Are IBDer’s Being Left in the Covid Dust?

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The good news is that Covid infections are down, hospitalizations are down, and the death rate is lowering in many areas across the globe.

And it’s about time.

Two years my friend. Wow, what a long, strange trip it’s been.

The challenging news for those of us with Crohn’s and colitis and others with autoimmune diseases and those who are immunosuppressed due to illness or medication is that while the risk may be lower for us to contract Covid, the risk is not gone.

So us IBDer’s, we’re left in our own personal battle of tug a war, feeling like we’ve just been left behind to fend for ourselves while everyone else goes out to unite and celebrate.

How can those with Crohn’s and colitis cope with the feeling of being left behind and what steps can we take to continue to feel cautiously safe in, yet again, another new normal. Let’s talk it out.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why Covid freedom doesn’t necessarily mean freedom for us
• 5 Ways to safely jump on the Covid freedom train while keeping your Crohn’s and colitis in a healthy place
• Finding the balance between, “It sucks to be me” and moving on

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Episode 69: The New Year’s Resolution Every IBD Mom Needs to Make

Episode 70: Using Whole Foods to Crush Your Crohn’s & Colitis

Episode 71: 2 Diets Tailor-Made for Crohn’s & Colitis

Episode 72: Finding Crohn’s & Colitis Relief with the Autoimmune Paleo Approach

Force of Nature Cleaning Products

Episode Resources:

The Strategy of Boosting the Immune System Under the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Millions of People Stuck in Pandemic Limbo

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

Episode Transcript:

ARE IBDer’s BEING LEFT IN THE COVID DUST?

The good news is that Covid infections are down, hospitalizations are down, and the death rate is lowering in many areas across the globe.

And it’s about time.

Two years my friend. Wow, what a long, strange trip it’s been.

The challenging news for those of us with Crohn’s and colitis and others with autoimmune diseases and those who are immunosuppressed due to illness or medication is that while the risk may be lower for us to contract Covid, the risk is not gone.

So us IBDer’s, we’re left in our own personal battle of tug a war, feeling like we’ve just been left behind to fend for ourselves while everyone else goes out to unite and celebrate.

How can those with Crohn’s and colitis cope with the feeling of being left behind and what steps can we take to continue to feel cautiously safe in, yet again, another new normal. Let’s talk it out.

{MUSIC}

Hello my friend, welcome to another episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD. I’m your host Karyn Haley and today is a glorious day to be alive. Covid infections are down, the death rates are lowering, mask mandates are like poof, they’re going away, groups are congregating again, friends are calling saying, “Hey, let’s get together.” But while so much has changed with openings for so much of the population (mostly healthy population), the question remains, “What’s changed for us?”

With Inflammatory Bowel Disease, we’ve always dealt with a dysfunctional immune system. Our immune system is attacking itself. And so, if we are the luckiest of the lucky, we combat the disease with diet and lifestyle changes, maybe some supplements… and we move on, hoping the remissions holds. Not exactly cured, because even in remission, C + C loves to lurk in the back of our minds, doesn’t it? “Will it come back, what will I do if it comes back?” Still, with autoimmune challenges in there deep down, we think I’m OK, for now. As long as a 100 foot tsunami named Covid-19 doesn’t crash through my window and take me down.

THE 100 FOOT TSUNAMI CAME AND CONQUERED

And then there’s the C + Cer’s who aren’t in remission from diet and lifestyle alone. Those immunosuppressives and biologics and steroids, they can be a game changer. They can help us lead normal, functioning lives. Thank God for science and doctors. As long as a 100 ft tsunami named Covid-19 doesn’t crash through our window and take us down.

Well, that unfortunate tsunami came and it struck us down, whether we got Covid or not. Sure, if you contracted the virus, having Covid was probably one of the worst things that ever happened to you. It was scary and horrendous, but I’m guessing since you’re here with me right now, you made it through. But just like that healthy mama who’s in remission because the diet and lifestyle thing is working for her, just like that mama who’s got it pulled together with medication, or like many mamas out there who are still trying to figure all of this out… even 2 years later with pandemic restrictions lifting, we are all still living in fear of Covid.

And the toll it’s taken on us mentally. Holy cow! After being isolated for 2 freakin’ years. Anxiety and depression is real. As real as it gets. The mental toll can be just as damaging as the physical. And we’re not the only ones who felt it. Our kids have suffered greatly—no matter their age. Unattended play dates and pre-school time, Zoom school, missed graduations, parties, hanging out with friends and boyfriends and girlfriends, and after school activities.  All of their isolation being a further burden on us—feeling guilty because how much our kids are able to do is directly a result of our condition.

THE STATE OF COVID NOW

And now, in March of 2022, Covid hasn’t gone away completely, yet, our friends, our family members, our co-workers, maybe even our kids… they got to get back to living. And I don’t blame them. I want to get back to living.

But what about us? The autoimmune challenged. The further immune compromised by way of medication.

I don’t know about you but getting back out there in this “it’s still out here lurking in the shadows but there’s low Covid numbers and we’re sick and tired of being cooped up inside so we’re coming out world” mentality scares the hell out of me. It’s like the fear of public speaking, or putting yourself out there on a dating app, or jumping out of an airplane all rolled into one gigantic “AAAAAAAHHHHHHH.”

That’s what’s playing in my head most of the time.

But the world is moving on. I see it all around me. Do you see it around you?

Scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, you’d think hedonism took over. Friends traveling, getting together for parties. I keep looking at adorable pictures of friends with their arms around each other and all I can think is two things: #1 How can they stand so close to each other and not freak and #2 I wish I was with there.

Of course, I don’t begrudge anyone for these fabulous times they’re having. It’s fantastic! It’s the way it should be. But sometimes, don’t you get the feeling that those of us with C + C and those with other medical conditions are just getting a little left behind? We don’t live in the same world as our carefree friends. We live in a world where we are constantly monitoring our poops. “How many did I have today, what was the consistency, what score would that be on the Bristol Stool Chart? We label every stomach twinge, every belly ache. We worry when sniffles or fevers come along because we know they can lead to a weakened state that sets the stage for a flare up. And with Covid, these worries have doubled.

NO, WE DON’T LIVE IN THE SAME WORLD AS OUR HEALTHY COUNTERPARTS.

But before we go down a rabbit whole of woe is me, doesn’t it suck to be me, it’ not fair that we are getting left behind… you know that level of negativity is never going to be me. I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks now as things have been opening up in the U.S. Not giving lots of negative energy to it, but just thinking, huh, I’m so grateful the Covid numbers are down. Our country and our world needs this more than anything, but how is this affecting me? I’ve been checking in with myself on how I feel about this so that I can process, even feel sad a little and then find a healthy way to move on.

Well, the reason I’m taping this particular episode today is because I think I’ve figure this out and even though we need to allow ourselves to sit in, “Doesn’t that suck” for a beat. We do need to move on because it’s just not mentally healthy to live there all the time.

If you’ve been feeling a bit stung by everyone seeming like their moving on, where you’re still concerned about how Covid might impact you, and how you might navigate this new freedom and carefree spirit everyone is adopting, I’m here with some advice to help you feel the feels, but then press on just like we all do everyday. It’s like life with Crohn’s and colitis. We’re not getting rid of it, so how can we live our best life with it.

I know we can. Even with the world opening up when those of us with IBD still need to be careful, we will, and we must march on like only IBD moms can. Marching on, for us, may just look a little different. But we will get through this, we will walk through, just like we always do.

I’ve got 5 ways you can jump on the Covid freedom train, while staying true to your physical and mental health.

5 WAYS TO JUMP ON THE COVID FREEDOM TRAIN (WITH CAUTION)

#1 If social media has become the bane of your existence lately with the faces of friends and family breaking free, going maskless, and partying like it’s 1999, it’s a good idea to take a social media break– for now, or more realistically, limit your use. How about to once a day? And of course you can temporarily hide posts from anything your finding triggering.

Remember though that taking a social media hiatus is not about cutting yourself off you’re your friends. We need connections now more than ever. If you’re still feeling like you’ll serve your health best by being a homebody, keep the Zoom friend calls going. Organize a group text with your besties. You probably already did that during the pandemic, so hop back on there and keep it going. The weather is warming up. Plan some outside hangouts. If you must go inside a restaurant, try to go at off hours when the risk of Covid exposure is lower.

And the silver lining with your social circle still remaining small is that you don’t have to interact with people you don’t want to– yet. Be intentional with the friends in your circle who are uplifting and positive and ones who don’t shame you for still needing to be protective of your health.  

#2 Even though states and businesses may be getting rid of mask mandates, you keep that N95 or KN95 mask on girl. I’m still keeping mine on. Uh oh, a few of you might be thinking. Plugging my ears.. la la la la…  She’s getting into masks and I’m not a masker. Yes, I’m a masker. If you’re not, hit the forward button a couple times and catch back up with us in tip #3. Anyhoo—Like I was saying, keep wearing that mask. In my state, I’d say I see about 40% with them still on and 60% with them off. And God bless them. If there are no health concerns for them and cases are way down where they live, I get it.  And also, that the 60/40 number I mentioned, I get that keeping the mask on isn’t too challenging for me, since I still see many others masking where I live, but if you live in an area where no one’s masking, that makes this idea of keeping your mask on more challenging. And I’ve got to tell you, this one is all about mental strength.

I remember last June (remember, we thought we’d seen the last of Covid?). My son was in a dance recital at a big theater. Of course, we didn’t want to miss his performance. It was his stage debut. He deserved to be there with his parents beaming (under masks) the whole time. So my hubby and I went to the theater donning our masks. Do you know we were the only ones with them on? In the whole theater. 100’s of people. I looked. Not another soul with a mask on. It felt a little weird, but I knew that for my health, it was important to stay vigilant about Covid. Mental strength. Hold out for just a little longer mama. I know happier days, and maskless days are ahead for us too.

