Imperfect health
Disclaimer: If you are reading this and dealing with ANY health related problems I am NOT recommending you take the same unconventional approach as I have in my battle with Crohn’s disease. Any changes you wish to make in your care plans should be done in partnership with the team of qualified healthcare providers who treat you.
Is my health perfect now after an elimination diet?
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 as I continue to test theories and attempt to learn more about my body. I make adjustments quickly to get things under control but I never want to give off the perception that I have it all together - this blog should be my journey for better or worse. Here are some examples of my experiences when things don’t go as planned and how I get back on track.
Unexpected bleeding:
In April of 2021 I looked into the toilet and saw it was full of crimson - I had a good 30 second freak out! It was the first time I had any blood since 2018. I quickly reminded myself how far I have come since I started fighting Crohn’s through diet 9 years prior. With years of lifestyle changes under my belt and a few years of elimination diet and health journaling, I was confident that I would quickly get things back under control.
I had eaten a cheat meal a day and a half earlier. I pulled up the ingredient list on the website we ordered from and noticed they used a TON of corn products in the food we ate (corn oil, corn meal, etc.). These corn products were also near the top of the very long list of ingredients, which told me that these ingredients were used in larger quantities. Since I knew that corn products were a trigger of mine the anxiety didn’t last long.
I was back on my normal diet and I didn’t expect the bleeding to continue. I monitored it for a few days but since I was avoiding my triggers it only happened the one time.
Unexpected reduction in consistency:
In the fall of 2021 I had a two month period of lower consistency. It started a few days after coming back from North Carolina at the end of July. My consistency and frequency had been great on my vacation diet (and had been prior to it) but I still was ready to get back to a normal diet.
Unexpectedly however my consistency dropped from a 7.1 (on my custom 10 point scale) down to 6.4 and my frequency went up to 2.8 times a day. It wasn’t anything to really be overly concerned about but it was an early warning sign that something was off.
Within a few days I started to feel a bit of discomfort in my upper abdomen and the following week I had some sporadic diarrhea. My average for the week increased to 3.5 trips a day (with a max of 6 times in one day) - three times higher than my norm.
My symptoms improved in August but as I entered September my consistency and frequency began to drop again - not by a lot but enough to know that something wasn’t quite right. By early November I was back to normal.
So what caused it? Two days before my symptoms started, I stopped taking a prescription allergy medication intended to minimize the impacts of grass pollen (I was testing it to see if it would help with seasonal hair loss patterns). By suppressing part of the body’s natural immune response, this medication could have made it harder for me to see if any of new the ingredients I was testing caused symptoms in me. Once I removed these ingredients out of my diet my symptoms improved (I later retested them after my health improved) but I also think seasonal factors played into how long it took me to recover since I didn’t fully recover until after ragweed tapered.
What do I do when things don’t go quite as planned?
Step 1 - Stay calm
Step 2 - Look at what could be giving me issues. I think about what I’ve eaten recently and see if I’ve added anything new or cheated at all. I look back at my old journals to see if I had seen similar reactions with similar ingredients in the past.
Step 3 - Put together a hypothesis for what the problem could be and define a plan for how I can avoid the possible trigger(s). Usually this is me going back to a strict diet ensuring I’m only eating meals and ingredients on my safe list. I choose not to cheat or test new ingredients during these times until my body is back to normal.
Step 4 - Measure the effectiveness of my plan. I journal frequently and I actually measure and track my symptoms daily (read more on my journaling process here)
Step 5 - Reassess as needed. Within a week if I’m not seeing improvement I’ll repeat steps 1 - 4. (Usually this means I try different baseline meal that I also feel is safe to eat)
Step 6 - Research research research - I am constantly trying to learn more about health, nutrition, and how my body works. Everything I learn becomes a new idea and a new way to look at my diagnosis. There are always new things to test!
If I’m doing all the right things with my diet and symptoms are still increasing even after taking the actions above I might take more extreme action depending on the severity. When things got really bad for me in peak ragweed season of 2018 I actually spent two weeks away from home (and from pollen) just to ensure I was giving my body / immune system time to recover - it helped.
Update: November 2023
Most of my issues now are not GI related but I have seen a little blood or lower consistancy a handful of times in the last five years. Thankfully things clear up quickly but these moments always come with uncertainty. I stick with my process and I always learn something new about my body.
