"No added sugar"

I guess the one intervention I'm really working on right now is further reducing sugar in my diet.  Not all sugar; just foods with sugar added to them, by definition processed foods, and in any amount.  It's a "just say no" thing. Of all the strategies I've looked at or attempted, including various supplements and natural medications, yoga, meditation, exercise, and stress reduction techniques, reducing sugar has given me the most positive and immediate feedback.

And after several months of slow, steady progress with this goal, a couple of interesting things have taken shape.  I've noticed a slow change in my palette, a shift in my set point so that my once-cherished sweetened foods, like dark chocolate, sweetened breakfast cereals, or "health" bars,  have come to taste too syrupy, too sweet.  Even eating more than two small pieces of dark chocolate now gives me that "Errrgh, I shouldn't have had that second piece of pie" feeling.  All of a sudden, it seems, sweetened foods make me feel, put simply, bad.  I'll feel a little nauseous and fatigued, and actually, a little depressed.  And not depressed like I'm guilty or remorseful; it's a physical depression, something coming from my guts.

The great thing about this palette shift is that it hasn't taken much planning or work; there's just a slow momentum moving me away from sweetened foods.  What I am especially excited about is that this shift is naturally taking me away from processed foods and towards fresh foods.  If nature grew it, rather than a factory creating it, it doesn't have added sugar...more or less.

And now I'm finding some fresh, real foods to be plenty sweet now.  A carrot, for example, or a roasted sweet potato, which tastes as sweet as candy.  Or, unsweetened plain or roasted coconut chips, or pickled beets.  Those kinds of things.

I feel good about this "new diet" because it's utterly simple.  Complicated diets aren't fun, and this one is.  There are no rules, except to avoid sweetened foods.  And I'm not 100% there, but I am moving towards that goal.

It hasn't been without setbacks.  In Fairbanks last weekend I was at an art opening at the university, and I ate a lot of locally-sourced, home-prepared traditional foods; muktuk (whale skin and blubber); herring roe, salmon, bog blueberries and salmonberries.  I tried to fill up on them, but I got intensely hungry a few hours later.  I wanted something sugary....and I scarfed about ten gluten-free, totally sugary, ginger cookies.  Interestingly, I felt fine afterwards.  Maybe my gut was so happy with all the traditional food, it permitted my mistake.  Or, maybe it was the ginger.

The human gut's bacterial flora has been getting a lot of press recently, both in lay and medical literature.  In one lay book, an author (who has Crohn's) shared how she looks at this issue, which can be fairly complicated.  She said that when she desires sweetened, sugary foods, she reminds herself that it's not her body that wants these foods; it's the "bad" bacteria asking for it.  Don't feed them, and they go away, and you get healthier.  Feed yourself healthy, real foods, and the good bacteria, and more good health, come your way.

I liked it; I'm thinking this way now.

And I'm feeling better.  Less gut symptoms, more energy, more strength, better sleep, less night sweats, less anxiety, more socialization, better work performance, and a more focused mind.

All from food.  The simplest of medicines, produced by nature.  It's beautiful, isn't it?

And I'm happy to be learning all of this first-hand.  Going through this myself, I can then teach it to my patients.  I know it can help others, too,  Crohn's or no Crohn's.

Introduction

I'm a 37 year old guy with Crohn's disease.  I diagnosed myself, slowly, over the course of the past two years.  It took me that long to chip away enough denial and to summon enough gall to make a self-diagnosis, and then really believe it.

A confluence of experiences has led me to this point of certainty.  First, I am a practicing family medicine physician, and my girlfriend is too.  Also, my father was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease - ulcerative colitis, the counterpart to Crohn's - around the time that I was born.  Later, my brother was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (initially ulcerative colitis, but this was later changed to a diagnosis of Crohn's) almost twenty years ago, when he was in high school.  In addition, I have seen a few specialists in recent years for my various symptoms, who have addressed the possibility of Crohn's.  A gastroenterologist, reviewing all my tests, cautiously concluded that I "don't meet criteria for a diagnosis", and a colorectal surgeon, reviewing the same studies, clairvoyantly declared that he wouldn't be surprised if I "developed Crohn's disease in 5 years, and could then look back at those initial problems - my current symptoms - as the initial manifestations of the disease."

People with Crohn's disease have some things in common; in particular, most of us have problems with our guts like abdominal pain, nausea, and diarrhea.  My brother has had severe problems with this over the years, and I'm increasingly having my share of these symptoms. But Crohn's takes many additional forms and can disturb a lot of other body systems.  For my brother, Crohn's also means that his gut frequently bleeds. He's anemic and frequently tired.  And five years ago, he suddenly lost his hair.  All of his hair from head to toe, even his eyelashes.  For me, Crohn's has also caused fissures and a fistula in a "sensitive" area (ahem), and chronic inflammatory joint pain, especially in my spine.  I also have chronic depression, at least in part from my Crohn's, and I'm beginning to see that I too fatigue easier that I used to.  And both of us tend to lose muscle mass and get skinny at times.  And the patients I've seen and treated for Crohn's over the years each have their own unique collection of problems.

Western medicine does a fantastic job at treating a lot of medical problems, but it falls short with others, including Crohn's.  Crohn's drugs, the mainstay of Western treatment, are often as toxic as they are effective.  So it goes for many of the autoimmune diseases.

I haven't tried any Crohn's drugs, and that is the point of this effort here.  I don't want to.  I'm concerned that I am getting worse, slowly, and may be heading towards a level of disease burden where Western drugs are needed.  Instead, I'd like to get healthier without those drugs.  Many people believe that Crohn's can be treated effectively with other medical systems, like Traditional Chinese Medicine or Ayurvedic Medicine, which take a more holistic approach to health and disease.  Many treatment programs incorporate (and exclude) very specific foods, and I am also particularly interested in how psychotherapy and behavioral therapy can directly modify the disease process.

Increasingly, I feel like such a holistic approach is probably helpful for most medical conditions, but especially the chronic autoimmune diseases, where the body is actually harming itself.

I'm excited to document my ideas here, and my treatments.  I'm depressed, tired, and in pain. It's time to make some changes.