Natural Treatment for Crohn's Disease

If you have been diagnosed with Crohn's disease, natural treatment can help you. We offer safe and effective holistic treatment, using non-toxic and non-invasive therapies such as targeted dietary changes, herbs and nutritional supplements, which will alleviate the symptoms of Crohn's and reduce the chance of recurrence.

What is Crohn's? Symptoms and Diagnosis

Crohn's Disease is a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In Crohn's disease, specific sections of the digestive tract become inflamed, usually the intestines but any part from the mouth to the rectum can be affected. Symptoms of Crohn's include bouts of diarrhea with pain and tenderness in the abdomen (most commonly in the lower right section of the abdomen), flatulency and a low fever. Generally, this is accompanied by loss of appetite, fatigue and weight loss. In addition to these general symptoms, people who suffer from Crohn's can experience a wide variety of symptoms outside their digestive tract. These can include arthritis, skin lesions or liver disease. Crohn's symptoms are intermittent, meaning they regularly improve and then return again. A diagnosis of Crohn's is supported by certain blood tests and procedures such as a barium X-ray or colonoscopy which may help determine the exact location of the inflammation in the digestive tract.

The cause of Crohn's disease is not fully understood, although there is evidence that it is related to certain genetic predispositions, certain unfriendly gut bacteria, and a history of having taken certain medications, most notably antibiotics. Dietary factors, immune system imbalances and psychological factors have also been theorized to play a role.

Conventional medical treatment for Crohn's focuses on pharmaceutical medications that suppress your body's immune response and surgery to remove the inflamed section of the intestine. Taken over long periods of time, the medications can cause serious side effects and surgery always carries significant risks. While they may certainly help in the short term, Crohn's disease generally returns despite a course of drugs or surgery. Neither of these options addresses the underlying factors that contribute to Crohn's disease. Fortunately there are safe and effective natural alternatives to drugs and surgery that do.

Crohn's: Treatment with Holistic Medicine and Natural Remedies

Natural or holistic treatment for Crohn's is a safer option because it doesn't rely on dangerous chemicals and actually addresses the underlying problems that lead up to the disease.

Natural treatment for Crohn's focuses on:

1. Optimizing digestive function
2. Normalizing gut flora
3. Reducing inflammation
4. Correcting nutritional deficiencies
5. Specific remedies for individual patients.

Despite the fact that we don't know exactly what causes Crohn's, we do know that it is certainly related to the following factors: genetics, poor digestion, unfriendly bacteria in the gut, and inflammation. Most likely a combination of these factors is necessary to develop Crohn's. Unfortunately, we cannot change genetics. However, it is important to realize that your genes, contrary to popular belief, do not determine how your body will behave. Instead, your genes determine how your body, specifically your cells, will respond to their environment. Change the cells' environment and you will change their reaction. (This point cannot be emphasized enough. Too often, people will hear that something is genetic and assume that it means there is nothing that can be done.)

Let's look at these steps one by one. To optimize digestive function, we need to look at the entire digestive system from top to bottom to make sure everything is functioning as it should. Digestion begins with chewing, continues to the stomach where food is mixed with stomach acid, on to the small intestine where pancreatic juices and bile mix with the food, and lastly to the large intestine. Are all these steps working properly? Does the patient make enough stomach acid? Do they produce adequate digestive enzymes and bile? Imbalances here can be corrected with appropriate supplementation or herbs.

Secondly: normalizing gut flora. As I mentioned above, certain medications like antibiotics are related to the development of Crohn's disease. Why is this? Antibiotics and other medications can kill off friendly bacteria in the gut while allowing unfriendly microbes to survive and thrive in their absence. Unfriendly microbes in the digestive tract are a major contributor to disease, particularly inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. So, not only do we need to replenish the good bacteria with appropriate probiotic supplements, but we need to look at any contributing factors that may be favoring the "bad" microbes.

Thirdly: reducing inflammation. As Crohn's is an inflammatory condition, quenching inflammation is an important step to take. Pharmaceutical anti-inflammatory medications can have serious negative effects on health, not the least of which is to damage the gut lining and actually promote gut inflammation. Taking appropriate anti-inflammatory herbs and nutritional supplements is important, but it is even more important to seek out and eliminate anything that may be promoting inflammation in the digestive tract. Food allergies are perhaps the most likely culprits here, although medications and other environmental toxins also need to be considered.

Our fourth step is to correct nutritional deficiencies and optimize nutritional status. Patients with Crohn's disease are often deficient in many nutrients. Inflammation of the small intestine interferes with the absorption of nutrients from food. This can be exacerbated if a patient has had a part of the intestines removed surgically in an attempt to treat the Crohn's. In addition, the drugs most commonly used to treat Crohn's can themselves cause nutritional deficiencies. Nutritional deficiencies can only compound the challenges to health of a person with Crohn's disease. Nutritional deficiencies favor inflammation, slow healing time, interfere with appropriate immune response, and can exacerbate symptoms such as fatigue. Correcting for nutritional deficiencies is an essential part of Crohn's treatment.

The final step is to address the individual patient with specific remedies aimed, not at the diagnosis of Crohn's disease, but at the individual's constitution and personal health history. Every patient is not the same, so there is no predetermined or set remedy for Crohn's disease per se. Instead the remedy is based on the individuals subjective experience of his or her symptoms, emotional state, and patterns of daily living (for instance, what their sleep, appetite or energy throughout the day is like). These homeopathic remedies are generally made from herbs or minerals and are given in small doses daily or less frequently.

If you are suffering from Crohn's and would like to get better, make an appointment today. If you do not live in the New York City tri-state area, but are still interested in natural medicine for Crohn's disease, phone consultations are available. Call 917-267-9355 or email  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .