Month: March 2015

Autoimmune disease – treating the cause, not the symptoms

Dr Mark Hyman practices Functional Medicine, which is as he puts it, ‘the future of conventional medicine – now’:

It seeks to identify and address the root causes of disease, and views the body as one integrated system, not a collection of independent organs divided up by medical specialties. It treats the whole system, not just the symptoms.

From the moment I was diagnosed with Crohn’s, it was obvious that this is the way to treat any disease, which is always – it appears to me right now anyway – caused by an imbalance in the system which needs correction. As I’ve seen over and over again in the countless case studies and testimonials I’ve read since coming home from hospital, contemporary western medicine seeks to simply cover up the symptoms, often with drugs that have incredibly damaging side effects.

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Chinese medicine for Crohn’s and other IBD’s – Part one

We had a surprisingly-useful first session with a Chinese Medical Practitioner a couple of days ago. I was recommended Simon Jones, based at the Ludlow Clinic by an old colleague whom Simon had helped very much in the past. I’d actually been looking for someone that might be able to give me some acupuncture treatments, as it’s a recommended treatment for IBD by Jini Patel Thompson in her fantastic book ‘Listen to your Gut‘. Yes, I’m going to go on about this book constantly, but it’s been both an inspiration and a lifeline for me over these last couple of weeks.

Simon gave us a simple-but-useful overview of what’s happening in the body with inflammatory bowel disease. Of course, it’s all about stress, and how we manage it. I’ll try to describe my take on it, although his was a lot more accurate and comprehensive!

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Jeannie’s all-natural shake for healthy weight gain.

Jeannie’s shake

1/2 glass of raw milk

1 banana

1/2 avocado

1 heaped teaspoon wild harvested slippery elm

2 opened capsules vsl3

1 tablespoon organic hemp oil

1 dessert spoon maple syrup

Whizz that

Add 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk

Slow blend

Absorb Plus – with our make-your-own ingredients list

As part of her books ‘listen to your gut’ and ‘The IBD Remission Diet’, Jini Patel Thompson has put together a full-spectrum shake that can be used as an elemental diet, or to build weight during or after a IBD/Crohn’s flare-up. There are many reports of people going into remission when taking nothing but these shakes for 2-6 weeks.

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Malnutrition after a flare-up – Healthy weight gain

On the second day back from hospital, we have our first real challenge presented: my continued weight loss.

My ‘normal’, skinny-fat, not-working-out weight is 10 stone, sometimes a little more. Over the course of the three months of chronic diarrhoea I experience, my weight dropped to 8.9 stone. On the day before my release from hospital, I was at 8.5 stone. Today, I’m at 8 stone exactly, despite eating small healthy meals every two hours. Now there’s a good chance our bathroom scales aren’t very accurate – I don’t feel like I’ve lost half a stone in two days, but the fact is that I’m not putting on weight again, and I seriously need to.

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