A New Hope

Forgive me for the Star Wars line, but I’m sure it’s an emotion every Crohns sufferer has, right? A new treatment on the horizon, a new GI with a different approach, or a well-researched supplement that could help control the disease.

My last blog, in summary detailed my up and coming appointment with a well established Nutritionist. The goal I set myself was first to find a Nutritionist that had vast experience with Crohns and related symptoms, and be able to integrate IBDoc into this new plan. As I’m sure you are aware you simply need to Google “nutritionist” in your local area and pages upon pages of nutritionist will pop up. I had diligently researched this nutritionist so I didn’t find myself with a snake oil salesman.

Before I had my appointment, I was to fill in a detailed questionnaire about my general health and symptoms, Meds I’m currently taking, diet, exercise etc. so no stone was left unturned in the pre appointment details. I must admit I was a little anxious on meeting Helen, as I am before all appointments relating to my Crohns (Should I even call it “My Crohns”? like this disease is something precious to me). Anyway, Helen put my anxieties to rest immediately as she was kind, understanding and more importantly, she was on point and shared her vast knowledge with me regarding nutrition and how it can help with symptoms. She was incredibly impressed with IBDoc and the significant part it could play in the lives of Crohns patients.

We got to work straight away with a food reintroduction plan based largely on the LOFFLEX diet, which I have been on for five years. However, for the first week, Helen recommended digestive enzymes to see if they help with the undigested food in my stools. After the successful introduction of the digestive enzymes I am then over the course of a week going to begin introducing, salmon, then white fish (haddock or cod). If this is successful I am then going to introduce coconut milk yogurt… Hmmmm.

If I could successfully introduce the recommended supplements along with the salmon, white fish and coconut milk yogurt in to my diet it would dramatically change my day-to-day life, give me a little more freedom to have the option to eat out more often; I’m also hoping I will see an improvement in the fatigue and brain fog, and more importantly gives me hope there are other foods out there that I can add.

So how does this plan relate to IBDoc? If I didn’t have IBDoc I would be relying as I have for the previous five years on symptoms alone which I have found to be inconsistent and unreliable, which in tern has the knock on effect of me giving up on testing new foods. I am so fortunate to be able to integrate IBDoc into this new plan. My nutritionist thinks IBDoc will play a significant roll in the out come of the food introductions.

I will update you on my progress in my next post.

And remember, “ always pass on what you have learnt” – yoda