#3 Take the time to educate those around you. Do you have friends who say, “Why can’t you just come to the book club?” or “Why are you still being so careful?” Remember, we live just a bit differently because we always need to put our health first. It’s always front and center in our mind. Life may not look like that for others. Most of the time, those friends mean well. They care about us. So why not take the time to explain why those precautions are still important for you. The more people we help to understand what Crohn’s and colitis is all about, the more people know what we go through on a daily basis.

Talking about C + C is one of my favorite things to do. My friends know that once I get started, I don’t stop. And unlike 35 years ago when I was diagnosed, IBD as a diagnosis is growing, so chances are your friends know someone with IBD. Explaining that your meds suppress your immune system or that you just need to be careful because Covid could be worse for you goes a long way to deepen your relationship with your friends.

#4 As much as you can, let it go. Now listen, Covid, our beliefs about how to keep ourselves safe, about masking, not masking, to vaccinate or not vaccinate is such a touchy subject. I’m just giving my own opinions here. I’d love to hear yours too. No judgement just an exchange of enlightened minds and ideas. So take this tip of letting it go—letting a bit of the tight Covid reigns we hold so dear, go, in whatever way this makes sense for you.

For me, I had to let go of some of the restrictions I had been following since early pandemic days and of my very insular world, just a bit even, though I knew it would put me at greater risk of contracting Covid. I’ve got two college age kids and one tween who wanted to go out, see their friends, have experiences, to enjoy life again. Their lives have been on hold far too long. With Covid rates going down and testing more rapidly availability than ever in the U.S., I had to let them begin to get back to life. So I let go, just a bit.

There’s still no one coming in my house that’s not a family member. My kids are still wearing masks when they are indoors, but they’re hanging out with friends more and trying to get back to life as much as possible. To help me feel more comfortable with all this, we’re Covid testing everyone on a regular basis so if one of us does get Covid, we’ll know it right away. And everyone in the family is trying to respect each other’s big circles.

I guess I have to explain that. In our family we think of thoughts and ideas as big and little circles. Little circles are thoughts and ideas where we are able to see both sides— it’s the grey in our world. But big circles are our thoughts and ideas that are pretty set in stone. Ones we don’t want to cave on. When it comes to letting go just a little, we try to respect each other’s big circles as best we can.

#5 To combat the feeling that the world is frolicking around and getting out and about more, keep yourself as healthy as you possibly can so that you can get out and about in the world more too. IBD healthy, immune system healthy, bacterial balance healthy, mind healthy. Assessing where you’re at with those things will tell you how open your world can be by how healthy you are feeling in the moment.

And the cool thing is that there’s no rule that says you have to make up your mind about how open you will be one day and then not change your mind the next. This is a fluid thing and where you’re at with your physical and mental health in the moment will dictate where you are with easing up on Covid restrictions.

HEALTHY: MIND, BODY, AND SOUL

So how can you do that? How can you be as healthy as you can be physically and mentally during this crazy time we’re living in? Well, you can:

• Take supplements. Supplements that have been studied and research backed to help protect against Covid or help with inflammatory markers are things like Vitamin D3K2, Zinc, Curcumin, Elderberry, Cod Liver Oil or Fish Oil, Vitamin C, as well as probiotics. Which ones can you take to help keep your body physically healthy?

• Get your Antibodies checked. If you’ve had Covid or if you’ve been vaccinated, get your antibodies checked. It will help you decide what level of risk you are currently at. We know that those on immunosuppressive medications and possibly those with autoimmune disorders may not build up antibodies like the rest of the population. Knowing your level will give you peace of mind or help you decide what steps you want to take next.

• Eat IBD healthy—whatever that means for you. Find the Eating for IBD diet that works best for your symptoms and your lifestyle. It will always help to keep your IBD in a better place and give you peace of mind that you are doing everything you can do to be healthy, strong, and able to fight if a Covid infection comes along.

If you’re still trying to find that IBD healing diet for you, I have a great eating for your IBD series that I did a little while back. Those are some great episodes to check out. I will leave links to them in the show notes. If you’re looking on your podcast app right now, they were episodes 69, 70, 71, and 72. It’s a whole 4-episode series dedicated to helping you find the best gut healing diet for you, the one with your name on it, because that diet is different for all of us. I got a lot of great feedback from it so if you’re still looking for that IBD healing diet for you, that is the place to get information to help you get started.

Being as healthy as you can be also means keeping the germs away. Continue to wash your hands frequently, keep surfaces clean and free of viruses with whatever virus killer you have at home. I’m a huge fan of a company called Forces of Nature. I found them way back when Covid began and I’m still using their products to clean our home daily. So just keep your distance from others when possible and keep the germ bugs at bay.

• Prioritize your sleep. This is definitely me not necessarily practicing what I preach, but I am a work in progress when it comes to sleep. It’s so difficult for moms to get the necessary amount of sleep. It’s like as soon as we give birth, even if we don’t have a little babies anymore, we’ve surrendered to not getting quality sleep for years and years to come. I wonder if when all of the kids are out of the house if good quality sleep comes back. But the good news about sleep is that it doesn’t have to be the perfect night sleep to count. It just has to be as quality as you can make it. No striving for perfection here, with sleep, it’s B+ all the way. Prioritize sleep.

• Get your body moving. In whatever way that looks like for you. Maybe you’re a weightlifter and you I have no problem with strength training and heavy duty workouts. That’s getting your body moving for you. Maybe restorative yoga is more your jam. You’re just getting started moving your body and that’s great too. So move your body in whatever way that means for you and if you can get outside while you’re doing it, you get bonus points.

• Lastly, when it comes to being as healthy as you can be, that means trying not to take unnecessary risks. And this gets us back to this idea of mental toughness. Sometimes we take risks that we just don’t need to take. Be strong. Stand in your power. And know that with that strength, you’re doing what is good of you, and also for the good of your whole family.

LET’S RECAP THOSE 5 STEPS

So there you have it, that’s five things that you can do to jump on the Covid freedom train, while staying true to your physical and mental health.

#1 Take a social media hiatus—part time or full time, for just a bit

#2 Don’t ditch that mask too soon, even when others do

#3 Teachers aren’t just found in the classroom, educate when you get the opportunity

#4 Let go—in whatever way letting go looks for you

#5 Be healthy, mind, body, and soul

What do you think mama?

This episode is one of those that’s going to make you think. Because opinions about Covid are so strongly held, you might think this IBD gal has gone off her rocker or you might think, yeah, I have been kind of feeling left behind too. I’m glad she brought it up. Either way, it’s all good. As I always say, take what you need and leave the rest behind.

I’d love to hear from you because agree or disagree, this is a conversation worth having. Email me at hello@karynhaley.com and let’s continue the conversation. I usually say message me on Facebook @theibdhealthcoach but you’re taking a break from that, remember. So email me and let’s talk it out.

Until we meet again, I’m wishing you cheeky and healthy gut healing journey. Chat soon!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

How to Talk to Your Kids About the War in Ukraine

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The world is watching, in horror and fear, as Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine. Our hearts are full of sorrow, but there’s also glimmers of hope. I think we all feel it– for the Ukrainian military, the countless civilians taking up arms to defend their country and of course, we are thinking about the defenseless children in Ukraine.

As moms, our thoughts can’t help but go to the children.

The children of Ukraine and our own children as well. How are our own kids coping with all of this? What do they understand about what’s going on, and how can we help them make sense of this senseless crisis?

As Cheeky Podcast moms know, even though we have IBD, we’re moms first and foremost, so this week we’re taking a break from our Crohn’s and colitis conversation to uncover the best ways to talk to our kids about what’s going on in Ukraine, at their level, for their age… to ensure that they feel heard and safe in a world that’s been out of control and chaotic for them for far too long.

It’s all about our kids today on The Cheeky Podcast.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Age by age tips for parents on what’s OK to say to your kids and what’s not during this crisis
• The reason why one psychologist thinks this war in Ukraine is hitting our kids particularly hard unlike any other time in history
• The #1 meaningful question to ask your kids about the war that will lead to a fire storm of engagement from them (no matter what age they are)

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Your Kids Are Hearing About Ukraine. Here’s How to Help Them Understand

A Delicate Balance: Experts Tips on Dealing with Ukraine Anxiety in Children

Common Sense Media: Explaining News To Our Kids

Convene the Council

How to Talk to Your Children About What’s Happening in Ukraine

Links for Further Investigation:

ARTICLES

How to Talk to Kids About Ukraine

Ukraine Conflict: How to Help Yourself, Your Kids and Others

How to Talk to Your Children About the Invasion in Ukraine and Why Those Conversations are Important

HUMANITARIAN AID AND CHARITIES THAT NEED YOUR SUPPORT

The Ukrainian Red Cross

CARE International

UNICEF Ukraine

Help for the Ukrainian Army

Catholic Relief Services

Project HOPE

Sunflower of Peace

NEWS SITES GEARED TOWARDS YOUNGER KIDS

News-O-Matic

CNN 10

Dogo News

News for Kids

CBBC

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

Episode Transcript:

The world is watching, in horror and fear, as Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine. Our hearts are full of sorrow, but there’s also glimmers of hope—I think we all feel it– for the Ukrainian military, the countless civilians taking up arms to defend their country and of course, we are thinking about the defenseless children in Ukraine.

As moms, our thoughts can’t help but go to the children. The children of Ukraine and our own children as well. How are our own kids coping with all of this, what do they understand about what’s going on, and how can we help them make sense of this senseless crisis. As cheeky podcast moms know, even though we have IBD, we’re moms first and foremost, so this week we’re taking a break from our Crohn’s and colitis conversation to uncover the best ways to talk to our kids about what’s going on in Ukraine, at their level, for their age… to ensure that they feel heard and safe in a world that’s been out of control and chaotic for them for far too long. It’s all about our kids today on the cheeky podcast.

