Dear Leahlandau,
I wish you and your son the best of health. This is a hard road you are on, but do persevere if you can. If the condition is mild enough that you can live drug-free, it is worth it. The difficult part is working out what causes the reaction - too many foods are adulterated with other ingredients which cause reactions (e.g. sausages have wheat & preservatives, instant custard powder has hydrogenated fat). As I've been finding recently, there are also a whole host of other toxins out there which have an effect on the good functioning of the body.
You might want to have a look at some of the work on the links between blood group and diet - try Peter D'Adamo (re-worked in Patrick Holford's new nutrition bible). I'm working through it at the moment and certainly have some elements of a classic A-type reaction to foods - especially the lack of gut acid to cope with some food groups. I've also been tested and found lacking in various minerals over recent months: magnesium, zinc orotate, chromium, taurine, simple zinc - all have an impact on digestion - and are probably low due to long-term bad diet which runs you down over the years.
I would like to share with you a little of my own journey, towards what I am hoping is long term good health. Last spring I decided to finally come off Mesalazine (Asacol) which had been prescribed 10 years previously for ulcerative colitis. I'd only had one big attack and very little in the way of flare ups over the years, but my consultant insisted that medication was the only treatment he was willing to pursue. No way did he want to investigate that food may have something to do with a dysfunctioning gut.
Looking back at patterns of eating, I can see that thrush, mouth ulcers and constipation have been a long-term thing with the female members of my family. Some have ended up with breast lumps, others with dysfunctional guts (IBS). All have ended up with that feeling of being tired all the time. Perhaps with this generation we're hitting an all-term low as we try to combine working, families and still try to eat healthily - but let's face it, it's a lot easier to put a ready meal on the table when you've had a long, rough day.
Coming off the medication was a bit of a bumpy ride - my body started reacting very strongly to all kinds of foods, especially processed foods (e.g. margarine - gut ache within 20 mins), dairy (mouth ulcers), refined sugar (oral thrush at first then a white tongue every time I has a little bit) and red meat (small clear blistery spots on fingers & head 1-2 days after). With some foods, especially red meat, the first time I had them after being Asacol -free caused diarrhoea the next morning as the body tried to clear out the toxin. Since then I've experimented with amounts and different times of day to see if it has any impact - I can survive a small piece of red meat without diarrhoea now, but as it's still causing small blisters, it looks as if it is going to have to come out of the diet permanently. Coffee with caffeine caused headaches a few months back, but having been 3+ months clear of it, I can now have some, but never on consecutive days.
Being stuck with an office-based job over the years has also caused a
few back problems which have had implications for the functioning of my
internal organs. It's very strange to have your abdomen prodded, to hit sensitive spots, then have your back manipulated and find the abdominal pain has gone. I've just had a couple of months on the Colonix colon cleanse and am feeling better for it.
I've had the support of a great chiropractor who also practices applied kinesiology, plus the naturopathic nutritionist at his practice. (www.naturality.org.uk). The nutritionist recommended the series of "Cooking without" books by Barbara Cousins, plus "Miracle juices" which are great dairy-free smoothies. you can get them all on Amazon.
Support at home has been a little more shaky as the kinesiology tests are a bit weird when you've been used to standard medicine. I think my husband was expecting to see me hospitalised again without medication, which was pretty scary for him first time round. As the months have gone by, he has become more comfortable with the changes we're making. No doubt going for an instant diet switch would have been more effective for me, but it would have met more resistance. As it is we're slowly changing our diets and the whole family is benefitting. My husband is now a big fan of salad at lunchtime rather than the filled big white baguette from the canteen - well, who would suspect that salad leaves were filling, could keep you going all afternoon without snacking and you'd end up losing weight and feeling more lively?
All of this has also led to us reducing other toxic substances in our household to keep down the overall toxic loading, especially for our little one. We were already good with cleaning products, so very little change there. Now we're slowly re-carpeting to get rid of latex, any new painting is with low-odour/eco paints, cosmetics are being finished and replaced with parabens-free brands and olive-oil soaps without "parfum".