Natural Remedies for Crohn's Disease: Holistic Healing

This particular flare up I have tried turmeric with black pepper and oregano infusions to get rid of bacteria, coconut water famous for stopping the runs, pomegranate juice which is supposed to stop the "D", Pentasa, Asacol, glorious diet foods from Whole Foods "whole paycheck" that were supposed to bring remission (SCD), pepto bismol tablet and liquid, the famous anomaly coconut macaroons, blackberry brandy (the real stuff, not flavored), black tea, the bratt diet, caltrate, and finally, bentonite clay.

I was a wreck when I was on Immodium AD extra strength (my mind was not where my body was on the phones) as I found out when I had told a potential client wrong information on a call that was audited, and about a third into my shift, something was urging pretty severely to get out and it was not gas. I took my break a little early and ran to the nearest restroom which felt about a mile away in my dress shoes. I prepared some black tea because that might help calm things down a bit and had a cigarette. No avail. For lunch I had strange stares because who brings in gatorade and a couple of bouillon cubes? My mother died amidst all of this, and I still managed to catch a flight, play violin at her memorial service with the aid of goodnights. This is just not the way to live.

I on the good side of things dropped about 25 pounds (sexy... Lol). All of this brought me to an idea that I had when I was 15 (28 years ago) when I had a flu bug and the urgency was terrible. I had an herbalist tell me to go home, and take 1/4 teaspoon (and no more) of nutmeg with 4 oz of warm water, and don't eat for an hour and a half. That cleaned up the problem, and no worries after that.

All these years later I have this flare up, and 2 months after the start 1/2 a teaspoon of nutmeg, and later that evening I had a Jamba juice Pomegranate pick me up with their yogurt (which is not good as well as a test), and a 12 inch steak and cheese with spinach, black olives, and chipolte sauce (gentle test) on Italian Herbs and cheese from subway; things are normal this morning (so far). I found that for whatever reason nutmeg is a cleanser of the digestive tract, and an effective astringent as well it will bind your intestinal tract. You DO NOT want to take more than 4 tablespoons in a day however as it will make you very ill, and usually has bad effects on your body such as possible hallucinations (not likely but has been documented as a possible side effect), and possibly death (most likely not, but possible). If you are sensitive to nutmeg or have reactions to apple pie, or other common recipes that contain nutmeg, sorry this course is not for you.

I had also looked in to coconut oil for a few days after things are back into swing and you need to normalize the bowel, and have come up with a decent brand of coconut oil on amazon from Jarrow (it really tastes like coconut, and very fragrant).

In my research, experience with doctors, and self experience have found that I have been my best barometer of success with this ailment. It matters not necessarily what you eat because if you are going to have a resection, surgery, or other procedure, it will happen anyway. I had Solu-Medrol followed by a taper Rx of Prednisone which I forced myself off of sooner than prescribed because walking a parking lot felt like walking a football field, and the jitters and palpitations were terrible, and when I ran out of Pentasa and tried to get assistance from Shirecares.com they were like dealing with the jaws of Satan. All I can say is I am grateful I have no adverse reactions to nutmeg, and it works.

Another thing of note is that Crohn's sufferers are commonly deficient in vitamins b-12, and d3, and some cases iron. It is important in addition to your multivitamins you supplement them with either b-12 or b complex, d3, and if you have a lot of bleeding or are anemic; iron. If for some reason you are unable to consume iron supplements, liver (usually beef) is a good starting point. Also if you are iron deficient Do NOT take pomegranate supplements or juice.

I am not a doctor, though I have visited many. I ask a lot of questions, and make sure I don't leave until I get answers. Also I have found that if you are gluten intolerant, you may have celiac disease. Other topics of interest to explore are Colitis (any form), c-diff, and h-pylori. If the diagnosis is Crohn's, make sure you review cat scans, x-rays or biopsies with your physician thoroughly, and write down the questions you intend on asking before your visit. Do not leave until you have all of your questions answered.

