Crohn's Disease

Crohn's Disease is an illness that comes under the heading of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD). IBD is a group of chronic disorders that cause inflammation and ulcerations in the small and large intestines. Crohn's Disease may affect any part of the digestive system, and all the layers of the bowel system are likely to become severly inflamed.

What are the Symptoms?

The most common symptoms of Crohn's Disease are pain in the lower right abdominal area, diarrhea, rectal bleeding, weight loss, and fever. The symptoms will vary in severity from person to person, and may flare up or improve at different times.

Who's at Risk?

Crohn's Disease seems to affect males and females equally and appears to run in some families. About 20 percent of people with Crohn's Disease have another blood family member with a form of IBD.

Around 2 million Americans have a form of IBD, including an estimated 200,000 children. The onset of an IBD usually occurs between the ages of 15 and 25, and if a person discovers it later in life, between ages 50 and 80.

The IBDs are largely a disease found in the developed world, principally the U.S. and Europe. Crohn's Disease is reported to be more common in urban areas in the northern climates.

Crohn's Disease is four to five times more likely to affect Jewish Americans than other groups.

What's the Cause?

No one is sure what the cause is but there have been many suggestions and theories that viruses, bacteria, diet, stress, and smoking are the possible causes. But, there is no definite evidence that any one of these cause Crohn's Disease.

What's the Cure?

There is no known cure for this disease but there are several drugs that are helpful in controlling the symptoms. The goals of therapy are to correct nutritional deficiencies, to control inflammation and to relieve abdonminal pain, diarrhea, and rectal bleeding.

The following drugs may be used as treatment: Sulfasalazine, Steriod Drugs, Antibiotics, Mesalimine, 5-ASA, Azathioprine, and 6-mmercaptopurine.

No special diet has been developed for preventing or treating Crohn's Diseas, but a balanced diet is reccommended. Some have found that certain foods or spices do make their symptoms worse, so it is suggested that they avoid them. Here are some of the foods and or habits that may irritate the already existing problem: alcohol, milk, spicy foods, greasy foods, fiber-enriched foods, and smoking.



Information for this node was taken from Comuminty Health Practices and my girlfriend, Kate, who suffers from this disease.

Crohn's Disease is a chronic condition that causes inflammation of the digestive tract. This inflammation typically occurs in the small and/or large intestine, however there are cases of Crohn's occuring in the stomach, throat, and mouth. In general it can effect any portion of the digestive tract, all the way from the mouth down to the anus. This inflammation is caused by the immune system misidentifying the intestines as foreign matter, so naturally the body tries to destroy them. These attacks cause the inflammation. The illness was first documented in 1932 by Dr. Burrill Crohn as a cousin of colitis and inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn's cases range in severity from mild to severe, but any level of Crohn's can cause discomfort. And when I say "discomfort", I am understating the level of anguish. I have lived with Crohn's for nine years and in that time I have experienced kinds of pain that I'd only seen in movies. Here's an experiment that will allow you, the non-Crohnie, to experience an approximate simulation of the kind of pain experienced by Crohn's patients. First make a fist, then punch yourself in the stomach as hard as you can for the rest of your life. Conversely, picture the scene from Alien when the baby creature bursts out of the stomach of its human host. This is another approximation of the pain experienced by Crohn's patients. Add to this pain the following symptoms: vomitting, diarrhea, fatigue, dehydration, low grade fevers, joint pain, rectal bleeding, weight loss, and an increased likelyhood of vision problems. Younger patients may also experience delayed growth, both physically and sexually.

Crohn's, if it will occur, typically occurs either during one's teenage years or between the ages of fifty and seventy. Approximately 2,000,000 Americans suffer from the illness and an estimated 10% of patients are under the age of eighteen. Males and females are effected equally, although in my experience I have known many more women with the illness than men. Roughly 25% of patients are related to another Crohn's patient, and having a relative with Crohn's puts you at ten times more risk of developing the illness yourself. Moreover, the illness seems to occur more in people with ancestry of the Jewish faith than any other ethnic group. The reason behind this is currently unknown.