{MUSIC}

Hey dear one, Karyn Haley with you on another episode of The Cheeky Podcast and I curious, have you been glued to the TV, to social media, to podcasts, and the internet this week as countless news outlets detail the horrific events in Ukraine? As a parent and as a human on this planet, I feel like it’s important for me to be informed about world events, but even I have felt like I’ve had to take a break from the constant coverage now and then. In America and in other parts around the world, most of us have the luxury of doing that. And it’s in those moments that I’m taking a break from the bombardment of the 24/7 news cycle that it just hits me, how are my kids doing with all this?

What are they making of what’s happening in our world?

Unlike what I can only imagine it was like to be a kid during WWII or 9-11 when the news was slower and social media didn’t invade a child’s every waking moment, today’s kids are different. And you might think I’m talking about teenagers. But not necessarily, even younger kids are not immune to hearing tidbits that they struggle to make sense of. I feel like during times of strife, it’s important for us to check in with our kids, meet them where they’re at, and help them try to make sense of their inner thoughts and feelings.

Having a background in mental health counseling, I can’t help but always think of situations from a psychological perspective. Seriously, you should be in my crazy brain that’s always humming with questions like: Why did she do that in that thing that way? What’s he thinking right now? What was the motivation behind that statement? It’s just how I’m wired. I’m sure I overthink things. But this overactive psychology brain of mine has been working overtime in last several days. Processing the how and why of Russia and Ukraine for myself, and then thinking about what my kids are possibly thinking about all this and how can I best approach this topic with them. For my younger kid, as well as my older kids—of course the way I broach this subject will be different because they are in different places developmentally—and even, thinking about how to tailor the conversation to the individual child no matter their age, that’s been top of mind.

We all know it. Parenting is hard.

It’s been harder over the last couple years. Even though, physically we may not have been moving about in the world as much in the last 2 years, our brains have still been moving about and have been working overtime, haven’t they? Our brains haven’t stopped. And in my heart, I know that the time that we are currently in, where an oppressive dictator decides to barbarically invade another country and the ramifications that will have for Ukrainians, for Russians who are speaking out against Putin, and all of us around the world, is a time when our brains need to continue to work overtime, to process what is happening so we can help our kids yet again, get through another challenging and confusing time.

So before I dove in, to have what turned out to be some really enlightening and thought provoking conversations with my kids, I thought it best to find out what the experts are saying about talking to your kids about the invasion of Ukraine. And I found some really insightful ideas on how to best approach this difficult conversation– talking to my kids about war. God, the difficult conversations are just never ending these days. I hope that this thought provoking information gives you comfort and confidence (I know I need to feel those things right now) because it’s necessary to have these tough conversations.  And it’s never one and done, but this will at least help you get started.

When I think about the vortex of reading I got sucked into here, I can’t even recall how many resources I perused—let’s just say lots—but I found that there were common themes that seemed to play over and over from the expert perspective when it’s time for tough conversations with our kids. First and foremost, experts alike agree that it’s important to talk to our kids about global events in a way that fits their age, maturity level, and in a way that fits with the questions they are curious about, but at the same time, we should try not to bombard our kids with too much information if they are not asking for it.  Experts also agree that cell phones, streaming services, the 24-hour news cycle, and social media make global events like war very overwhelming for our kids. They talk about how kids deserve to feel safe and how we need to find ways to help them feel safe as much as we can.

COMMON SENSE MEDIA GIVES AN AGE-BY-AGE TAKE

Common Sense Media—do you know this website? It’s fantastic. It’s a hub of information about movies, tv shows, books, gaming… and it gives you age recommendations, reviews, ratings, and commentary so you can make the most informed decisions for your kid for whatever activity they’re into. I love common sense media. When my kids were growing up, we’d use Common Sense Media as our age bible for everything. The kids would say, can we watch Harry Potter? What’s it say on Common Sense Media, we’d say? Can I read Hunger Games? Did you check out Common Sense Media? We were like autoboots repeating different versions of the same phrase over and over.

Sure, it’s a little bit of a cop out as a parent, but my husband and I got so sick and tired of always having to be the bad guy saying no—you’re 5 you can’t watch The Dark Night, but how about Bolt or Cars again?  Or always having to read, watch, and experience every last want of our kids before they could engage. We’ve got 3 kids my friend! Common Sense Media would give us an unbiased barometer to judge how good we were as parents—for better or worse, Common Sense Media parented us as parents.

So over the years, Common Sense Media has really grown to include some pretty informative articles to help us with most aspects of parenting. In one of the articles I perused to help me figure out the best way to talk with my kids about Ukraine, they mentioned several ways you can help your kids deal with the news in general and in common sense media fashion, they broke it down by age. Kids 7 and under. Kids 8-12. And Teens.

FOR KIDS 7 AND UNDER:

Common Sense Media says keep the news away. Do your news viewing away from your kids, especially when frightening pictures and images are involved. If kids this age happen to hear or see something, stress to them that your family is safe. If you have older kids and your younger kids overhear your conversation, or if your kids happen to see or hear something on the news, use the distance of this war to help reassure them and help them feel safe. Get out a map to show them the war is happening here and we live here. And above all, according to Common Sense Media, kids feel safe when they know they are not separated from you. Find time to spend together, listen when your kids talk, especially about their fears, use distraction techniques, provide physical comfort by snuggling with them, watching a happy program together, reading a book, or doing a fun activity.

I think this is a really great time to point out, for my sake more than yours because I’m sure you already know that every kid is unique. Maturity levels and age really need to come into play when deciding how much to talk about in situations like these. While I completely respect Common Sense Media’s thoughts and ideas here, I do think that even with kids under seven we can find ways to talk to them about global events in very simple terms that still help them feel safe.

Now of course, if I had a two-year-old, I am not going to be bringing up the war in Ukraine. But with a six-year-old or seven-year-old, depending on their maturity level, and of course their curiosity level, I may mention this event in passing. One country is being mean to another country and we are going to pray as a family for everyone’s safety or we are going to give to charity XYZ to help the families who live there. I might even get out a map and show them where the countries are.  Most kids who are five, six, or seven years old know what it’s like to have a friend who they perceive as being mean to them. When you put the conversation at this level, it just gently starts the process of making your kids aware that we live in a global, interconnected world. Pointing out the countries on the map shows them a bit of geography as well so it’s short, it’s not too scary, and it’s part of a conversation that’s a multi functioning learning process.

I do agree wholeheartedly with Common Sense Media though that the most important thing for children seven and under is that they feel safe and connected to us. I think that that is the key no matter how you approach what’s going on in Ukraine with children this age. I’m curious to know what do you think? Have you shared anything about the war with your seven and under kiddos? Remember there’s no right answer here because it depends on your family, your beliefs, and your individual children. And this is just food for thought to get the conversation started.

KIDS 8-12 YEARS OLD:

When global events are at stake, the news and war, Common Sense Media talks about considering your child’s temperament and maturity level for kids in this age group. Your child may be extra sensitive or an empath by nature. If this is the case you may want to keep them away from the news, TV, and dangerous images. I can give you an example for this because I have a child in this age group and he is very much an empath. He takes on others emotions so easily that sometimes it overwhelms him. So for my son, we are talking about Ukraine in terms that he can process and understand, but I’m not watching or listening to the news with him. Instead I listen and then filter my experience with all of this to him in a way that he can understand. I know that some of the graphic images may be too frightening for his sensitive temperament.

Again, every child is different so your child might not feel that way at all and want to watch the news as you watch. Common Sense Media also talks about being available for questions and conversations. This is where we mamas shine. Kids this age see things in black-and-white. This gives you insight into where they’re coming from but also a starting point for conversations about prejudice, bias, and how we need to be careful with generalizations.

Common Sense Media says that if your kids are online, try to be there with them, or monitor what they are exposed to, use programs to help control what URL’s you want your kids to stay away from. Let me tell you from experience that this is that age where if your kids are on social media or the Internet, things are going to pop up without them even searching for them. There’s so many things they cannot unsee, so this is a great time to have parental controls on their devices.

THE QUESTION THAT MUST BE ASKED OF OUR CHILDREN

My favorite advice for this age group from common sense media is to have a conversation with your child that starts with the phrase, “What have you heard about Ukraine?” Because they probably already heard at least something about the war at school, from friends, possibly on the Internet or social media. Asking the question, “What have you heard about what’s going on in Ukraine?” helps you start the conversation with where they’re at.

What do you think about this advice? Does this fit for your child? How will you personalize it for their situation and their needs? I really like the advice that common sense media is giving for this age group. If fits really well for my child, but it’s up to you how are you take this information and what parts of it you take to help your child. Remember in the end, the goal is for them to feel heard and feel safe.

FOR TEENS:

Oh teenagers. Mind of their own teenagers. When we’re talking about global events like a war with teenagers, we cannot underestimate the fact that they have opinions, they have access to information, and in most cases they are not shy about sharing what they know or think they know.

Common Sense Media says the most important thing to do with teenagers is to check in. Since teens are getting their information independently, it’s important for you to find out what they already know. This gives you as the parent of the opportunity to throw in the news you’ve been getting and give more context to what they already know.

Remember, teens tend to have strong opinions so don’t dismiss their insights. Validate them and use it as an opportunity to have an open conversation with them. That’s some seriously great advice from Common Sense Media because we know as soon as we shove our opinion down our teen’s throat, that’s when they shut down. Instead, we can say something like, “That’s a really interesting thought Jim. I haven’t really thought about it in that way. I saw XYZ on the news today and I thought this perspective was really interesting. What do you think?”