03/05/2008: Ted from Bangkok, Thailand replies: "Dear Carmen: A diarrhea and a gas appears to be that the digestive system is not doing a complete digestion. It sometimes happens whenever certain pathogens or unfriendly bacteria are found in high amounts, the intestinal system is acid which introduces a host of unfriendly bacteria since they need acid environment to survive, or an incomplete digestive system, or that possibility that there is a leaky gut whenever the walls of intestinal system is damaged from bacteria, causing the intestinal system not to do complete digestion. It takes a couple of days for the body to normalize the digestive system with fulvic acid, so for initial couple of days of fulvic acid or humic acid, I would expect diarrhea or laxative effect as these humic acid have a somewhat detoxifying effect on the system. I also helps a lot' a lot that a dechlorinator made of sodium thiosulfate is added to the drinking water and drank, before taking the fulvic and humic acid. So that the fulvic and humic acid will be more compatible with the body by reduction of chlorine. It should be noted that the use of MMS (sodium chlorite solution between 25-28%) are contraindicated and not to be used with fulvic acid and humic acid. It remains to me, despite the promoter's claim, is still a chlorine compound regardless and it may cause the fulvic and humic acid to react with them very negatively to form cancer chlorine compounds. This is why I always use a dechlorinator, of sodium thiosulfate, where drops is used, 5-10 drops of 10% usually of sodium thiosulfate in a full glass of drinking water.

Therefore, there are certain supplements that help the digestion process, primarily fulvic and humic acid supplements, if that can be found. Usually I will dissolve a humic acid powder of 250 mg in a glass of water, and take it three times a day. It also helps if fulvic acid powder 250 mg is taken, if that can be found. This should correct the problematic digestion to be more complete digestion. It should be noted that in livestock animals that whenever a digestion of pigs, and cows the digestion is incomplete a fulvic acid or especially humic acid is added into the feed which prevents or stop foul smelling wastes that often occurs in animals because of unfriendly bacteria.

The problem about using fulvic acid alone is whenever the body is in a long term low grade metabolic acidosis (which can actually be initiated from the use of hydrocarbons, taking aspartame, and eating simple white bread and other acid forming foods) that unfriendly bacteria tends to grow despite all efforts to take probiotics, which tends to restore intestinal flora with friendly bacteria such as eating yogurt. However, taking probiotics, will hardly put any firm grounding if the intestinal acidity is present which tends to kill off the friendly bacteria from too many overpowering unfriendly bacteria.

Therefore, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, in 1/2 glass of water I will take about 3 times a day. Once in the morning, once in the early afternoon and once before bedtime. While baking soda is not a perfect way to alkalizing, the ingredients are easy to find in most supermarkets. And it requires a least two weeks for the body to be able to to alkalize properly. Initially there will be alot of gases. Obviously eating certain foods such as peanuts, nuts, and especially beans will often result in excessive gas. How this phenomenon happens, as I understand it, at least one of the many reasons is that beans in generally blocks the body's ability to digest the foods into sugar by preventing certain enzymes to digest that and utilized by the body. So this leaves room for the intestinal bacteria to digest the beans into energy creating excess gases, and sometimes foul smelling, but not often. The key for me is to take sufficient baking soda to alkalize to that the urine pH and saliva pH is near 7 should be sufficient.

The second remedy, especially if it is autoimmunity is involved, is the borax remedy, which has a tendency, along with sufficient baking soda to alkalize usually resolves most of this in my experience. The dose can be anywhere from 1/8 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon of borax in one liter of drinking water. It's usually taken for about 4-5 days out of a week. Borax and alkalization in my opinion are two of the most important remedies for Crohn's disease, but there is also quite possibly Iodine, silicon, and molybdenum that I might consider that seems to go hand in hand. In the meaintime, I would avoid white flour, using any vegetable oils in cooking and replace eating bread in general with just eating rice instead. They seem to help some conditions of Crohn's whenever a white bread, cookies, pastries, as these are one of the highest in trans fatty acid, propionic acid, alloxan, and bromine, which tends to displace essential iodine from the system, which obviously lowers the metabolism and the immune system, resulting in the condition of digestive disorders resulting in Crohn's disease.

