Someone I knew in college had Crohn's disease. She had just been diagnosed a couple of months before her freshman year, and hadn't quite come to terms with it. She kept eating the wrong things and having to go to the hospital. :( She just couldn't accept that there were certain foods she needed to give up if she wanted to stay un-hospitalized. I feel sorry for her and anyone with Crohn's or related conditions - I would die without my spicy foods, red meat, and caffeine!

New News
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4091881.stm

Parasitic worm hope for Crohn's

Crohn's disease affects 100,000 people in Britain
Parasitic worms may be an effective treatment for the inflammatory bowel disorder Crohn's disease, research in the US suggests.
A University of Iowa team found most of 29 Crohn's patients who swallowed a type of parasitic worm over a 24-week period showed an improvement.

It is thought that helminths, such as roundworms and threadworms, may prevent Crohn's in the developing world.

The research is published in the journal Gut.

What they are trying to do is to create a sort of anti-inflammatory response.

Dr Alastair Forbes
Crohn's disease rates are relatively high in the developed world, where few people carry helminths.

But in the developing world, where it is relatively common for people to harbour these worms, rates of Crohn's are much lower.

In the developing world it is common for the worms' eggs to contaminate food, water, air, faeces, pets and wild animals.

And they are also found on toilet seats and door handles. Once inside the body, the eggs usually lodge in the bowel, where they hatch into worms.

Unlike other parasitic worms, such as tapeworms, they do not cause disease, and do not invade other parts of the body.

In the latest study, 29 adults with moderately active Crohn's disease swallowed 2,500 whipworm eggs of the species Trichuris suis - commonly found in pigs - every three weeks for 24 weeks in total.

Most of the patients had had their symptoms for around four years and standard treatment had not worked.

Impressive results

Five patients dropped out, but halfway through, 22 patients had experienced a significant improvement in their symptoms, with 19 of them having no symptoms at all.

By the end of the study, all but one had shown an improvement, with 21 reporting no symptoms.

There were no signs that the worms had caused any side effects, but people also taking drugs to suppress their immune system at the same time tended to fare better.

Crohn's disease is caused by an excessive immune response to normal gut bacteria, and the researchers say that helminths suppress the immune response and consequently dampen down inflammation.

As such they might provide a simple alternative to current medications, or could be used in combination.

They stress that the worms' eggs are shed in the stool, but cannot colonise another host until they have been incubated in the soil for several weeks, and so are unlikely to pose a public health risk.

However, they accept that larger trials are needed to confirm their results.

Dr Alastair Forbes, a consultant gastroenterologist at St Mark's Hospital, London, and spokesman for the National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease, said the research was interesting, but still at an early stage.

"It makes sense. What they are trying to do is to create a sort of anti-inflammatory response," he told the BBC News website.

"It seems remarkable that some people are prepared to be infected with worms, but the fact that they are says a lot about how poor current treatments are."

However, Dr Forbes said more work was needed to ensure the therapy was safe.

"People with Crohn's tend to have leaky bowels, so something that would not normally get into the circulation might do so in somebody with the disease," he said.


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I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around. I have Crohn's Disease and have posted about it numerous times before.

The foods that trigger Crohn's are very individual. For me, it's nuts, chocolate, onions and alcohol that can really spike a flare. However, when I am in total remission, I can eat anything I want, and this is what my gastroenterologist says too. When in a bad flare, the number of foods I can't eat grows tremendously. Some people have a hard time with nightshade veggies (tomatoes, potatoes, onions). It varies greatly. CCFA claims that no research has ever found a diet link to Crohn's.

I was initially mis-diagnosed with IBS by my primary care doc, but after trying every IBS med out there, she finally sent me to a GI who did TESTS and found out it was Crohn's. This was after living on popsicles and jello for 5 months and losing 65 pounds. After trying every Crohn's med then, nothing could repair the area that was inflamed and damaged so I had a re-section of the terminal ileum and ascending colon. I went into remission for about a year when I started to have trouble again. After blood tests to find out if my meds were at a therapeutic level, we found that my levels were low and increased my meds. I'm now pretty much in remission again. It's hard to remember to take my meds when I'm feeling good (because I take so many pills a day!) so then I backslide and then get good about taking the pills again (not TEH PILLS). I also had to get Vitamin B12 shots but now I have this cool nasal gel that I inhale for my B12 and it's more convenient. The sad thing is, when I was trying to lose weight (and succeeding), it turned out it was because of the Crohn's. As soon as I went back into remission, I gained a bunch of weight again, eating the same foods. You absorb so little when in a flare that your metabolism gets all screwed up. And I actually thought my dieting was paying off then! UGH!

Dee

My sister-in-law was diagnosed with Crohn's about 6 months or so before her and my brother's wedding. It was really rough. She lost alot of weight. She finally started gaining some of it back a few months before, so she did fit in her wedding dress. She's been doing alot better now though... I'm sure it helps that she's a nurse, so she really knows what she's doing with everything.

My roommate has Crohn's. She was misdiagnosed several times with every possible thing you could imagine and it came to a head in college when she voluntarily checked herself into a rehab when a doctor misdiagnosed her with anorexia! She had to be rushed to the hospital one night, and had a pick line for about a month, and they figured out it was Crohn's. She takes lots of meds, and she's a pretty hardworking and cheery girl. It makes me mad to think she spent 2 years going to specialists and not being able to nail down a diagnosis, but she's doing well now.

My mom has colitis, and she's been living with it for a very very long time.

From the Crohn's Support newsgroup I frequent, it seems that most of us go through about two years of hell before getting a definitive diagnosis. Earlier diagnosis could lead to fewer surgeries if they could perfect this.

Re: Re: Anyone have Crohn's Disease?
 

perhaps she does so because of her anxiety about getting a flairup. i dont have it, but i have serious stomach issues otherwise and my anxiety/fear of having a stomach problem has had a serious impact on me getting a job too... its all the anxiety that comes from it. if you could get rid of the problem... things would be much differnt for us ):

I don't have it..but my dad and brother do. My dad actually had to have 7 feet of his small intestine removed. its really not that bad once you regulate it. my brother just takes this meds through an IV (Remicade) once a month or so and he gets along fine. I know so much about it cause I have been to the hopsital twice with him during his flare ups....but now that they both regulate it...it does not inhibit them in any way.

FYI- get second opinions as mentioned earlier in this thread because it took 5 different MD over 4 months to figure out I had IBS back in 1991 after questioning me about being prego etc (some MDs do not know much about IBD/IBS disorders. I had gas pains that the some pregnant ladies experience, cut out greasy, spicy, carbonated was very limited & did the herb tea thing and other herbs to calm the digestive track since the Rx med did nothing & still don't (for me anyway)

Weight loss is possible w/ IBS I lost weight and looked anorexic (sp? -have since gained it back but that is another thread). I do not go anywhere that doesn't have "facilities" & I had to have someone cover my classroom around 5 times for RR emergencies. I'm going to follow up to see if it is the start of colitis.

For not being a disease it SUCKs royally. Sorry for being winded.