SCD - sed rate update

I found out today that one key marker of inflammation (ESR) had gone from 29 pre-diet (out of range) to 17 (close to within range) after 3 to 4 weeks on the SC diet. That's good in my mind given that he had values near 7 after months of prednisone. Cyrus had a great day today and was the happiest I've seen him in weeks. He's feeling good right now. Tonight we listed off all of the foods we had prepared for him recently and he says, "I like all of those foods!". That seems to be the consensus... he's not missing out on much. Mommy and Daddy are losing weight while he is gaining weight... All by eating healthier.

Check-up

To start, Cyrus gained about a pound in three weeks on the diet. A pound has been hard to come by lately. His C-reactive protein levels were normal pre-diet and remained normal post-diet. The Erythrocyte sedimentation rate was high at his pre-diet appointment, and unfortunately today's ESR was not ready for us by the end of his appointment. His doc mentioned something about his creatinine levels increasing and that was good... my hunch is that the 6-mp slammed them down and they are now coming back into the normal range.

Overall, it was good doctor's visit (despite having to wait for 90 minutes between getting blood drawn and for the doctor). His doc is very supportive of us trying the diet and he seems to believe there is something to it. He and I spent about 10 minutes talking about study design, at which point I told him he needed to fill out my biostatistics request form and make an appointment to come see me! Though, it's pretty much an impossible study to conduct and that's why there's no "evidence" in the literature that the diet does or doesn't work.

Good fun. Avocados today, nut butter on Thursday!

Post-SCD Check-up

Tomorrow we have our first post-SCD check-up. We anticipate getting some bloodwork back and comparing it to the pre-SCD bloodwork. If I had to wage a guess, I'd say that most of it comes back the same. Cyrus still has symptoms, even though he didn't for a short period of time. We'll see... he feels and looks good, though his attitude seems to suggest that his stomach is irritating him.

In any case, he's been medicine-free for almost 3 months and we're sticking with the diet because we're stubborn as hell.

SCD Update

The SC diet was going very well and we were seeing good improvement... until applesauce, and then me making the mistake of feeding Cyrus a few bites of smoked salmon on vacation. At least, that's my guess as to why things have gone wrong since last Thursday... it's the only "illegal food" that he's had (I didn't know it was illegal at the time I gave it to him). The applesauce we should have guessed would not work well based on previous experience with apple juice. I did make some pear sauce recently that *seems* to have agreed with him more, but then again - Cyrus hasn't been the same for a week.

We may start over this weekend and flush his system out once again. Theoretically, the harmful bacteria that this diet aims to eliminate should eventually die off by not eating anything illegal -- but the intro diet worked so well that it's almost worth starting from scratch again. We've really only added into his diet: legal hot dogs, mayonnaise, ripe bananas, applesauce, and pears. Tonight he got some baked zucchini as well. Going backwards doesn't seem like a stretch at this point. We'll see...

SCD: Intro Diet Success

Well, we made it through the weekend on the SCD intro diet consisting of plain eggs, salmon, plain hamburger patties, a pretty tasty homemade chicken soup, a homemade cheesecake (that Cyrus liked, but I thought was nasty), jello, grape juice popsicles, and grape juice. Three days of that! On the third day, we added in homemade yogurt as well. I've got to say that the homemade yogurt is pretty awesome. We tried to feed Sage some store-bought yogurt and she didn't want much of it -- I could not believe how sweet it tasted!

Today we're adding bananas back into the diet, and then cheese. Later this week, hopefully a vegetable or two.

So far, we're seeing some progress. After the first day of the diet, no more blood and only going once a day, but still not quite solid. Apart from being more hungry and tired of eating the same foods over and over again, Cyrus seems to be in good spirits and feeling GI-good. Keeping our fingers crossed....

Cheating

PS - I've been pretty good about not cheating on the diet and on Cyrus. I did have a bowl of popcorn tonight, but I'd like to say that it's nothing in comparison to Mandy's chocolate bar! When eating lunch at work, I broke away from the diet once or twice this week and felt guilty about it... the last couple of days though, I've decided to be more hard core with it so that I can better understand how Cyrus might be feeling.

SCD: Day 6

Those were the good old days, Sage...

If I had to do this again, I'm not sure I'd practice with the post-SCD diet prior to doing the introductory diet. After 6 days, I feel fine - but the thought of depriving myself (and Cyrus) of the remaining SCD food-pleasures seems daunting. Plus, I don't think the SCD diet will work without doing the intro diet... and Cyrus' tummy seems to concur with this. The amount of fiber consumed through fruit, vegetable, and nuts on this diet seems contradictory to what one might expect for someone with Crohn's. We'll see how it works out.

In the mean time, thank goodness for: Lara Bars, homemade yogurt, Stretch Island fruit leathers, and (maybe) pancakes made with coconut flour. We spend most of our evenings cooking after the kids go to bed and anything that we do not have to make ahead of time is awesome.