The third remedy that seems to be prevalent in some Crohn's disease especially if there is difficulty of digestion or some vomiting after meals is the royal jelly supplements, which can either be fresh frozen royal jelly, or the dried version. The one I had experience with some success is the fresh frozen ones, but never really gotten around to trying the dried, version since it was sitting in my refrigerator as an emergency aid kit whenever digestive process doesn't work. Still if royal jelly is not found a suitable substitute is the vitamin B complex. I do have plenty of problems with vitamin B use, that I don't like and therefore, have to carefully read the ingredients, where the B1 is thiamine mononitrate, not the thiamine hydrochloride. The B3 is niacinamide, not the niacin. The vitamin B6 is pyridoxine phosphate, not the pyridoxine hydrochloride, and there is plenty of B5 or that they are taken separately. A preferred form is probably the B50 or B100, where most of the Bs are 100 mg with possible exception of B12 and B9 which are usually 100 mcg. I suspect that we really need a lot more folate, in the order 50-100 mg rather than mcg, which seems to reduce the inflammation in some cases of intestinal issues. Of course, folic acid is actually quite cheap even by the kilogram if purchased from a manufacturing source, but somehow, in the strange world of supplement marketing they become amazingly expensive and the amount given is just too small. Therefore, a reasonable negotiation between the two worlds might be to get folic acid separately and I will probably take 1-2 mg (which is actually 1000-2000 mcg), which is quite small, but won't hurt the budget.

As to the other supplements such as silicon, iodine, and molybdenum these three have a tendency to reduce the Crohn's autoimmunity. The iodine I prefer is the sodium iodide, usually 1-10 mg. I actually use about 10 mg or more. I don't use mcg amounts or less than that because my experience has been the recommended dose by the authorities is way too too small to have an effect. As a historical backdrop over 150 years ago, people used to really cure goiter, the size of a baseball or larger, using about 200 mg of iodine taken for a couple of months. Today we do something that is more primitive than 150 years ago. We simply remove the thyroid and take thyroid supplements for the rest of our lives. This is a profitable method for drug companies, not for me anyway. It SHOULD BE noted that for the iodine to work best that an amino acid tyrosine supplements is taken together with it, since tyrosine is necessary for the thyroid to produce the thyroxine.

Silicon supplements is rather hard to find in the Western countries, but can be done by eating rice (mostly unwashed, assuming they look clean enough), taking oatmeal and horsetail. I prefer to stop eating bread and white flour altogether due to the bromine process which causes them to be high in bromine. A bromine is a halogens, much like an iodine, but interestingly the bromine DISPLACES iodine, causing inadequate iodine, despite ADEQUATE intake of them. Interestingly, iodize salt are useless, since companies tend to add drying agents to look nice an white but these drying agent they add are aluminum compounds. I am also suspicious what they do add because the pH of these salt are always 5. A pure salt or sodium chloride always have a pH of 7, never 5. This is why when preparing foods it is safer for me to just use the sea salt and take the iodine separately. Another strange practice is to use potassium iodide, when a much safer sodium iodide can be use. In my experience a sodium iodide is much less toxic than the use of potassium iodide as well. It used to be that almost 80 something years ago, iodine were found to in every family doctors for all kinds of ailments and I still find this iodine to be amazing in the broad range of sickness, but with monopoly of medicine from the beginnings of Rockefeller finance Flexner report, all that were eliminated with more expensive surgeries and hormone replacements. Replacements don't work as well as what mother nature intended.

As to the molybdenum supplements I prefer a sodium molybdate kind, which generally is 1-5 mg but I may take more (such as 50 mg - the toxicity of sodium molybdate in general is very low), but not everyday. However, what is sold in the market is mcg, which is find, but I don't think it has much positive effect on autoimmuhity, still it's worth the mention that it helps in some cases of candida, yeast infection and crohns disease.

A simple way to reduce SOME of the problems, if not more of the Crohn's disease is the very simple sea salt supplement. The dose often requires one dose per week (quite possibly twice a week), which is a very rough estimation. The dose is 1 teaspoon of sea salt in 1 glass of water taken ideally in early evening when I am at home. It should be noted that a simple sea salt is alkaline in nature where it's pH is about 8, so it's this alkaline effect that might have some laxative effect, but the benefits of the sea salt is it kills many unfriendly bacteria whenever this is taken.

