Crohn's Disease, Gastro Goofs, and Worms

My husband was diagnosed with mild Crohn's Disease a few years ago. It was a scary week because he was admitted to the hospital with strange abdominal symptoms and told to stay overnight (and then another night, and another). After being released with all scary tests, thank God, negative, he was told to get a colonoscopy, something given his symptoms over the decade I wondered WHY his gastro or GP never ordered. 

For years he'd been going to his GP and complaining of symptoms, and to a well-known gastro guy who despite his  stellar reputation in the field,and my husband's long-standing symptoms, never ordered a colonoscopy.  I mean I don't have a degree in gut technology and even I thought he should have had one ions ago.

They did put him through quite a few miserable tests over the years in LIEU of the colonoscopy, but the colonoscopy trumps all the others because a) it sees more b) besides the nasty pre-scope cleanse, it's not so bad because it knocks you out so you have no idea you're undergoing invasion of the body snatchers.  

This gastro mis-step is one reason I subscribe so firmly to alternative medicine and self-empowerment for healng. If you want something done right, do it yourself. 

So after suffering for years, my husband's body finally screamed at him, "enough!" That's when he went to the hospital and had a colonoscopy a week later. Gotta love American health care, it's not about preventative medicine, about customized care, about patients getting the right test at the right time, it's about making patients meet the requirements of the insurance companies. 

The colonoscopy results came back with Crohn's but a very mild case. 

But, until I understood how manageable this disease was, both my husband and I were floored. What I knew of Crohn's was bad, really, really bad. A friend's son was near death years back (younger and much older people tend to have more severe forms of Crohn's due to the nature of the immune system advancing the symptoms, active in the young, compromised in some people as they age).  And while I knew my husband's Crohn's was "the good kind," any autoimmune disorder diagnosis, where the body is attacking itself, can send you reeling. 

Because I'm so into holistic medicine I asked the gastro doc if we could wean him off the steroids and get him on natural anti-inflammatories, and surprisingly, he agreed.

Surprisingly because this guy never struck me as the open-minded kind so I never expected him to meet me half way on alternative medicine.  He once told me after my colonoscopy that "You must be taking that herbal crap, your colon was stained in a spot and so I had to biopsy it,"  (sorry for that visual but I had to make a point). It was like I'd made him stay late that day because I had the gaul to take some Chinese cleanse blend years ago. 

Gee, I'm sorry doc if only I'd thought of you before I did the cleanse I'd have been more considerate and kept the toxins in me.     

It turns out doc was being characteristically sarcastic and funny, a friend who knows him told me when I gave her the rundown.  And, if you go to his office and see his parking sign "parking in the rear" posted in such a way as to allude to the area of the body he is so familiar with, AND see his "push here" greeting card posted near the toilet so when you sit down you can push a button on the card and hear a toilet flush, you get that this guy is purposely full of s..........

This is a form of humor (that is sarcastic or crude) I usually love, but maybe in matters of health scares, I wasn't laughing much back then. 

So, over a few months my husband reduced his steroid meds to nothing, and now he takes a very good fish oil several times a day (Mega Gold), turmeric (one of the most powerful anti-inflammatories) and vitamin D (5,000) a day (drops are ideal, but capsules are fine). And while said doc is pretty well known in the IBD, Crohn's world, my husband never went full throttle on the must-do-list for doc's clinical trials, the latest being a worm that apparently when swallowed can improve Crohn's.

My husband will swallow the vitamins, the minimal amount of meds, even the monsterously big camera pill designed to monitor his intestinal progress from the inside out, but worms?  

No, this is hardly "Survivor: The Gastro Season." and even they got some rice to go with their bugs.   

In case you want to read more about D and Crohn's: My article on a Vitamin D Deficiency and Crohns.