Common Sense Media says with teens, the most important thing is for them to feel like they can express themselves. Teens may personalize events like this, they may even know somebody directly impacted or involved in someway with the war in Ukraine. Especially with the global reach of social media. They might also be wondering, how much will this impact me? It’s important not to minimize or dismiss their concerns. If you do disagree with their take on what they’re hearing from their sources, it’s great to have a conversation with them about it. Open them up to the media outlets where you think there is valid unbiased information. Even though teens don’t tell us they value our insights and opinions, we know that deep down, we deep down, they do. Hopefully they will check out your resources out as well.

What do you think about this teen advice? I think Common Sense Media knows teens. They know how independent and stubborn they can be and they appreciate the value of conversation and connection with teens rather than preaching at them and telling them what they should think. Having been through teenager-hood with two kids I have really learned the value that connection conversation can bring. A question to ask yourself here is what fits for my teen and what doesn’t? It’s a good idea to have a sense of these things before broaching the conversation about Ukraine with your teen.

And of course, it’s multiple conversations, it’s about opening the door so that you can continue to have open dialogue. We have no idea what direction this conflict is going to take. We’re all figuring it out day by day, but when we have the door open to connection and conversation with our kids no matter what their age, the conversation becomes infinitely less difficult to initiate.

THIS ARTICLE IS MAKING WAVES

There’s another article that I read about talking to your kids about the war in Ukraine. I found it to be so chock-full of valuable information. Have you read the article from the Washington Post yet? It’s titled “Your Kids Are Hearing About Ukraine. Here’s how to Help Them Understand.” It’s been so popular that it’s making the rounds on social media. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend you go to the show notes and check this article out. I will have it linked there at karynhaley.com/77. In fact, I’ve got lots of articles that we don’t have time to get into that are still filled with super valuable information on talking to your kids about what’s going on right now. You may want to check them out if this topic is something that’s been on your mind as well.

You can see all of the articles at karynhaley.com/77.

So this Washington Post article starts out by saying the best thing to do is ask that same question that common sense media mentions, “What have you heard about Ukraine and what’s happening?” Such a great jumping off point. So simple yet so poignant. I think it’s because it’s open ended and let’s the conversation take direction from the child.

But then, they have a follow-up question that I think is also so spot on and that question is, “How did you get your information?” Remember, especially for teens, this is not in an accusatory way, you’re just wondering where did they get their information from. With so much misinformation and half information out there for our kids to devour on Instagram and tik toc, you want to be able to give context to where they got their information and provide them with additional resources that may also help round out a more complete picture what’s happening.

WAR AND ANXIETY

I really like that the Washington Post article goes into one of the main emotions I think we’re all feeling right now—anxiety—whether we are in tune with it or not.  By now, with the last couple years we’ve had, we may be so numb that we’ve tuned some of our key emotions, like fear and anxiety because it’s so ever present in our lives. Think about how this constant state of anxiety might impact our kids.

According to Caroline Netchvolodoff, Vice President of Education at the Council of Foreign Relations, she says if tweens pick up on a smidgeon of the Ukraine story here and there, or they pick up on our anxieties, it might make them feel like we are headed to WWIII. And who would blame them for thinking that. I’ve heard that very sentiment on the news myself. How about you?

One of the anxiety busting ideas given in the article for tweens and teens is this cool website called Convene the Council. It shows how our government makes decisions. It’s interactive so your child gets to be a factor in the decision making process. I checked it out with my tween last night and he really liked creating a real-life government scenario around how policy is made to impact climate change. It took him through how likely the decisions he made were to happen and he saw the different channels policies like this go through to actually get passed into law.

Now, there wasn’t anything about Ukraine specifically on the site, but just seeing all the checks and balances for our government, seeing how each of the government arms work, helped my son see how in the United States, we have plans and plans for those plans, and that there is a well-oiled and capable machine within the government to help us stay safe. This interactive website is meant for older teens as well, but my 18-year-old checked it out and said, feh. Not a compliment at all for his generation. It’s recommended for 12 and up, but I think if you sat there with your child, a 10-year-old would get something out of it and enjoy the interactivity of it too. Probably somewhere around 15 or 16 your kid will say, nope boring. I’ll leave a link to Convene the Council if you’re interested.

The part of this recent Washington Post article I found most helpful was the part about how, thanks to the pandemic, finally some good news out of this awful situation, we are all in a state of “call to action.” You know, things like what you can do to help like “flatten the curve,” supporting our medical community and those at high risk for covid infection. For the most part, as a society did what we could in spirit and in action to help those in need. The same thing happened after 9-11 too. People responded to the crisis with their own “calls to action.” During this time of unease we are all experiencing, feeling anxious or scared, the article points out that now is the time to act because that action has the power to ease our anxiety. It makes us feel like we actually are having an impact and that we have some sense of control.

I’ve been thinking this very thing through the war on Ukraine. How can I help here in America?

What can little old me in the U.S. do to help. Thankfully, I was able to search out and vet some really good charities that help on so many levels. A friend of mine from Ukraine is asking for donations to help the Ukrainian military. We know they need support right now. The Ukrainian Red Cross is looking for blood donations, monetary donations, even humanitarian aid for the country, CARE International helps by way of care packages with food and hygiene kits as well as providing psychological services for military and families… that’s just a few options to consider and it doesn’t matter the age of your child here. We all can teach our children to be charitable in words, good deeds, and donations… in whatever way we can. Calls to action like these are good for everyone’s anxiety and our soul. Links to vetted sites I just mentioned and many more like these are in the show notes at karynhaley.com/77 if you want to see how you and your family can help make a difference for the people of Ukraine.

LET’S HEAR FROM THE REAL EXPERTS

Before we wrap up the episode on how we can talk to our children to help them process what’s happening in Ukraine right now, I want to touch on what the psychologists are saying. As you can imagine, those in the mental health field are very busy fielding questions right now and I’ve got your cliff notes version of their best advice for parents. Dr. Tracey Alloway (sorry for the mispronunciation in the podcast), a clinical psychologist in Florida, sums up the best approaches for younger children. She says that during times like these, we can encourage a child’s curious nature and encourage questions from them. She talks about how younger children who may be fearful of the unknown have a very concrete way of seeing the world. So when we engage in conversations with our kiddos about the challenges in Ukraine, it’s important to remember to put our insights into situations and experiences that are known to them.

When we think about the kinds of experiences that are known to our children, that might be a situation like having a conflict over a toy at a playdate or feeling judged by a friend, or even just the feeling of sadness. Really young ones understand that feeling. Putting global information in terms they understand helps them to feel more in control and less fearful of the unknown. I thought that was really good information, especially for parents of younger ones. I hope that’s helpful for you.

When asked about how kids are handling this unstable world situation, forensic psychologist, Dr. Judith Wenban-Smith had an insight so good that I have to give it to you verbatim—in her exact words. Dr. Wenban-Smith is quoted in a recent article published by the Guardian saying,

“Every bomb will generate yet more headlines, and politicians will respond with ever more aggressive talk,” “The problem is that in the past two years, children have learned that the world is a dangerous place and that bad things can and do happen close to home because of Covid.”

So true. Our kids have been through a lot these last two years. I know with my younger son, I keep mentioning things we did prior to Covid and quarantining. Sometimes he remembers, but a lot of the things I mention to him, he’ll say I don’t remember that. It’s weird, it’s like there’s no memories for him prior to covid. And he’s not 6 or 7 so this is an interesting phenomenon. Does this have something to do with his age, is it dangerous world overload? Because of my health and other family member’s health challenges, our world became very small during Covid. Did he get so immersed in all that was going on that he just can’t remember our much bigger much bolder pre-covid world? I guess time will tell, but one thing’s is for sure, our kids have gotten way to use to bad things happening and we need to remember that as we help them navigate through this time in our lives.

When I try to process all I’ve learned in my deep dive into finding the best ways to communicate with our children about the war in Ukraine, there’s a few themes that I’m hearing over and over.

THE TAKEAWAY FOR TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT WAR IN UKRAINE

• Help your child feel safe.
• Ask them what they already know or think they know before diving into a conversation.
• Ask open ended questions to really get valuable information from your kiddos.
• Know where they are getting their information. Share where you get yours.
• Validate your kids’ thoughts and their feelings at every age.
• Process together.
• Bust fear and anxiety with calls to action. And action doesn’t always mean money. There’s loads of ways to show we care.
• Be mindful that our kids are already burnt out on bad things happening. That may impact how they react to this latest crisis.
• Even when kids get older and they act like you don’t have anything valuable to share, Share your insights anyway. They may be listening more than you know.
• Don’t keep your kids in the dark. Find kid safe news outlets where kids can learn about global events at their level. I’ve got a bunch of good ones I found to share. Check out the show notes at karynhaley.com/77 There’s also more links to taking with your kids about Ukraine articles and vetted humanitarian and charity sites there as well.
• Above all, keep the conversation going. This crisis will not be a one and done talk with your kids.

That’s it my friend. That’s what I found. Let’s keep the conversation going. Let’s send out positivity and light to every Ukrainian citizen no matter where they are right now and let’s hold our own families close in gratitude and in solidarity that peace triumphs in the end.

Until we meet again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy gut healing journey. Chat soon!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

The Simplest, But Most Often Overlooked Eating for IBD Strategy

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When you’re dealing with Crohn’s and colitis, it feels like a constant state of eat this not that. Should I be gluten free or grain free? What are the ingredients in that? Can I have that ingredient? Am I having a reaction to that food? How do I know?

So much to consider when it comes to eating for your health in a way that supports and heals your Crohn’s or colitis.

