unfortunately, Crohn's affects the whole bowel, small intestine and large, while ulcerative colitis only affects the large intestine, so it may not work for you.

6.  Try reading the book "The Maker's Diet" by Jordan Rubin.  It may give you some answers.  When I first read it, I thought it was too far out and perhaps a bit extreme, but tried a number of things he recommended and they worked.  We don't do the green "seaweed" thing, nor do we use any special cleansers, but try to eat a healthier, more natural diet.  We've tried to eliminate milk that might have hormones or come from antibiotic-drenched cows, and do as much organic stuff as we can, but since it is so expensive, we are not able to eat all organic stuff.  We have tried to grow a lot of our own veggies with some success, but not as much as we'd like.  I make some of our own soap now, and just try to reduce harsh chemicals in our environment.  

We moved to the country, and it is amazing how little my S.O. has been sick since then.  He is having 1-2 episodes per year now, and hasn't really lost a great deal of weight with any of them, when before he has been off work for weeks at a time and easily lost 20-30 lbs with a bad episode.

EDIT:  While I mentioned a lot of foods that we now use, and they have helped immensely, the same exact foods might not work for you.  You will have to experiment, and that's where your journal will come in handy.  If you always have a problem after eating walnuts, you may have to eliminate them.  Some people have problems with the whole wheat bread, so it might not work for you, but again, it might.  

I forgot to mention that spicy and greasy foods were a problem, but we could add spice back when his gut wasn't flared up.