Learn About Natural Remedies for Crohn's and Colitis

Natural Remedies for Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis by Heather Caruso www.carusohomeopathy.com Hi! My name is Heather Caruso. I am a Homeopath from Guelph, Ontario. I run a clinic called Caruso Homeopathic Clinic and I wanted to talk to you today about Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. These two conditions are considered to be autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases means that the body chooses something to attack, even though it is not a foreign antigen, it's not something the body should be attacking, but what it causes is, inflammatory bowel disease. Some of the symptoms of these diseases are fever, frequent bowel movements, diarrhea, bloody stools, also gas, bloating, abdominal pain. The diarrhea may have fat in the stool, undigested food as well. Lab work might show high sedimentation rate, an increase in white blood cells and as well, people might have fistulas or abscesses. Fistulas and abscess are -- it's like a lesion, usually in the rectal area that drain pus and it's a line from the bowel out that drains pus and things. Some of those symptoms can be quite hard to deal with for people. They are embarrassing, but luckily there are some natural things you can do for yourself. A lot of times, people who have Crohn's and colitis have an imbalance in their good and bad bacteria. Everyone has a certain balance of good and bad bacteria. If you feed yourself the wrong types of foods, you'll feed these bad bacteria, it will overgrow and displace the good bacteria. We need both to stay healthy, both good and bad. Some good bacteria that are found in probiotics like acidophilus and bifidus. Those good flora help to displace some of the bad bacteria. It's a good idea to take probiotics, if you have these disorders and you should try and get a refrigerated variety, because it ensures that it's a live culture. Fish oil has been shown to also reduce inflammatory bowel disease, help heal the lining of the intestinal tract. Study show that people who took 7 grams of fish oil a day had much more remission in Crohn's Disease than other types. So fish oil is an anti inflammatory. It's excellent for other things like cardiovascular health, immune function. It helps the lining of the intestinal tract to heal. So if you are going to use fish oil, you should choose one that's, it's molecularly distilled, which means it is processed through a pharmacy to take out the heavy metal contamination that some fish have. Diet is very big as well with people with Crohn's and Colitis. Avoid foods that are high glycemic, high fats, very high fat or deep fried foods cause more inflammation. You do need some healthy fats like the fish oil; flax oil is good as well. But the high glycemic foods mean that it flips into a sugar quickly in your blood stream. So you want to make sure that these things don't flip into your sugar quickly. Tips for Crohn's and Colitis 1. Take Probiotics, manage your good and bad bacteria. 2. Take pharmaceutical grade fish oil. 3. Eat low to medium glycemic foods and healthy fats. 4. Figure out what foods are triggers for you. 5. Take B Complex 50 mgs. So some people who have Crohn's and Colitis actually have food sensitivities that can be aggravating their condition. I would recommend that people get tested for food sensitivities. In my book called "Your Drug Free Guide to Digestive Health". There is a sheet that you can do an elimination diet to try and figure out your symptoms. You can also do some types of tests, electrodermal screening for food sensitivities can be beneficial for some, and as well, there is a certain blood test you can do for food sensitivities. If you'd like more information about these tests, you can go to our website at www.carusohomeopathy.com, we'll mention the website at the end as well and you can write it down. Some other things that are good for people who have Crohn's and Colitis is to take a constitutional remedy, a homeopathic remedy that's suited to someone's both physical and emotional symptoms. It helps just to balance the person. It can help reduce inflammation as well. And there might be some emotional stress that causes your body to be more acid, which in turn can aggravate any kind of a bowel problem. You might notice, if you feel a lot of stress sometimes, you might have a flare up. The best thing to do is to reduce your stress and try and control as much of your external environment as you can, which helps reduce inflammation in the body, in general; so homeopathic constitutional remedies are good. I mentioned improving your intestinal flora with probiotics, fish oil is excellent as well. If you get a good amount of EPA -- something I forgot to mention was B Vitamins. B12, especially it tends to be pretty low in those with intestinal disorders, because it's not as well absorbed as it should be. So if you take the general B-Complex, say, 50 mgs B, that's an excellent thing to take. It helps improve your energy and it also helps you to absorb iron and it helps with mood. So the B's are excellent. It's good to take a B-Complex more in the morning, because it does give you a little bit of energy, you don't want that extra boost when you are going to sleep. If you'd like more information about diets and some good supplements that you can take to help combat Crohn's and Colitis, you can pick up my book, "Your Drug Free Guide to Digestive Health", and go online as well to www.carusohomeopathy.com. We have a free email newsletter that has a lot of interesting subjects. It comes out every month with different health subjects and we also have the video blog and blogging of interesting topics.