Diet & Weight Magazine

“LCHF Has Set Me Free”

By Dietdoctor @DietDoctor1
Before and after

Before and after

Can you eat yourself free from a severe inflammatory bowel disease, that could otherwise lead to the need for a bowel resection, resulting in a life with a colostomy?

Nobody knows for sure yet – there are no studies. But more and more stories point in the same direction as Bella’s.

Here’s an email I received recently:

Hi!

You may call me Bella, and I’m 24 happy years young!

During the winter, in my third high-school year, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, which makes the body “reject” the colon. One could liken it to having a relapsing cold sore on the inside of parts, or the entire, intestinal wall. In the beginning there wasn’t much in the way of symptoms. Two years later I suffered a relapse that ended in a week at the hospital, where doctors were just hours from removing the entire colon and replacing it with an ostomy pouch.

After years of Remicade and Humira, I met a co-worker at my summer job, who told me about the stone age, gluten and an LCHF/paleo diet. I’ve experimented with changing my diet in the past and I had no faith that this would help me, but after allergic reactions from Humiran they wanted to put me on Imurel (a chemotherapy drug), so I thought that “I had nothing to lose except my bowel and you can do without it”. I compared a life without a colon to a life where I had to undergo testing at the hospital every week, endure a lot of side effects and being banned from sun bathing.

I asked to go off Humira and instead wait before starting taking Remicade and Imurel until I started to experience symptoms. My doctor was an angel and agreed to let me go without for a while, as long as I had blood and stool testing done every four weeks.

Changing eating habits is difficult and takes time, but I embraced LCHF with all my heart (and my gut). After 6 months, when it was assumed that all pharmaceutical effect from the drugs had run out, I went in for a check-up with my doctor, who was surprised. He thought that I should “continue whatever I was doing” and continue to get tested regularly. After another 6 months I didn’t have to test as often and three weeks ago I had another follow-up visit. My doctor just wanted to inform me that I now didn’t have to do any more testing as long as I promised to let him know if I feel sick. I’ve now been free as a bird for 1 year and 9 months.

Others claim that diet has no impact and that the disease goes into relapse, making it quite possible to get sick again at any time. But if I cheat every day for four days with gluten in particular, I come down with symptoms right away! LCHF makes me free!

Commentary

Bowel diseases as ulcerative colitis may come and go in relapses, and the story above could be a coincidence. But I hear similar stories – particularly regarding ulcerative colitis and sometimes even Chron’s disease – so often that I’m convinced that this is not a coincidence.

Something in the modern diet – perhaps gluten, perhaps something else (an overload of omega-6?) – has caused the enormous increase in similar diseases we have seen in recent decades. And those who stop eating modern food may often get well, like Bella.

More

LCHF for Beginners

New Study: Is Today’s Wheat Bad for You?

LCHF and Common Digestive Issues (“IBS”)

PS

Do you have a success story you want to share on this blog? Send it (photos appreciated) to [email protected], and please let me know if it’s OK to publish your photo and name or if you’d rather remain anonymous.


Back to Featured Articles on Logo Paperblog