Below is my first article for The Crohn's Journey Foundation. I'll post the link once it's published on their site.
Did you know that the body creates inflammation as a
way to help you heal? In the case of Crohn’s, generally, toxic matter poisons
the gut and the immune system creates inflammation as a way to purify the
area. Once the area is purified, you
heal, and then the inflammation goes away.
Inflammation is caused when the body sends elements
of the immune system, white blood cells or T cells, to the affected area. These
T cells produce antibodies, which bind toxins and leads to healing. The last thing we need to do is interrupt this
healing process by aggravating the situation.
There are things we eat and do every day that can
either help our gut heal, or throw us into a full-fledged flare up.
Raw Vegetables
Vegetables are great for us, and essential in assisting with
healthy iron levels, which is often a challenge for people who suffer from
Crohn’s. However, eating raw vegetables and salads can irritate the bowel since
they are difficult to digest. Avoid eating them when your gut is inflamed.
Drink them instead by including them in your favorite juice or smoothie.
Fatty Foods
Your body is impaired when you’re inflamed and fatty foods
cannot be digested properly. Avoid all fatty foods including meats, dairy,
oils, avocados, olives, and especially nuts and seeds. Nuts and seeds are
difficult to digest even when you’re healthy, and depending upon your type of
Crohn’s, they may be indigestible when you’re inflamed, and hard undigested
particles can create complications like fistulas. Ultimately, stay away from
fatty foods. Even the good fatty foods are not good for you when inflammation
is present.
Citrus Fruits
High acid citrus fruits and tomatoes also must be avoided.
They’re too harsh for a healing gut. Lemons and limes are the worse as they are
extremely acidic and for those with Crohn’s, even during healthy times, should
always be used in moderation, diluted with other juices or water, or used with
other ingredients. Avoid them entirely and stick with sweet fruits instead when
you’re inflamed.
Acid Forming Foods
This is a tough one, because it encompassed sooo many foods
we love to eat, but it is well worth the effort in results. Our GI tract’s
ideal state for healing and health is slightly alkaline, except the colon, which
is slightly acidic. However, the only way to accomplish this is to eat
predominately alkaline forming foods. Creating a highly acidic GI tract is problematic
and will perpetuate your inflammation. Acid forming foods include all meats, dairy,
beans, most grains, nuts and seeds, sugar, soft drinks, coffee, and alcohol.
Spicy Foods
Any food or drink that is spicy hot to the palate or makes
your eyes water is an aggravant to the gut. Garlic, cayenne pepper, onions,
leeks, etc. can create additional unneeded irritation. Avoid them during times
when your gut is inflamed.
Overeating
An overloaded bowel is an overworked and stressed bowel,
which will worsen an inflamed bowel. Don’t stuff yourself.
In addition to changing your eating habits there are a
couple of other things you should consider when it comes to healing your
inflammation.
Your nerve energy plays a significant role in healing. If
you have ample, you are more likely to heal sooner than later. But if your gut
is deprived of nerve energy, your inflammation is apt to worsen.
At the beginning of each day you are filled with nerve energy and you use
it up throughout the day. The more you physically, mentally and emotionally do
and handle, the more nerve energy you use.
Nerve energy to your gut comes from your celiac plexus. Your
celiac plexus is the largest plexus, or network of nerves and arteries in the
body. It connects and regulates many of your organs, including the stomach,
pancreas, liver, small and large intestines.
When your celiac plexus expands, it is radiating nerve
energy throughout this network. For this
reason, the celiac plexus is often also referred to as your solar plexus. When
it is contracts, it is depriving its network of the nerve energy it needs, and
this will certainly make healing difficult, if not impossible.
So what makes your solar plexus contract instead of expand?
What things do you do that wastes nerve energy?
Stress and Other Negative Feelings
Your ability to manage negative emotions is essential to
healing for several reasons. First, negative emotions and disempowering
thoughts wastes nerve energy. You need your nerve energy focused on healing,
not on stressful situations. You only
get so much nerve energy a day. Do you want to use your nerve energy for
healing or for managing useless emotions?
Second, when you are stressed, unhappy, depressed, or have
any negative feelings, your celiac plexus contracts. Often your blood pressure
and pulse rise. You may begin to breathe faster. Ultimately, the physical
changes that negative emotions bring to your body over time simply are not
healthy.
“Stress doesn’t only make us feel awful emotionally,” says
Jay Winner MD, author of Take the Stress
Out of Your Life. “It can also exacerbate just about any health condition
you can think of.”
Managing stress and other negative emotions is challenging
at times, especially if you’re not feeling well due to your Crohn’s symptoms,
but get the stinking thinking out of your head if you want to accelerate your
healing.
Lack of Sleep
Your nerve energy is only rejuvenated when you sleep. If you
use up all of your nerve energy before you get to the end of your day, there is
nothing left for healing. No organ can function properly without a supply of
nerve energy. Therefore, lack of sleep is problematic.
You must get plenty of rest. The lack of appropriate nerve
energy to heal will only make matters worse. Listen to your body. It tells you
how much sleep you need. If you’re
fatigued or tired during times of inflammation or any other illness, you should
sleep. You can never get too much sleep when it comes to healing.
Conclusion
I take a holistic approach to managing illnesses in my life,
and this has required me to make massive changes in my lifestyle as a result of
my Crohn’s diagnosis. I am learning every day better ways to manage my disease,
and know that learning how to live a healthy life with Crohn’s is a process. I
also know that change is not easy. Yet
one thing is abundantly clear to me. Eliminating these eight things during
times of inflammation has been essential to managing my disease without
medication and living a healthy life.
Ultimately, the items above are inflammatory. I regularly
tell myself that a temporary pleasure of the palate is not worth the
repercussions that could lead to a month or more of unpleasant symptoms. Even
during healthy times when my gut is 100%, moderation is the key.
I realize that each of us is uniquely different and our
bodies react to our actions individually. I’m hopeful that my experience and
suggestions will help you, and I recommend that if you have any of these eight things
in your life, you also make some changes. I hope that by eliminating these eight
inflammatory things, you too will get as much comfort in your gut as I.