Today we’re going in a completely different direction. A direction that doesn’t care what eating plan you’re on. A direction that has nothing to do with what you eat, but has everything to do with HOW you eat.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How many times experts tell you to chew the food in your mouth before you swallow (this number is going to shock you)
• The before, during, and after eating plan that gives your body what it need to digest food properly
• The best way to get your digestion working effectively before you even take your first bite of food

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Links for Further Investigation:

Digestion in the Mouth

Carbohydrate Food List

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Episode Transcript:

When you’re dealing with Crohn’s and colitis, it feels like a constant state of eat this not that. Should I be gluten free or grain free? What are the ingredients in that? Can I have that ingredient? Am I having a reaction to that food? How do I know?

So much to consider when it comes to eating for your health in a way that supports and heals your Crohn’s or colitis.

Today we’re going in a completely different direction. A direction that doesn’t care what eating plan you’re on. A direction that has nothing to do with what you eat, but has everything to do with HOW you eat.

[MUSIC]

Hey now, welcome to the episode, take a load of and join me for a little while today while we sip some tea maybe and enjoy this time together. I’m grateful to have you here with me today. I’m in my podcasting space in my office, I’ve got my black sweatpants on with my Wicked t-shirt (you know the musical?) I can’t believe it but I saw Wicked in London with Indina Menzel (way before frozen) This must have been 2005, 2006…) I had no idea who she was but I knew she had the best voice I had ever heard in my life. Wow, what powerhouse, right? How about you, how’s your day going? Are you rushing about? Are you taking care of the kiddos or are you taking care of yourself with some downtime? Whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re doing it in comfortable clothes like me. Cause IBD gals deserve comfortable clothes.

Can I get an amen?

OK my dear, let’s get into it because we have a different episode today. You know the cheeky podcast is the place to be for all things IBD food related. And with all the gut healing diets we’ve talked about on this podcast, what more is there to say? Haven’t we covered it all? Well, first of all, I can’t imagine we could cover it all. There’s so much to say on the topic of food and IBD. But today I want to go in a completely different direction. A direction that doesn’t care what eating plan your on. A direction that has nothing to do with what you eat, but has everything to do with HOW you eat.

Because how you eat is just as important as what you eat. It’s a topic we’ve yet to dive into, but it’s a big one and it can have instant and profound effects on each and every one of your IBD symptoms. Top to bottom, inside to outside the body. And the important how you eat topic I want to tackle today is chewing.

Chewing.

OK, it’s not the sexiest topic. And I’ll start this episode off with a warning:  You’re going to hear words like saliva and mucus. I promise as little as possible, and I’ll also try to make this episode as short and sweet because no one wants to hear those words over and over. But when it comes to Crohn’s, colitis, and living as healthy as we can, just like that P word we have to dive into sometimes (you know the one), occasionally saliva has to come up in conversation too.

One thing I’ve learned in my 35 plus years with IBD is that the more comfortable we get with talking about digestion from mouth to anus, the healthier we will be. So we’ll grin and bear it together—because the chewing part of digestion (yes, chewing is actually a part of digestion) is just as important as the pooping part of digestion.

If you’ve taken biology in high school, or maybe even Anatomy and Physiology in college, you probably remember hearing that digestion begins in the mouth. But actually, if you want to get really technical about it, digestion starts before we even put something in our mouth.

Think about your favorite food.

What’s that food for you? For me, right now (because it tends to change) it’s a toss up between this amazing veggie omlette I can’t get enough of. It’s made from eggs, right from the chicken fresh, with all my favorite veggies or chateaubriand—this really great cut of steak that’s so tender, it melts in your mouth like butter. Just thinking about either of those foods gets my salivary glands working. What food does that for you?

Proteins, minerals, digestive enzymes and of course mucus (and I promise, that’s it for that word) are found in your saliva and are all the beginnings of digestion. Just this simple act of thinking about the food you love or smelling the aroma of food starts digestion in your body, before you even take a bite.

Salivary amylase (that’s one of those digestive enzymes) it helps breakdown food in your mouth to prepare it for its next stage on the journey to being used as nutrients and energy for your body.

Now, if you’re dehydrated when you eat, this process can’t work as efficiently as it normally would so tip #1 for mindfully chewing to help your IBD is to make sure you drink plenty of water throughout the day. It actually helps your mouth digestion breakdown your food more efficiently so you can then use those nutrients for health and energy.

Our bodies, being designed so amazingly, already know instinctively how to break down the fat, protein, and carbohydrates in our food to provide our body with the nutrients we need. Of course, this is a little more complicated when it comes to those of use with Crohn’s and colitis because the breaking down and absorbing of nutrients is more of a challenge for us, but our body in theory still knows what to do.

Of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, carbs take the most work which is why carbohydrate digestion and the starch breakdown of those carbs starts in the mouth. These broken down starches turn into sugar that our body can use for energy. The more we chew these foods, the sweeter they become. Definitely an incentive to chew your food well because we all like that sweet taste in our mouth.

Now if you’re thinking, all this talk about carbohydrates doesn’t pertain to me because I don’t eat carbs or I’m on a low carb diet like Paleo or SCD, or Keto, think again. Those of us on gut healing diets that don’t include grains like bread and pasta still consume carbohydrates. Nuts, legumes, fruits, vegetables all contain carbohydrates. Sure some have less than others, but even on a gut healing diet, you’re eating some amount of carbohydrate. And the breakdown of that carbohydrate begins well before it enters your stomach or even your small intestine. It begins in the mouth. By the time you take your first bite of food, the saliva is there, ready to start processing and digesting even as you complete the simple action of chewing.

Now, I’m sure for you this has all been mildly interesting but you’re probably wondering what does all of this have to do with Crohn’s and colitis. The salivary glands, the digestive enzymes, the amylase… I’m so glad you asked because the answer is OH SO MUCH!

When we take the simple but overlooked process of chewing our food seriously and we give our body the time chewing deserves, we’ve already broken our food down, made less work for the rest of our digestive system (so it can focus on healing not fighting this inner digestion battle which can lead to more inflammation, bacterial imbalance, and then dysregulated immune function), instead with proper chewing, your food has the power to digest easier, more efficiently and then all those nutrients digestion creates have the power to become absorbed into your body so you feel healthy and strong, from the inside out.

It all starts with mindful chewing of your food, whatever food you eat. How you chew your food matters to the overall impact of how you experience your Crohn’s and colitis.

Make sense?

Just think about it. Let’s say you’re in a rush. The kind of rush we moms are often in. The after school but before soccer practice rush when the kids are hastily getting homework done, you’re trying to find the practice uniform and when you finally find it stuffed under (not in) their dresser. It’s smelly and dirty and you’re running it to a quick wash cycle in the washing machine all while cooking dinner and yelling out answers to questions from kids 2 rooms over. Questions like, “Hey mom, how do you spell stegosaurus?” And “Hey mom, when I divide 587 by 23, which number goes side the bracket?” The quick, but healthy chicken dish you lovingly prepared ends up sitting on the table 15 minutes before you need to rush out the door.

Picture that meal going down.

Large chunks of food barely hitting the mouth before moving into the esophagus (chewing, what’s chewing?), stressed eating environment, looking at the clock ever 2 minutes… “We’re gonna be late, we’re gonna be late.” Not pretty for your digestion or your IBD right?

So the first thing I have to say before we even get into the meat of this chewing topic is that I’m a busy mom too. I get it. I hear you yelling at your phone right now. How do I possibly have the time to chew mindfully? I get that life isn’t perfect and that our chewing sometimes needs to be rushed, but here’s the thing about gut health and really anything that needs improving in your life. We have to have insight first, and after insight we can strive to do the best we can do.

So after all of this information you’ll hear about proper, mindful chewing I’m sharing with you today, if you end up with insight (because let’s face it, for most people the quality of chewing their food and its impact of the health of their IBD is just not something most give much thought to) and if after today you make a promise to yourself to go for B+ mom chewing status, that’s seriously about the best any of us can hope for.

OK, so let’s say you’re living in a perfectly balanced bubble of a no rush world. I know, you don’t live there but we have to start somewhere, then you can adjust to what works for you and your situation and that may even change depending on the day. So in a perfect world, what would chewing your food to help your Crohn’s and colitis symptoms look like? Well, there’s 5 general guidelines we want to keep in mind when it comes to chewing our food mindfully and properly. And then there’s my before eating-during eating-and after eating tips to make sure chewing your food well becomes a habit for you before you know it.

First, let’s talk about your 5 chewing well, chewing mindfully, general guidelines.

1. Ideally, when we’re talking about chewing, your aim is to strive for 30-50 chews for each bite of food. I know, that seems like a lot, but next time you to count it. I bet you chew more than you realize. When I have my clients try this experiment, they usually tell me that they find they chew about 15-20 times for each bite they swallow so 30 isn’t that much of a stretch. 50 is a lot. Remember, we’re striving for B+ here, not perfect.
2. Chew until your food becomes liquidy in your mouth before you swallow. Have you ever paid attention to how liquidy your food is before you swallow? It’s something that takes conscious thought, at least initially. The more chewing, the more your food is broken down before you swallow. Super masticated food means less work for your esophagus, your stomach, and your small intestine and then more absorption of those much needed nutrients for those of us with IBD. So chew until your food is liquidy, then swallow.
3. Eat as many meals as you can with family and friends. Studies show that when we eat with others, we actual improve our digestion. So maybe that hectic weeknight I mentioned earlier isn’t the best example of this, but think picnics with friends, Sunday brunches with family and as many family meal nights as you can manage. B+ work all the way.
4. Listen to your mama’s wisdom and chew with your mouth closed. Less open mouth eating means less gas for you—out of both ends!
5. This last tip is your saving grace when you’re in a hurry. I have to have one tip in there specifically for us busy mamas. When you are forced to eat fast, be sure you take deep breaths as you eat. This simple act makes you relax and take time to chew your food. You will not only get more nutrients from your food, but you’ll enjoy the taste of your food more too.

