PLEASE read this, i desparately need HELP!

[BeingK8]

Back to correct the authors name. K8 had it right. I was wrong and reversed it.
I apologize to K8.

Absolutely not necessary. It's all good! ;-)

[Arky]

As BeingK8 mentioned, Jordan Rubin's book is a good place to start if you know for a fact that you have Crohn's (but do be aware that IBS is not necessarily Crohn's, as I found out through my own experience).

In all honesty, the 'correct' 'label' for your condition is perhaps less important than attaining a deep understanding of HOW your condition may have come about and HOW it can be affected for better and for worse, depending on what you ingest (that encompasses supplements, not just food).

Rubin is big on Beneficial Soil Organisms, since this proved to be the turning point in his battle with Crohn's.

His book is unfortunately a thinly-veiled product brochure for his company 'Garden of Life'. However, it is nonetheless worth purchasing in order to increase one's understanding of some of the underlying issues which may contribute to some inflammatory bowel conditions. It is, however, a big mistake to conclude that all inflammatory bowel conditions follow a near-identical pattern of causation.

For example, Rubin found that, amongst other things, the introduction of fermented dairy and Beneficial Soil Organisms (what he refers to, somewhat religiously, as 'The Maker's Diet') was sufficient to turn around the majority of his inflammatory bowel symptoms permanently.

However, many, many other individuals find that, whilst supplementation with powerful probiotic formulae can provide very beneficial symptomatic relief, it does not necessarily provide a lasting solution. It is possible, therefore, that in Rubin's case, something of a bacterial nature overran his healthy bowel flora at some point, from which it was unable to recover until he supplemented with BSOs. Either that, or something of a transitory nature altered his bowel environment just long enough to favour the proliferation of unhealthy bowel flora over healthy bowel flora (as can happen in patients who have used antibiotics), but did not remain longterm (if it had remained longterm then he would have experienced what many IBS sufferers do - namely, that probiotic foods and probiotic supplementation provide relief only for as long as they are consumed, with a rapid return of symptoms as soon as consumption of probiotic substances ceases. I myself fit into this latter category).

Surprisingly, some probiotic substances actually make my inflammation worse - e.g. kefir & sauerkraut. Let me just say that I really LIKE sauerkraut, on many levels, it's just that its acidity is problematic in my particular instance, more on which later...

So, for people like myself (and possibly you, too), who have something more insipid and longterm giving rise to their bowel inflammation, what things other than probiotic supplementation may be considered (though probiotics may still be a useful tool in keeping symptoms to a minimum, in the meantime, whilst other potential causal avenues are explored)? What things could actually be giving rise to a situation in the bowel whereby it becomes unfavourable to healthy bowel flora?


Well, food sensitivities (gluten, lactose and many, many less-well-known ones) can lead to inflammatory immune response which, over time, can degrade the sensitive epithelial tissues that line the bowel. However, I personally do not feel that these are, generally-speaking a primary causal factor, but rather perhaps tend to be a (still very important) link in the middle of a much larger chain of factors. If you wish to investigate foods as one aspect of bowel inflammation, then look into ELISA testing for this purpose, and also read material by Elaine Gottschall and David Dahlman. Note that Dahlman is more progressive in his approach than Gottschall, who is seemingly obsessed with simply avoiding certain foods for a whole lifetime, rather than addressing the underlying causes of a persons food-sensitivity-related bowel inflammation. Both these authors, however, offer useful stepping stones. The point is that once someone already has an inflammatory bowel condition, it is vital to avoid certain foods which serve to exacerbate it (perhaps by feeding pathogenic bacteria which then excrete inflammation-inducing toxic substances etc.).



Parasites are another key possibility, particularly for people who eat a lot of raw produce or who travel the world a lot.

Others point to yeast issues ('Candida Albicans' etc.)



What is interesting about many of these potential causes of bowel inflammation is that they can be seen to have something in common and that common factor is a weakening and/or derangement of normal immune function.

For example, Candida is a normal inhabitant of the human body and is normally kept in check by other bowel flora and by the human immune system of which these healthy bowel flora are actually a component.

Many parasites, too, are, to some degree common inhabitants of the human digestive tract, either on a purely transitory basis or, in some cases, on a permanent basis, but parasites, too, are generally kept in check by a normal healthy human immune system and by a normally-functioning biliary system, a vital component of which is the liver.

For certain foods to cause inappropriate auto-immune inflammatory responses may point to a derangement in immune function which undoubtedly has a cause somewhere in a person's physiology and life history, even though it may prove exceedingly difficult to identify (e.g. genetic, excessive general toxicity burden, disproportional exposure earlier in life etc. etc.)

As you may have gathered, the topic of bowel inflammation can be an exceedingly complex one, and this is unfortunate because it can make a person's life miserable as they suffer not only the symptoms but also the financially- and emotionally-draining experience of seeing one specialist after another, with little or no improvement and a whole raft of condescending remarks from each specialist in turn.

A very key factor in the above is that modern medicine is structured such that general physicians cannot possibly hope to be expert in all aspects of physiology, and specialist doctors have a tendency to focus too narrowly on their specialised area to be expert in it's relationship to other aspects of physiology.

