Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Crohns

Question:
I want to know if anyone else has crohn's and asthma. From what I have read it is possible that a food allergy is causing both problems.  However, both the Immunologist and Gastroenterologist do not believe that.  I seem to think that the Immuno doctor is more interested in selling the shots.  Anyone have advice on food allergies? Does anyone have any advice?  I really need help.  Now it’s a problem to breath as well. I really believe that for me the crohn’s and asthma are related.

Answer:
I have a friend with Crohn's and a severe egg allergy. I have Crohn's and when I stopped drinking milk in 2003 I notched up several points on the feeling good scale - still feel pretty lousy though, but I have a lot of other things going on. I am not allergic to milk but would describe myself as intolerant and probably have lactose in addition to casein intolerance. With respect to your symptoms coming back on receiving the shots, I am no expert in the field, but even as a layperson it would not surprise me that if your immune system is being challenged with a strong tail of allergens and your immune system is dodgy because you have an (auto) immune disease/dysfunction then the autoimmune disease might be exacerbated/triggered with the stress that the current treatment is placing on your immune system.   After all your immune system is being taught to respond appropriately to the allergens. As an aside, I hope that the treatment will be successful. I agree with the postulate that food allergies/intolerances can be very important with Crohn's/UC. Some IBD sufferers benefit from lowering the acid in the diet - no citrus fruits, no coffee/tea/(hot)chocolate/cola, no red meat, no spices, etc. and/or removing dairy products from the diet. The leaky gut syndrome is much spoken about and it makes sense to me that if you have a leaky gut from active IBD you are going to develop intolerances and perhaps allergies to certain foods. A lot of Crohn's sufferers end up with multiple morbidities, but I would not say that because of this that Crohn's and certain diseases are related. I have GERD and Crohn's, but they are two separate diseases albeit gut related. There is a lot in the literature about Crohn's and MS and we have patients here with various diseases such as rheumatism, diabetes together with Crohn's. My personal analysis is that we have been blessed with mixed bag of dysfunctional genes and unfortunately it does not necessarily mean that only the IBD part of the genes are dysfunctional, but because there is overlapping with such as (auto) immune diseases, such as asthma and MS, then it is not uncommon to find IBD patients with other immune dysfunctions.