Now let’s talk specifics.

How can you make sure you are chewing your food slowly and mindfully throughout the whole meal?

First, before you eat:

1. Wash your hands. Of course, you want to eat with clean hands before touching your food, but also the ritual of washing your hands before you eat signals to your mind that you are transitioning to a new task. One that has the potential to bring you health and wellbeing.
2. Turn off the TV, no phones or other devices at the table. This is a great rule for mates as well as families. Turn your attention away from distractions and into each other while you prepare to eat. I don’t know about your kids, but our kids suck with transitions. To help them better transition from electronics to mealtime, we used to have our kids turn off devices 30 minutes before eating. It made a big difference in the energy they brought to the table. And their calm energy always benefits your digestion.
3. Set a clean and quiet table to eat. No one wants to eat with books or papers piled around them. A clean table sets the tone for a calm meal.
4. Light a candle and place it in the middle of the table—it could be for date night, but it could also work for Sunday dinner or just dinner if you like. I have a friend who always has candles lit when we go to her house for dinner. I’m a huge fan of candles anyway so I find it an extra special touch that just sooths me when it’s there. Be careful with your meal candles though, you don’t want an overpowering scent competing with the aroma of the food.
5. Take a few deep breaths for yourself before you sit down. A good 4-7-8 breath works. You’re just calming your energy before you sit down.
6. Say a prayer or have a moment of gratitude before you eat. Whether you are by yourself or with family and friends, having a moment of grace or gratitude before you eat changes your whole demeanor and sets you up for a well digested meal. I love it when we do a round of gratitude at our dinner table with my family. It’s a great jumping off point for conversation and always leads to a positive dinner experience, even for my rowdy boys.
7. Lastly, when you sit down to eat, think about your posture. Shoulders hunched, slouched posture does not make for good digestion. Straighten your shoulders, align your posture and remember to breathe.

During the meal, here’s the best way to help yourself chew those 30 bites before swallowing:

1. Place a bite of food in your mouth—not too big a bite.
2. Then put your utensil down. Chew, chew, chew… making sure it becomes liquidy.
3. It may even help to put your hands in your lap as you chew or clasp your hand together. It keeps you from taking another bite until you have swallowed the last one.
4. Consciously breath as you eat. I don’t know about you, but I often think to myself as I’m eating, huh, I’ve stopped breathing. Reminding myself to breath, especially when I feel like I’m in a hurry always helps settle me down to better digestion.
5. Be present—with the food (how does it taste, smell, feel on your tongue, what memories and emotions does it evoke?) and be present with those around you. (enjoy the conversation, the laughter, even the moments of silence with these people you care so much about).
6. If you find yourself feeling distracted, deliberately look at your food or even close your eyes for a moment to feel fully present with this meal. I know that might sound weird or corny but I’ve tried it, it really does help.

After the meal is over:

1. Say thank you to the cook (even if it’s yourself)
2. Don’t be in such a rush to go your separate ways. When you have a few minutes, take that time to sit, chat, enjoy each others company for a bit. I have to say that this is a weird area in my house. Growing up in my big Italian family, we always sat after we ate. We’d sit and sit and just talk and laugh and tell stories— plates would sit until eventually my grandmother would give the marching orders for who would do what to help pick up. My husband’s family never lingered while he was growing up. It was eat and then get up. Sometimes when we eat with them I’m the only one left at the table because I eat so slow—30 chews per bite! Even though we’ve tried to come to a compromise with our own family, I can tell how antsy my hubby gets when my family is over. He tolerates it for a while, but eventually he’ll always get up. Thankfully it’s to start the dishes so it’s a win for everyone.
3. Lastly, if you have time, take a walk or a stroll after you eat. It’s so good for your digestion and your IBD. Help your body to process, digest and then absorb the nutrients in the food you just ate by moving around. Of course I’m not talking a spin on the trampoline or cartwheels, this is strictly stroll time. Just enough movement to feel comforted. It really can help the gas and bloating many of us get after meals.

OK, that’s a wrap on chewing and intentionally eating in a way to help your body digest and absorb your food so it has a positive impact on your crohn’s and colitis. With all the gut healing diets out there, with all the hype about eat this not that, chewing and eating with mindfulness is something we so often overlook.

I started eating this way years ago and I have to tell you it was game changing. Capitol H huge. I don’t know how this lands for you. It may seem like just another daunting task to add to the already piled high list of things you’re doing for your IBD, but I promise you, just like the way I eat now, chewing and eating mindfully have become second nature to me. I never have to think to myself, how many bites did I have? It just happens. And I know it’s 100% habit because I’m always the last person to finish eating. It’s OK to be that person. In fact it’s awesome to be that person.

So chew well, chew mindfully, think about some of the tactics we went over today and watch how it has a positive impact on how you feel.

Until we meet again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy gut healing journey. Chat soon!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Tomatoes: Yes or No?

Do you eat tomatoes?

Raw, cooked, skin on, skin off, canned, tomato sauce, ketchup… although I’m not really sure ketchup qualifies as a tomato by that point.

Tomatoes are one of those things that some with Crohn’s and colitis eat with no issues and others run to the bathroom as soon as a tomato touches their lips.

I’m somewhere in the middle when it comes to tomatoes. I’ve had periods in my life when I’d eat raw tomatoes by the fist full.

No problems whatsoever.

But when my Crohn’s inflammation isn’t completely under control—Bam! Tomatoes are a go preceded by a no.

No way for the raw tomatoes.

One thing I most always seem to tolerate is tomato sauce and thank God, because my Italian family wouldn’t tolerate it if I didn’t eat my grandmother’s famous sauce recipe. And truth be told, I wouldn’t either because that sauce is heaven sent.

The secret to my Nana’s sauce (God rest her soul) was that she always added a touch of sugar to cut the acidity in the tomatoes. It definitely helped me tolerate her sauce when she made it. Now that I eat, sleep, and breath with my gut health in mind, I substitute out the sugar and replace it with honey.

Still works like a charm to cut some of the tomato-y acid that can give us heartburn, indigestion, acid reflux, and an upset belly.

If the jury is still out on you and tomatoes, or if you’re like me and you waver back and forth, you’re going to appreciate this post that’s all about tomatoes.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to take away some valuable, unbiased information on the benefits and the risks of tomato eating with IBD.

And if you choose to partake, I’m sharing a tomato inspired recipe at the end. It’s got a cooked and raw version so it will fit for wherever you’re at on your gut healing journey.

Four Things You’ll Learn in This Post

• Tomato health benefits specific to Crohn’s and colitis
• Why you might think you can’t eat tomatoes and how you can change that
• The reasons why tomatoes don’t work for everyone with IBD
• A gut healthy and delish tomato recipe that’s so easy you can make it today

Join our IBD mom tribe: The Gut Love Community of Moms

WHAT IS A TOMATO ANYWAY?

Fruit or Vegetable? Oh, the great tomato debate!

Why are we so set on putting produce in the wrong category?  Tomatoes do have seeds so technically they’re a fruit, but for this post I’m going with vegetable. That’s what most of us call it anyway.

Just like in my Italian household where tomatoes were used liberally, tomatoes are at the heart of all Italian cuisine. In fact, Mediterranean’s alike love to use tomatoes whenever and wherever possible.

From paella to Greek salad, pizza to stews, tomatoes are incorporated into all sorts of dishes.

Tomatoes, part of the nightshade family, are believed to have originated in Mexico, but after the Spanish colonization of the Americas, tomato crops began popping up in a variety of places. Today, tomatoes are grown all over the world.

Tomatoes are an easy crop to plant, and when they grow, they proliferate like crazy. If you have a garden, you know tomatoes are one of those plants that grow with so much abundance that you’re either canning them for winter or giving them away to friends because you just can find a recipe for every batch you gather!

ARE TOMATOES REAL OR FAKE HEALTHY?

There’s lots to love about the nutritional make up of a tomato. They are really high in vitamins A, C, B, and K. But they are also glorious for their mineral make up with nutrients like magnesium, potassium, manganese, phosphorus, and copper.

That’s good news for all of us who are endlessly mineral deficient in America.

And if you are looking for fiber, tomatoes are a great option there too. With overall health benefits including heart health, better vision, lowering hypertension, better digestion, enhancing the skin, and reducing gallstones, tomatoes have a lot to brag about.

For this article, we’ll focus on the 3 main health benefits that are nearest and dearest to an IBDer’s heart:

• Digestion
• Heart health
• Gallbladder disease

Can tomatoes help my digestion?

Yes and no.

If you’re looking for some great ways to get more fiber in your diet, especially if constipation is your digestive challenge (it’s more common in IBD than you might think), look no further than tomatoes. The insoluble fiber in the skin can really help keep you regular.

On the other hand, that same fiber in the tomato skin (that’s where most of the fiber is located), can cause many of us with Crohn’s and colitis to have challenges digesting it.

Seen any tomato pieces in your poop lately? Yep, that’s your IBD body saying, “Nope, not gonna digest it!”

But even if you do struggle to digest tomatoes, don’t write them off so fast because remember, it’s not about whether you think can eat a tomato or not. It’s about putting that potentially healthy tomato in a form that your body can digest and absorb.

But I’ve got IBD. What’s the best way for me to digest tomatoes?

• Fresh pressed juice (add it to your juicer with some other veggies and fruit)
• Canned tomatoes (because there’s no skin so it’s easier to digest)
• Cooked tomatoes (because the fibers are broken down)

So go for it with tomatoes. Just be sure to put it in the best form for where your disease is at right now.