Bowel inflammation may present symptoms in the precise location of the bowel but it may very often be an indicator of a much broader systemic condition - e.g. weakness or derangement of immune function.

[Arky]

Get yourself a Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis - it would be immensely beneficial in figuring out in which direction it might be best for you to proceed.

Some discussion on CDSA in an older thread: http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=64495

Also, I equally-strongly recommend that you obtain a Hair Elements Analysis (not a Toxic elements analysis - you will require a hair elements analysis which INCLUDES ordinary HEALTHY metals/minerals. Specifically, if you go to DirectLabs.com, you can order the DDI 'Hair Elements' test. It's very affordable and you don't need a doctor's involvement to purchase the test or to receive the results.

Going back to the older thread, linked above, I discussed that bile-flow can have an extremely close relationship to issues of malabsorption, parasites, certain food sensitivities etc.

Gallstones and liver flukes are not the only way the biliary system can be impeded in its efforts to function properly - certain heavy metals can exhaust the biliary system because bile is used to expel the likes of mercury and copper from the body, via the bowel (although, as you are no doubt aware, the body is unable to effectively excrete all such heavy metals in this manner, particularly if they have, in the case of mercury or lead, for example, managed to cross the blood-brain barrier, into the brain, from where they cannot be retrieved unless one intervenes with specific chelating substances such as alpha-lipoic acid, cilantro etc., although using cilantro for chelation purposes is a bad idea. See Andy Cutler's excellent books for more on this - www.noamalgam.com, http://www.mandimart.co.uk/books-by-...r-phd-38-c.asp).

Mercury, for example, can also take up residence in certain organs of the body, and these include the thyroid, pancreas and the liver. The pancreas functions as both an exocrine and an endocrine organ, and the thyroid is an endocrine gland, so, even in this very brief discussion, you one can see that mercury can badly disrupt various hormone systems. The thyroid also secretes a hormone called Calcitonin, which is known to participate in calcium and phosphorus metabolism - this may be relevant to some degree in arthritis symptoms, mentioned in that older thread. As far as the pancreas is concerned, it is not difficult to recognise that if mercury (for example) is resident within it and may thus be impeding it's ability to correctly secrete carbonates (to modulate the acidity of food chyme exiting the stomach, since these carbonates are combined with bile secretions and the combined mix secreted into the duodenum, at the major duodenal papilla - http://tinyurl.com/4v2xchz), then overly-acidic chyme may, as mentioned in my reply to the older thread, linked-to above, lead to acid damage to the epithelial layers of the duodenum and bowel, with pain and inflammation as a consequence. If the pancreas is also impeded by mercury in its efforts to secrete sufficient (and food-appropriate) digestive enzymes, then, as also mentioned in the older reply, insufficiently-digested food particles may lead to an immune response in the bowel, which means more inflammation...

Did you also know that mercury and copper act as pro-oxidants? They consequently lead to the generation of masses of free radicals, which themselves can lead to systemic inflammation - is this relevant to inflammatory arthritis...? Hmmm.....

Did you also know that Mercury is capable of deranging the functioning of certain proteins in cell membranes? One vital function of these proteins is to transport minerals throughout the human organism. If mercury is leading to a derangement of their functioning, then, in addition to possibly impeding calcitonin secretion from the thyroid, mercury may lead to the bodys cells becoming unable to transport minerals where they are needed - so we're back to malabsorption and to 'mal-transportation' of whatever one has managed to absorb from ingested nutrients.

So, again, I urge you to GET TESTED:

1) Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis 'CDSA' - e.g. Metametrix labs

2) Hair Elements Test - 'DDI' Doctor's Data, available direct to the public, via DirectLabs.com


You may have seen me discussing decreased liver function and mentioning the name 'Doc Sutter'. He often points out that a wide variety of diseases, including Cancer, have their origins in a less-than-optimally-functioning liver, and that whilst liver function can decline gradually, over a period of many years, due to abuses of food or various substances, or, indeed, malnutrition, its functioning can be damaged by a specific event in a person's life whereby the liver becomes overwhelmed by a particular pathogen or toxic element. In Sutter's case, this was a mix of parasites picked up in the jungle during his service as a medic in the Vietnam war and, primarily, his exposure, during that conflict, to Agent Orange.

The point here is that you would be wise, in addition to the above tests, to spend a great deal of time looking back into your past and trying to identify if there might be one or more incidents when you may have been exposed to certain toxins which might have compromised you liver function.

Please note that a Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis provides data not only on bowel function and parasitology, but also on biliary secretions and pancreatic secretions. You need this information urgently.



You might also find some of the discussion in the following thread to be of some relevance, as you continue with more personal research:

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthrea...719#post655719



...and one thing I forgot to add yesterday is that you may find some helpful pointers by looking into the work of Natasha Campbell McBride - www.GAPs.me

She runs a clinic for people seeking to heal bowel conditions (some cases of which do involve addressing heavy metal toxicities, incidentally). She's written a couple of books, so if you check out the website you'll find the relevant details.

[RawkinRaw]

Raw bodybuilder Storm says to exercise 20 minutes after you eat. that helps turn the food in to muscle. otherwise raw food digests so quickly it just goes right through you.