Unfortunately, my much-awaited classical education conference report has taken a back seat this week. It’s not alone.

We’ve taken the offensive, so to speak, against Crohn’s Disease, and the first week of the battle has been rather difficult. The doctors have told us that a $20,000 dollar surgery is her only option – that is, apart from semi-permanent large doses of steroids to suppress the problem. They have also told us that they don’t think her intestinal disease is food-related. Reading a number of books that challenge that assumption with empirical research (Rinkel, Theron Randolph, and others) finally gave me the level of confidence necessary to push ahead implementing a diet strategy as the beginning of the war on disease. The diet comes from Dr. Shrader in Santa Fe, whom we will soon be seeing for immunotheraphy. Since we live in the same house and eat meals together most of the time, and since moral support never hurts, I have opted to diet with Jen. I also thus function as a “control” for the experiment. We began Monday, June 30.

Were we in for a surprise. I read in Dr. Shrader’s “green book” that “any strict elimination diet will make most people feel better. However, there will often be an initial period when you will not feel well. This generally lasts for only 2 to 4 days, and then you’ll feel better. This is partly due to the removal of foods to which you are intolerant (”food withdrawal”). I should warn you, however, that those of you with severe food problems might feel terrible for a few days.” Even this didn’t fully prepare me for what happened. Perhaps this will give you an idea of what to expect if you try something so outrageous.

With everything else I’d been reading, I thought to myself, “If her problem is food-related, it ought to resurface if we take the right food away.” To the best of my knowledge, I was right.

As per the instructions, we stopped eating wheat and other glutinous grains, sugars, dairy products, and fermented / mold-prone foods and drinks (among a few other things). Ideally, Jen should not be taking prednisone either, but she still is because the weaning-off is a slow, incremental process. Nonetheless, she’s not taking much prednisone. Up until the day we began the diet, she felt great (and had for months).

Day 1 (Monday, June 30): In the morning we felt good. I think we skipped breakfast, we had fish and broccoli for lunch, and bell peppers stuffed with beef for dinner (with a side of radishes roasted with potatoes). Nothing out of the ordinary. All of those are veggies and meats that we normally eat. But by evening, just after dinner, her cramping pain began to return and by nightfall it was almost as bad as her initial “flare-up” in November of last year. She was more or less incapacitated. As for me, I had a HUGE headache that came on gradually in the evening and reached its height around midnight. Jen was awake all night with the pain and nausea, as most of her prescription pain medication had no effect. It was almost exactly like the night we first went to the ER. The only reason we probably didn’t have to go to the ER is because she was still on prednisone. The pain kept her up until the morning of day 2.

Day 2 (July 1): Jen didn’t eat all day. I was fatigued and lethargic throughout the afternoon but I did find something to eat for lunch (chicken broth I think). By night, she felt a little better and was able to have some chicken. She had to remain in one position, and very still, to ward off the nausea. Even at night on day 2, she was taking her most powerful narcotic to stay asleep because of the pain.

Day 3 (July 2): We both felt a bit better in the morning, but virtually all my muscles ached for most of the day and Jen still had the cramping pains recurring every 5-10 minutes (not as severe as at first). Zucchini, with almond butter, served as a quick lunch before we headed to our pastor’s house for a steak and potato dinner. The food went down easier for me, but Jen was still having a bit of a hard time feeling “up to” eating. She more or less stopped taking pain medication by dusk.

Day 4 (July 3): from that time until now (Day 8), things have steadily improved. We’re both feeling more or less normal again. Jen isn’t having any Crohn’s-type pain (or any pain at all for that matter) and I’m not perpetually exhausted. Learning how to eat on this diet is still an adventure and a challenge, but we will know our vegetables before it’s over. We’re supposed to keep all that food I mentioned above “eliminated” for about a month, and then begin to add foods back in one at a time, playing detective to try to pinpoint possible problem foods. At the same time, Jen will (God willing) be receiving LDA immunotherapy treatment from Dr. Shrader, which should (over time) eliminate the dietary issues by re-training the immune response. Or at least that’s the shortest summary possible I could give you of the process.

As I thought back over this experience, I was struck by how it compared with the onset of her symptoms on the first place. This may have been a “food” thing all along, but because of my blind spot (and the blind spot of the medical community) to the effect of diet on disease, I couldn’t see it. When you consider all the facts, it’s difficult to call it coincidence. To review my thoughts:

The first day she had a flare-up, she had eaten nothing but a bowlful of salsa with corn chips and an orange. No wheat. No dairy. It scared us because the thing literally came out of nowhere, with no warning, which is exactly what happened Monday night. When the next bad attack came on, with the same sort of symptoms, she was unable to eat for a day and a half and then was hospitalized. She had nothing but liquids (no wheat, no dairy, little sugar, etc.) in the hospital and went back to regular eating about 4 or 5 days after she had stopped. In that time she more or less fully recovered and felt well. We went home for Christmas, the next day we had huge chicken salad sandwiches on whole-grain bread with milk, and that night she was suddenly doubled over again. She went into the hospital for another couple of days and then returned, but we watched the diet closely for a while at home after that visit, so she didn’t go right back to “normal” as far as eating was concerned. And she hasn’t another serious flare-up since then. Here’s the shocking 2+2 that I hadn’t put together until recently: According to all the research done by doctors specializing in allergy and food sensitivity, about 4-6 days after eliminating a problem food from the diet, the immune system goes through a brief period of hypersensitivity to that substance. Those doctors would detect allergies by the surefire method of elimination for four days followed by ingestion of a little of the food. Patients with bad problems had all kinds of bizarre reactions and sometimes went catatonic in these trials (even in double-blind experiments done by Rinkel in the 40’s and 50’s). Coincidence? I’m not convinced.

More to come as we move forward. The great news is that there is hope for those with Crohn’s disease. We’re at the beginning of our journey and the future already looks promising. Of course, the “future” that Jen has her eye on might best be captured in the question, “So – when can I have chocolate again?”