My Story with IBD
Fighting IBD Naturally
Life with Crohn’s Disease
Life is hard. Life rarely ever turns out the way we expect it to or hope it will but maybe that’s ok. Maybe it’s life’s way of challenging us to become better versions of ourselves - allowing us to grow from our struggles and then help others. After 20 years of battling Crohn’s disease along with all of the other pressures and disappointments of life I’m still trying learn this lesson myself. I hope that the failures, disappointments, and lessons learned I share here help in whatever journey you are on in life. Be blessed.
Seasonal factors
While there are certain patterns I’m seeing in my own health related to seasonal factors I still have a lot to learn. It is clear to me that there are MANY factors that impact my overall health and learning how each of these things impact me personally (and what I can do to avoid / minimize them) will bring me better health in the long run…
Imperfect health
IBD always has a way of keeping you guessing. Just a few months after putting my story on social in 2021 I started showing some unexplained symptoms. In fact, I tend to have unexplained symptoms at least once or twice a year. I make adjustments quickly to get things under control but I never want to give off the perception that I have it all together…
Things I wish I knew…
I started this blog because I wanted to have a platform to say the things I wish I would have known 20 years ago when my journey with Crohn’s disease started. As I think about what I’d tell a younger version of myself there were three key phases of my journey where a little encouragement, guidance, and knowledge would have been helpful…
Diet+ other factors
I have focused a majority of my posts specifically on my diet changes for two key reasons: 1) because so far over my 20 years with Crohn’s disease, diet has been the one factor that I have seen the most direct correlation to my symptoms and 2) diet has been one of the easiest factors to control, track, and tie back to symptoms. But…
IBD and loved ones
IBD is a painful disease, but the pain isn’t always physical. The emotional toll of IBD is sometimes worse than the physical one. It extends beyond our own bodies and into the world of those around us. Kids, parents, family, and friends all see the pain we go through and because they love us they are impacted too. Thank you for all you do for us!
Results, naturally
The results from implementing lifestyle changes have been significant. I’ve gained over 50 pounds from my lowest weight; I haven’t had a major flare since 2018; and most importantly I’ve discovered specific trigger ingredients that directly correlate to my most severe IBD symptoms - now I rarely have any GI related problems at all…
My Trigger Foods
I’ve talked about some of my worst trigger foods previously - fish, shrimp, egg, and corn. Because of the severity of these reactions I avoid these entirely. But in addition to these after testing over 100 ingredients during a four year elimination diet and through trial and error I’ve found over 20 ingredients that impact me in other ways…
My Process
After my hospitalization, I knew if I was truly going to get to a place where I could eat the things I enjoyed again I had to figure out exactly how specific ingredients impacted me. But while that premise sounds simple it is actually an incredibly complex goal to achieve. Think for a moment how many ingredients you take in on a daily basis...
Stress Measurement
Having a chronic and incurable disease is not easy. In looking back over my journals from the second half of 2018 into the first part of 2019 it seemed as if I was always frustrated. It almost felt as if nothing could go my way. Thankfully God began to turn things around for me early 2019 but I still lived with a persistent low level of anxiety…
Life with Crohn's
While the last several years have largely been a success I’ve still had some pretty intense moments. In August of 2018, almost a year and a half after pinpointing an ingredient that contributed to the worst of my Crohn’s symptoms (bleeding) - I began to flare again. From early August through mid October I continued to bleed…
Allergic Reactions
My first foray into true a elimination diet started with a question - could I be allergic to egg? Years earlier I had done an IgE food allergy blood test which showed that I had a very slight allergy to egg. I dismissed the test results however since I had been eating eggs my whole life and I had never seen eggs give me an “allergic reaction”…
Life to the fullest
At the start of 2017 I was tired. I was frustrated in my career, frustrated that I couldn’t stay healthy, frustrated that I couldn’t live life like everyone else, and frustrated at how many good years of my life had been stolen because of Crohn’s disease. I was unable to be the person I wanted to be and the person I knew I was meant to be. It was disheartening…
Diet change is hard
In the summer of 2012 my mom gave me a book called “Breaking the Vicious Cycle” by Elaine Gottschall. The book had been recommended to her by a friend after she saw success with it. When she first gave it to me I thought to myself “yeah… that will never work” and I dismissed it. But as the summer progressed so did my symptoms…
Diagnosed with IBD
Back when I was a kid I’d spend my days hiking in the woods of East Tennessee, biking with friends, and playing football. I had no idea what my future would look like but at that age it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered in that moment was enjoying life. But a lot changed between my childhood and when my journey with Crohn’s disease began in college…