This post goes out to my musical friend Christy and her beautiful daughter…

First of all, I send you and your sweetheart a HUGe HuG!  I hope that as you read my thoughts and suggestions that you will realize all the progress you have made, recognize the good things you are already doing, and find a few more tricks to add to your bag of remedies. 

To answer your query: I found out about my food allergies while in college.  My kiddos have food allergies as well, and not the same ones.  The builder used to get  febral siezures every time he got the flu (food allergies weakened his immune response).  And I recently realized that wheat was causing the dancer’s eczema.  Nothing like Crohn’s though.  If your daughter  truly is borderline Crohn’s, hopefully the strict nutritional diet will heal her completely.  

We rarely eat processed foods, stick to almost entirely organic fresh fruits and veggies and I make our basics from scratch: bread, salad dressing, almond milk, chicken stock, etc.  I do let the kiddos have some cheese, but I prefer to cook with coconut milk, oil, and cream instead of dairy products.  Occasionally, I use ghee as well.

I post a couple recipes each week here on the daily delights.   See if any of the recipes will help you or give you ideas. We love to use spices, which can be difficult for those with Crohn’s disease (as you’ve noted).  Sometimes I cook the chicken with little spices (garlic & onion) for the kiddos and then add more kick later for the designer and I.  You could easily omit the spices that are in my recipes.   My heart goes out to you.  We have tried to find food/meals that everyone in our family can eat because it is so hard to cook more than one meal, and sometimes it just gets difficult to be inspired to eat anything! 

Five Resources for those afflicted with Crohn’s Disease:

1. mercola.com– I have found more success the further I have looked beyond traditional medicine.  (It definitely has it’s place, but cannot solve all of our problems).  I did a search for Crohn’s on dr. mercola’s site and found all kinds of valuable articles.  It’s a lot of reading, but it might be beneficial to hear some new ideas.  Sometimes just one new recipe or idea is soo helpful. You might have to sign up your email to get into the articles…but it’s way worth the weekly articles they send you…I have learned so much.

2. Research healing foods/nutrition – You’ve got a great list of foods to avoid (that will make her condition worse), but did the doctors give you food suggestions that will heal her?  Our bodies can tell us a lot about what is not good for us.  Before I realized that the dancer was wheat/gluten intolerant, she would refuse the boys bread and only eat mine.  Your daughter’s refusing the ‘medical formula’ may have been her body telling you it’s not working.  Remember, the more natural, the better.  On mercola.com you’ll find articles with foods/vitamins that will help her, like Omega 3 fats.  

3. Perscription for Nutritional Healing – As I’m typing, I’m also reading in my Perscription for Nutritional Healing, by Phyllis Balch.  Though most do not ever rid themselves of Crohn’s, it says that the inflammation can be controlled, symptoms relieved, and nutritional deficiencies (that are known to cause developmental delays), can be corrected.  Ultimately, it is something that can be kept in remission.  This is a great book.  It gives dosages for essential nutrients to add to her diet.  Some foods to add to your diet:

• papaya & papaya seeds (smoothies are an easy way to feed papaya to little ones)
• brown rice
• millet
• oats
• broccoli
• spinach
• carrots
• celery
• garlic
• fresh juice (I’m thinking the reason why they told you no juice is because most juice is mainly high fructose corn-syrup: bad sugar, processed and corn…not good)
• herb teas
• distilled water

It recommends staying clear of:

• dairy (as you are doing)
• caffeine
• carbonated drinks
• eggs
• chocolate
• corn & soy (I’m not surprised)
• white flour (another one you are already doing)
• spicy foods (again, you know this one)
• refined foods
•  additives & preservatives
• fish (unless white and from specialty shops/natural food stores)
• refined flours and sugars (my favorite white sugar substitutes: agave nectar, raw honey, and black strap molasses) 

4. Consider finding a non-traditional practitioner to assist you and your daughter.  When my kiddos broke out with hives in December, my first response was to head to our kinesiologist.  Here are some other non-traditional practitioners to visit:

5. Help for development delays – In regards to your daughter’s verbal/ development delay, have you seen Signing Time?  Money well spent.  Not only will it help your communication as a family, but it will improve her motor skills.  The dancer has a gift for fine motor skills, but the builder has had to work at his fine motor skills.  Signing Time has made such difference for him.  Click here to read articles about how children with special needs have benefited from learning ASL.  The originator and mom, Rachel, has her own blog that she writes about her journey with and vision for Signing Time.  Her latest post on how she used to describe her life as ‘hard,’ is inspiring to say the least. 

Christy, sending your family love and prayers.  Continue to ask questions.  Let that motherly intuition guide you.  When it comes down to it, we ask, research and then make the best decision we can with the knowledge that we have.  I’ll continue to research with you in mind.  As I learn more, I’ll be sure and let you know.  Much luv!  katrina