Inactive Crohnie

I had a colonoscopy on Monday and was told that as far as the doctor could tell I had no active disease! Woot Woot! Of course, the doctor said this right before he told me that the scar tissue around my ileocecal valve is so bad that he couldn't even take the scope in my ileum where Crohn's resides. My nurse informed me before my exam that I would get pictures from the procedure, which I could post on Instagram at my discretion. Hmm.. tempted, but I would feel a bit scandalous putting a picture of my bare gut on the Internet. So instead of a picture of my scarred ic valve, you get to see an image of the poster I stared at as I waited for my procedure to start.

Source

No active disease make this girl very happy! The only set back now is that despite having no active Crohns in my visable intestines, I continue to experience weird symptoms (nausea, fatigue, bloating, pain). Without getting into too much detail, I've traced these strange symptoms to my diet, with sugars being the biggest culprit.

This discovery spurred investigation into various diets - Candida diet, The Maker's Diet, paleo, keto, clean, raw, you name it. Basic principles to follow:
1. Refined sugars are not good for your gut and are likely the cause for many modern diseases.
2. Be careful with grains and starchy foods (how you're careful depends on the diet).
3. Drink plenty of water.
4. If you're experiencing crazy symptoms, you may need to eat very very basic/clean for a couple weeks in order to normalize your blood sugar level and gut flora.
5. No one will want to come over to your house for dinner (especially dessert) during that time.
6. Most of the diet is temporary, but some basic principles may, out of necessity, turn into habits.

Good thing my husband is doing his first rotation on the coast! I'm sending my entire home inventory of sugar-laced food for him to snack on while I attempt to jump start this diet process in his absence. At that point I will be challenged with not breaking my diet at work and in my spare time discovering a way to reverse scarring.