We can get so focused on our gut that we neglect our heart.

It’s easy to get side tracked with the digestive system. It rules everything we do from what we eat, to how we sleep, to the activities we are able to get involved with.

We may not even realize just how much our world is affected by the IBD colored glasses we wear. But next to our digestive system, the other big organ we’ve got to keep as healthy as possible is our heart.

That beautiful, blood pumping machine is vital to our overall health. Afterall, we don’t just function one organ at a time. We are a system that’s only as good as its weakest link. So keeping your heart healthy is just as important as our gut.

Tomatoes provide that heart healthy compound, lycopene.

One study found that eating foods high in lycopene was so important that it not only improved vascular function, it also played a role in preventing cardiovascular disorders. That’s because lycopene is an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties. When it comes to heart, the antioxidant lycopene been shown to be anti-hypertensive, shown to reduce in arterial stiffness, and reduce plaque in the heart.

And here’s the best part about heart healthy lycopene.

If you’re one of those IBDer’s who say, I guess I’ll miss out on all those lycopene benefits because I can’t digest raw tomatoes—this is one of the rare and awesome times I get to say that cooked is better.

You get more lycopene from cooked tomatoes than from raw.

So no worries if your belly isn’t up to raw tomatoes, cook them in a stew or in a sauce. Easier to digest and more lycopene for you!

How’s your gallbladder doin’?

You know how Joey from Friends is always saying, “How you doin’?” Well, for those of us with Crohn’s and colitis, the question should go like this, “How’s your gallbladder doin’?”

We have notoriously bad gallbladder issues.

Did you know that the risk of gallstones for those with Crohn’s is double the general population? Oh yeah, we’ve got the gallbladder market covered.

While many with IBD do end up having their gallbladder removed, I highly recommend you turn over every stone before letting that happen.

Once it’s removed, you can’t get it back and although doctors like to make light of a cholecystectomy (that’s the fancy name for gallbladder removal) and claim it’s not a big deal, trust me it is a big deal. Living without a gallbladder that’s so important for the release of bile to help us digest fat in the food we eat is crucial for those of us with a digestive disorder.

Studies show that a diet high in fruits and veggies is good for your gallbladder. Of the veggies recommended, tomatoes get high marks.

That’s because tomatoes are high in vitamin C, as well as loads of other vitamins and minerals. Tomatoes help your gallbladder function at its peak. So if gallbladder challenges are impacting you, look to the incredibly healthy and versatile tomato.

Of course, the tomato alone isn’t going to cure your gallbladder disease, but every little bit helps and tomatoes (raw or cooked) are ready to play a role in your overall health.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH TOMATOES FOR THOSE OF US WITH IBD?

For all that’s great about tomatoes, even for those of us with Crohn’s and colitis, there’s some things we need to keep in mind before diving in.

A little goes a long way.

When it comes to tomatoes and IBD (and for others as well), eating tomatoes in moderation is key.

You don’t want to go hog wild with tomatoes. Tomatoes are acidic by nature. So too many tomatoes can result in heartburn or a feeling of acid reflux or indigestion. If that happens, it’s a good idea to take a break from tomato consumption for a little while. Thirty days is a good recommended time to see if it makes a difference.

Trying again after a break is important too. It’s the best way to know if there’s a true cause between your love of tomatoes and the symptoms you’re having.

Skins and seeds may not be your friend.

Like I mentioned earlier, eating tomatoes and feeling well after may be all about how you prepare and eat those tomatoes.

Raw and fresh, isn’t the only way to eat a tomato.

People with IBD, especially those who are not in remission, are going to do better with tomatoes that are in fresh pressed juice, ones that are canned, and tomatoes that have been cooked. Cooking breaks down the fiber and reduces the acidic nature of the tomato.

The skin and the seeds are the hardest part of the tomato to digest. Once these components are broken down, tomatoes are much easier to digest and absorb.

And think of all that healthy lycopene you’re absorbing too.

Be careful of over processed tomato products like ketchup and sauces with sugar or additives. These can be just as harmful to our bellies as raw tomatoes. Look for tomato products in their natural state. Either grow and can your own, or choose organic, minimal ingredient products like Bionaturae, Raos, and Muir Glen.

There’s more than one creeper out at night: Nightshades

We can’t conclude our conversation about the potential challenges IBDer’s might have with tomatoes without mentioning nightshade intolerance. Many people living with Crohn’s and colitis are sensitive to a certain type of produce called nightshades. Examples of nightshades include:

• Tomatoes
• White potatoes
• Peppers
• Eggplant
• Chilies
• Some spices like cayenne pepper and paprika.

If you don’t tolerate these foods, a nightshade intolerance could be the culprit.

Why does this impact IBDer’s so much?

Well, one of the hallmarks of Crohn’s and colitis is food sensitivities. Many of us with IBD have them, but we aren’t sure which foods bother us, especially when our disease is in an active state.

When we’re in a flare-up it might seem like everything bothers you. But the truth is, we all have specific foods that don’t work for our sensitive bodies. Nightshades could be one of those foods for you.

How do I know if nightshades bother me?

Here’s a list of common nightshade reactions:

• Arthritis/joint pain
• Hives/skin rashes
• Inflammation
• Achy muscles
• Bloating and gas
• Heartburn
• Itching
• Excessive mucus

If you suspect a nightshade intolerance, it’s probably best to stay away from tomatoes for now.

Maybe a 30-day trial run without them could help you see if you have a problem. If you find that your sensitivity is mild, some things that help are not eating the skin of nightshades as well as cooking them first.

See, there’s another reason why it’s OK to cook your tomatoes.

Whether tomatoes bother you a little or a lot, there’s a phrase my clients will tell you I often say, “This is your now, it’s not your forever.” You never know. Tomatoes may come your way again down the line. Sometimes your body just needs a break to reset and recalibrate.

Only time will tell what your future holds between you and tomatoes. (sounds like relationship advice, doesn’t it ; )

So, what do you think about tomatoes? Yes, no, or somewhere in the middle?

Let me know in the comments below this post.

One last and really cool thing I have to tell you about the pros and cons of tomatoes for an IBD belly–

Keep in mind that your decision about tomatoes doesn’t have to be 100% yes or 100% no.

Sensitivities come in all shapes and sizes and there’s a continuum to all of this with, “Oh yes, I eat them all the time,” at one end of the spectrum. All the way to, “Mmm, sometimes I partake,” in the middle of the bell curve. To, “Hell to the no, never ever never no” all the way on the other side.

Figuring out where you’re at may take some time and patience, but I think with all the health benefits tomatoes offer, it’s worth figuring out what your relationship with tomatoes should be. And if the answer ends up being a solid no, don’t sweat it. There’s so many healthy foods on the planet just waiting for you to indulge in.

Ready to find out if tomatoes are in your wheel of wellness?

CHECK OUT MY TOMATO INSPIRED RECIPE BELOW.

It’s bound to wet your tastebuds and jump start your health. And guess what? For IBD gals who struggle with raw (me, me!!) there’s a cooked version as well so whether you’re a raw tomato girl or a cooked tomato fan, you’ll love everything about this dish.

CHICKEN SALAD STUFFED TOMATOES 

Ingredients:

Prepared chicken salad (see recipe below)

3 large tomatoes

Fresh grated parmesan cheese

Extra virgin olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Directions:

Cut ½ inch off the top of each tomato.  Scoop out the pulp.  

Turn the tomatoes upside down on a paper towel to drain excess water while you prepare the chicken salad.  

Once the chicken salad is prepared, place the filling in the tomatoes.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Drizzle oil and vinegar on the top and serve.

*Digestion tip: if raw tomatoes don’t agree with your belly, this recipe can easily bake in the oven and be served warm. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Place tomatoes on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Serve warm. Avoid eating any seeds and skin.

Chicken Salad

*Use the ingredients that work for your belly, get rid of the rest, keeping in mind you can always cook ingredients to break down the fiber and make them easier to digest.

2-3 pieces of cooked chicken, chopped or shredded

¼ cup celery, minced

1 Tbsp onion, minced

1 hard-boiled egg, chopped

8 green olives, chopped

8 red grapes, chopped

1 Tbsp slivered almonds

Sea salt and pepper to taste

Optional:

Top with fresh or dried herbs like basil, oregano, parsley or thyme

Resources To Take the Conversation Further:

10 Science-Based Health Benefits Of Tomatoes

Soluble vs Insoluble Fiber

Lycopene and Vascular Health

Cooking Tomatoes Boosts Disease-Fighting Power

Is Gallstone Disease Associated with Inflammatory Bowel Disease?

Gallbladder Disease and IBD

What to Know About Nightshade Intolerance

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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The IBD Working Mom: Workplace Challenges and How to Solve Them

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Can Crohn’s, colitis and work fit in the same sentence?

Well, for many of us, we make it fit. We need to work. We are fulfilled by our work. We want to work.

But Inflammatory Bowel Disease sometimes makes getting a job, navigating work situations, and keeping that job a bit sticky.

Today, we are going to unstick those sticky work situations so that you have everything you need to have the best IBD work experience possible.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Six must do tips that fit for any IBD working mom situation
• How to navigate the work bathroom like an IBD pro
• The four best jobs for the IBD working mom

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Employee/Employer Resources (ADA and FMLA)

Ally’s Law

Get Your Restroom Access Card Here

Finding a Job That Works for You:

Chronically Capable

Working Nomads

The Mom Project

Flex Jobs

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

From Valentine’s to Galantine’s to Kid-tine’s Day, With a Dash of Keeping it All Gut Friendly… I’ve Got Your Back

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How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?

It used to be simple right? I remember when my hubby and I were dating and even when we were first married, we lived for Valentine’s Day.