There is no known cause of the illness, although there are a number of theories debating its origin ranging from bacteria to it being a genetic condition. There is also no known cure for Crohn's, although with a series of medications and surgeries it can be surpressed temporarily. Some medications, such as Prednisone and Purenthinol, carry a host of nasty side effects that are often worse than the illness itself. Pain medications can also be prescribed to help lessen the intestinal agony experienced by patients. As for surgical options, the inflammed regions of intestine can be removed to lessen the suffering that patients experience, although there is nothing to stop the inflamation from beginning all over again years or even just months later. I underwent surgery in May 2003 to remove severely inflammed portions of my intestine and ever since have been relatively healthy and in much better shape than I was before the procedure. Prior to surgery I spent six months in bed in even more pain than usual, forced to drop college classes and take a leave of absence from my job. During this period I was unable to eat; I lived off of Ensure and water. I spent my days taking medication, watching daytime television, and surfing the Internet from my bed. After a few weeks of recovery time following surgery I was back at work, eating again, and have been able to put the pain pills aside most days.

While the inflammation is ongoing, certain factors can cause flare-ups of the illness. Stress is a major contributor to flares, plus many Crohn's Disease patients (including myself) have found that many foods irritate the disgestive system. Here is a brief list of the most common forbidden foods.

Food:

• Coffee
• Chocolate
• Cocoa
• Cooked and Raw vegetables (includes salads, corn, popcorn, onions, veggies for flavoring, etc.)
• Nuts and seeds
• Diet beverages (Nutrasweet)
• Processed meats such as hot dogs, sausages, etc.
• Dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter, margarine, ice cream, etc.
• Gravies
• Canned soups
• All fruits except bananas, applesauce, canned peaches, and pears

Basic Elements of Food:

• Spicy foods
• Alcohol
• Stringy meats
• MSG
• Saccharin
• Nutrasweet
• Pickling
• Charcoal broiling
• Fried foods

So what is there to eat? Soy and rice products. Soy cheeses, soy ice cream, soy butter, rice breads, rice cookies, and so on. Vitamin supplements are also an integral part of my diet. It can be difficult to find suitable foods to eat, but with some imagination and cooking skills, it's quite easy to put together equivalents to common tasty treats. After all these years I don't remember what "real" cheese tastes like, so I have to say that I don't know what I'm missing out on. Now that I've had surgery I'm told that someday I could possibly be able to safely digest a common delivered pizza.

Crohn's Disease has taken a lot from me over the years. I've been pointed at, teased, taunted, excluded from social gatherings, and even been accused of using my illness for personal gain. However, Crohn's has given me a lot as well. Since I was diagnosed at the age of thirteen, I learned quickly that I was not invincible, something that many teens take years and a number of stupid mistakes to learn. I learned to cook for myself early on and after moving away to college I could cook for myself while my peers were eating their meals from fast food bags. As I cannot digest alcohol, I'll never get drunk and make a fool of myself or have a hangover. Some people say that I'm missing out, but I say I'm doing just fine in the long run. Most other Crohnies are as well. Sure, we eat differently and we're always dealing with medication of some sort, but we're just like everyone else (except that we won't eat the last piece of pizza in the fridge).

---

References:
http://pages.prodigy.net/mattgreen/forbfood.htm
http://www.ccfa.org/research/info/aboutcd

One of the reasons why soups and processed meats irritate people with inflamatory bowel disease is because they contain MSG.

I was sick with the flu last summer, so I ate soup and suddenly had a flare-up. I checked the ingrediants and found that many canned soups contain MSG. I also had a flare-up after eating hotdogs, and again discovered that many brands of hotdogs and sausages contain MSG (as do canned meat spreads).

After some reasearch, I experimented and discovered that soups and processed meats that do not contain MSG produce no ill-effects on my system. Other people may also have similar results, but I recommend that you tread lightly when experimenting -- you do not want to set off your illness.

I've found that soy-based sausages and organic soups do not contain MSG and do not make me sick. Supermarkets such as Whole Foods and Bread and Circus sell these products, and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for alternative food choices.