As a tip, if hydrogen peroxide drops such as 30 drops of 3% is added along with the borax remedy, in on liter of drinking water it helps much more in reduction of intestinal problems. Of course this has been only optional if I find it was not helped if I just took the borax alone. The hydrogen peroxide further makes it more effective.

Finally adding some bentonite clays, such as a big pinch of them in a drinking glass of bacteria, at least reduces the number of a bacteria. The benefit of using bentonite clay is that it reduces diarrhea, while at the same time reduce some intestinal issues.

If the Crohn's disease exists because of autoimmunity induced by excess free heavy metals, which in many case is happens too, then regulary taking spirulina and chlorella supplements for 4 or 5 days out of a week will help further improve on the problems.

It is still most important for me and is well aware by most readers that sugar, white flour, aspartame, heavy metals, vegetable oils used in cooking, bread, pastries, iron pots and pans, contaminated drinking water, potato chips are common triggers of the Crohn's disease. Hence should be avoided at least by me, and replaced that with rice, using glass cookware, R.O. water mixed sea salt 1/4 teaspoon per liter, and use of coconut oil for cooking only.

I have read that Vitamin D3 may be helpful in treating Crohns disease.

Do you know if this is true, as I have been using 15000 iu per day for 2 months now and have yet not noticed any difference.

Also do you have any latest research on healing Crohns disease, with its Chronic diarrhea and gas pains?

Kind regards,

Miranda.

I have been sick with Colitis for the past six years, have tried every remedy recommended by Naturopath, Doctors, Specialists and Blood Analysts. I finally found a supplement that has managed my colitis amazingly. The product is a hydrolyzed white fish and miraculously calms down the inflammation and you will have regular bowel movements within 3 weeks - good luck!! Unfortunately you can only get this supplement from a Naturopath - its very inexpensive and effective. In Canada the product is $68 but I imagine in the states its much cheaper.

I started taking turmeric for arthritis and got my mother who is 69 taking turmeric pills as well, 600 mg per day in one pill. If I run out of pills for longer than 4-5 days my knuckles start hurting and it's hard to bend my index finger. I make sure I don't run out any longer.

My mom has been faithful about taking the turmeric pills and just recently mentioned how she thinks it is helping with her Crohn's disease. She had emergency surgery in 1992 for an obstruction and they removed a large portion of small intestines and colon. It was due to Crohn's disease but they didn't diagnose it until after the surgery.

Since the surgery in 1992, my mom has narrowed down what foods bother her to eat. She cannot digest any kind of fat. Red meats, fried foods, nothing with fat digests and if she eats anything with fat she gets bad diarrhea sometimes all night long.

Since she has been taking the turmeric she has noticed that when she cheats and eats pizza or french fries (knowing full well what she will endure later after eating those fatty foods) she has found that she isn't bothered by the fat now and doesn't get the bad diarrhea.

She does take 2 different over the counter digestive enzyme pills with fattening meals to help digest the fat but she has always taken those pills. But now with taking the turmeric pills she can eat more of what she wants to eat without any of the consequences which is a blessing since she is so thin.

Hope this helps someone else. Reading this site has helped me and my family out tremendously. I encourage everyone to give feedback. You never know when it might help someone.

Hi: Try applying DMSO gel on your lower tummy (colon area) 2x a day. It helps to rid of inflammation, and restore healthier bowels. It helps with reduction of pain after 1 hour. Manuka honey also helps heal wounds in the bowels and definitely helped me with reducing acute pain. I take 1/2 tspn on empty stomach 2x a day.

Lastly, do not over look proper food combining. It is very important.

Just rip lettuce up and pour some vinegar in, enough to get the lettuce damp. I usually add salt, but if you are one a low salt diet, I would not recommend it. Use any seasoning you enjoy. My only salt intake other than from foods naturally is when I eat this. My blood pressue is fine and my cholestrol is also lower now.

Hope it helps someone suffering as I do.