Hello, and welcome to my blog! I am here to share, discuss, inform, and learn about living with an autoimmune disease.
I’m just a girl trying to heal from Crohn’s Disease…and live normally at the same time!
Connecting with others has helped me through rough patches and allowed me to celebrate the victories. I encourage you to share your story, too.
XO, Alexa
Hi Alexa! My name is Donna O’Connor and I am FB friends with your mother . I just saw her post about your blog. This is great and I can’t wait to share it with my daughter. I am so glad to hear you are making great choices and healing!! We have a similar story in our family. I will share it with you because it means so much to us to hear others that are on the same track. My daughter Bridget was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 2008. She was 8 years old. She had every single horrible symptom including a fistula. She missed seven weeks of school at the end of her third grade year. The disease came on suddenly and she went from a strong healthy athletic girl to a frail, pain-ridden shadow of herself within a month. I honestly was afraid she would not survive. I brought her to “the best” GI specialist in Chicago. He was a very cold man and did not like that I was suggesting that I was seeing different reactions to foods she was eating. He told me quite definitively, “Crohn’s has nothing to do with food.” “Feed her soft foods.” He felt Ramon Noodle soup was acceptable. In my gut I knew he was wrong. Luckily before he started her on meds I continued researching like crazy. I finally and miraculously found The Specific Carbohydrate Diet. That was very very hard to follow but it worked. Days after she started the diet she was at least able to walk and hobble through a full day of school. Although very weak she was back on the soccer field in weeks. She followed the strict diet to the letter for one year. She never went on a medication or went back to another doctor. She is 16 now and the picture of health. She hasn’t had a single flare in many years. We don’t follow the diet any more but we are very strict about our eating. No dairy, no gluten, little sugar, little meat, very few processed foods. We lots of whole fresh foods. We do our best to eat as much organic as possible. She takes a strong probiotic every day. She also takes a good multi vitamin and liquid B complex daily. After years of continued research and experience I feel strongly that this disease is related to GMO foods. GMO foods are sprayed with Glyphosate (Round-Up) which kills the good bacteria in our guts and pulls out nutrition. 90% of our corn, soy, cotton seed, and sugar beet is GMO and doused in Glyphosate. Even much coffee and tea is sprayed before harvest. All our animals are fed this GMO feed. The dairy is loaded with it. Many farmers spray their wheat with Glyphosate as a drying agent just before harvesting to provide a greater yield. I realized years later that the Specific Carbohydrate diet coincidentally removed most of the GMO foods. Once we took out all dairy and went mostly organic she healed faster than ever. So that’s much of our story. I just recently found a doctor in our area after all these years that sounds like he works mainly through food/nutrition and supplements. We are going to see him soon just to check her blood levels and be sure we are not missing anything. I’m excited to hear more about your journey to good health!!
What an amazing story! I am so glad to hear your daughter is so healthy now. I have heard a lot of success stories with the SCD, GAPS, Paleo, Autoimunne Protocol, etc. I also feel strongly that GMOs and pesticides are definitely connected to this disease. I try to buy as much organic as possible, too. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Alexa,
I work with your mom at the MGH. My daughter, Adriana, has recently been diagnosed with IBS. I know it is not quite the same however any type of disease at a young age can be very discouraging. Your mom has been very helpful to me when I get worried and confused about how to help her. Thank you for sharing your story. I will share it with Adriana so that she can see that she is not alone.
Tracy,
Thank you for sharing! I hope you and your daughter can take something away from my experiences. I wish you both the best in this new journey!
Good Luck with your blog and your healing.
Thank you, Ace!!