I’d make him some kind of a homespun poem, filling in the blanks with conversation hearts like, I wonder if you’ll “Be Mine” and If you love me, will you please “Kiss Me”.

I thought I was so clever.

He’d give me some kind of sexy lingerie—the kind of lingerie all husbands think their wives are thrilled to get. We’d have a romantic date night even though Netflix and Chill hadn’t been invented yet.

How did we get it on before streaming services were invented? Our kids would never get the concept of actually calling on a rotary phone—the kind with the cord that keeps you stationary—and asking someone out!

But my point is, Valentine’s Day then and Valentine’s Day now is a whole different prospect.

With gut challenges that prevent us from enjoying some of the best Valentine’s Day goodies, plus kids that keep us way too busy to even plan a romantic date night, and now with new-fangled inventions like Galentine’s Day to mucky up everything February 14^th related, we’re left feeling a bit dazed and confused about just how to spend this ever-changing holiday.

If you want to lift the fog and get a bit clearer on what your Valentine’s, your Kid-tine’s, your Galentine’s Day and what your gut friendly, gut fun Valentine’s Day options are, this is the episode for you.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• A Valentine’s/Galentine’s Meal fit for your gut health and your friends and family
• Mom-tested, kid-approved Valentine’s candy everyone can eat
• The reason why Valentine’s Day might turn out to be just another day for you (and why that’s OK)

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Your Complete Valentine’s/Galentine’s Meal Plan

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

7 Ways to Reduce Crohn’s & Colitis Arthritis Pain Naturally

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Arthritis. Painful achy joints. Body stiffness. Difficulty getting your arms and legs moving in the morning. Swelling and tenderness showing up in your elbows, fingers, toes, knees, back, hips, wrists…

Are ailments like these just part of life with Crohn’s and colitis or is there something we can do to not just to cover up the debilitating pain and discomfort.

Something that gets to the root cause to bust that pain for good.

If you’ve been struggling with Crohn’s and colitis induced arthritis, achy or stiff body parts that keep you from your daily activities, this is the episode for you.

I’ve got you covered with 7 ways to combat the daily pain and they are all natural and research backed by scientific studies.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The link between leaky gut and arthritis inflammation
• The best and worst foods to eat when arthritis is flaring
• The simplest joint lubricator that’s already in your own home

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Aloe Vera

Oral Administration of Aloe Vera Gel Study

Aloe Vera Juice Recipe

Cod Liver Oil & Fish Oil

Cod Liver Oil for RA Study

The Role of Fish Oil for RA Study

Turmeric and Curcumin

The Efficacy of Turmeric Extract and Curcumin on Joint Arthritis

Ginger

The Anti-Oxidative and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Ginger

Effect of Ginger on Inflammatory Markers

Improving Knee Pain with Ginger Extract

Proteolytic Enzymes

The Safety and Efficacy of Enzyme Combination Wobenzym

Bromelain As a Treatment for Osteoarthritis

Episode Resources:

Arthritis: Diet and Supplementation

The Benefits of Using Aloe Vera for Joint Pain

Lily of the Desert Aloe Vera Juice

Aloe Vera for Back Pain Relief

Turmeric Anti-Inflammatory Properties on Arthritis

Curcumin for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Biological Properties of 6-Gingerol

Arthritis: What’s to Drink

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Finding Crohn’s & Colitis Relief With the Autoimmune Paleo Approach

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Has the gut healing diet called Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) crossed your path yet?

It definitely gets its roots in the Paleo movement.

There’s lots of moms with Crohn’s and colitis turning to this gut healing, anti-inflammatory, bacterial balancing, immune boosting, food approach to gut health to ditch that flare up and bring about long term IBD remission.

I know, those are some mega claims when it comes to taking control of your Crohn’s and colitis, but there’s really no doubt about it, when done right the AIP works.

That’s because it strips away all of our most common food sensitivities and feeds the gut soothing, healing food.

Food that repairs the gut from the inside, out.

Now just because something works doesn’t mean it’s the answer for you.

But if you’re intrigued to find out if this is the eating plan that has the power to change your life, this episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD is the one for you.

It’s episode 4 in our 4 part series: Eating for Your IBD and this last episode is our juiciest yet.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The important difference between the Paleo diet and the Autoimmune Paleo Approach
• How long it takes to feel gut healing results on the AIP
• The built in “after AIP” plan that makes this diet much easier than you might initially think

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Your Gut Healing Starter Diet Plan

Episode Links:

The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook

The Autoimmune Wellness Website

Monash FODMAPS Information

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

2 Diets Tailor-Made for Crohn’s & Colitis: SCD and GAPS

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So, you’re ready to use food to combat the drain Crohn’s and colitis is putting on your life. Family time suffers, work time suffers. Pretty much every aspect of your life suffers when your IBD is out of control.

The right healing food can be the answer you’ve been looking for.

Food glorious food.

Eating gut healing foods that work for your own personal digestive system has the power to give you a life changing transformation that stays with you for the rest of your life.

No don’t about it, food is a powerful healer.

But with internet information overload (eat this, no eat that), sometimes we become paralyzed in indecision and we fail to move forward with any kind of diet plan. And It’s completely understandable.

We’ve all been there.

Even after I heard about a gut healing diet that had the potential to help md, I still waited 5 years before jumping on the “food is medicine” train.

I was just afraid to start. What if I failed?

Thank God I finally look the leap and choose food as my main IBD hack. I haven’t regretted that decision for one minute.  

And you can take the leap too.

This episode is dedicated to 2 of the best gut healing diets around—the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and the Gut and Psychology Syndrome diet (GAPS). If you’ve been looking for a path forward, to get out of the distress and challenges of your IBD, and you’re ready to bring food into your healing equation, this is the episode for you.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• What’s the difference between GAPS and SCD and how do you decide which one is best suited for you
• The #1 reason that gut healing diet you tried failed, and the simple fix that can turn everything around
• Your best gut healing diet option if you struggle with dairy

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Your Gut Healing Starter Diet Plan

Episode Links:

Breaking the Vicious Cycle Book

A Life of Happenstance

Gut and Psychology Syndrome Book

The GAPS Diet website

Bumblebee Apothecary

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Using Whole Foods To Crush Your Crohn’s & Colitis

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Are you ready to use food to help lessen the chaos surrounding your Crohn’s and colitis symptoms?

Eating foods that just don’t work for your body has the power to harm and keep you in sick mode, but food that works with your gastrointestinal system, has the amazing power to heal.

If you’re at your breaking point because your IBD is keeping you from fully being present with your kids, being productive at work, or even working at all, traveling, going out to eat, or spending time with friends…

Maybe you even have constant anxiety about where you’ll find a toilet when you’re out and will you make it in time.

If you can relate, it’s time to bring gut healing food into the equation.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• It’s not just about symptoms– how to pick a gut healing diet that works with your mom life
• Who a whole food diet is best suited for
• The whole food diet tweak that makes it a much better option for those of us with sensitive bellies

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Your Gut Healing Starter Diet Plan

Episode Links:

The Whole Foods Diet

The Mediterranean Dish Website

Connect With Karyn:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

The New Year’s Resolution Every Mom with IBD Needs to Make

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Happy New Year my friend.

2022… Are you as glad as I am to turn the page to a new year, a new chapter, hell, a whole new book is a better way to look at it.

I might be naive, I might just be way too “glass is half full” for my own good, but I’m going to throw it out there anyway and declare 2022 as your best year yet. Will it be a perfect year? No, there’ll be ups and downs because we are human and we’re on a learning journey, but better and even best? Heck yes!

Today, in timely January fashion, I’ve got the deets on the new year’s resolution that every mom with Crohn’s and colitis needs to make. Yes, that means you. Stick with me and this episode, because I’m about to reveal what you absolutely need to do to make 2022 your year.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The #1 power change you can make that will positively impact your entire health this year (and beyond)
• My step by step plan that gives you all the tools you need to use food to your IBD advantage
• How to get 4-weeks of support from me absolutely FREE

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Your Gut Healing Starter Diet Plan

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

You’re Doing Everything Right — How Come Your IBD Isn’t Getting Better?

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You’re eating right, you found a diet that works best to help manage your Crohn’s and colitis, you take gut healing supplements and medications when you need them.

You’ve even found the best mindfulness practices to help reduce your stress and anxiety around your illness.

You’re doing everything right.

Why aren’t you feeling better? Today on the podcast, we discuss the three hidden conditions that may be holding you back from full IBD remission.

We’re talking about:

• What is Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and why don’t you know you have it?
• The connection between Candida and anxiety
• 4 reasons why your IBD might be creating a dysfunctional thyroid
• The hidden problem with traditional thyroid testing

And so much more!

After the episode, you’ll have the knowledge you need to take to your doctor to get proper testing and treatment for these hidden conditions that might just be keeping you from reaching full IBD remission.

Episode at a Glance:

• [04:40] What is SIBO and why don’t you know you have it?
• [07:24] The gold standard in SIBO testing.
• [13:35] What you should do if you suspect you are suffering with SIBO.
• [17:12] Who’s at the greatest risk of developing Candida.
• [19:13] The connection between candida and anxiety.
• [20:30] The gold standard in Candida testing.
• [22:48] You have Candida, now what?
• [25:49] Why you shouldn’t get rid of all sugar if you have Candida.
• [28:15] 4 reasons why your IBD might be creating a dysfunctional thyroid.
• [32:45] The hidden problem with traditional thyroid testing.
• [37:00] Supplements that help your thyroid function better.
• [42:45] The best way to take your IBD healing journey to the next level.

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Mentioned in This Episode:

The Gut Love Community

Additional Resources from the Episode:

What is SIBO?

Overcome Candida

The Gluten-Thyroid Connection

Your Functional Medicine Guide to Underlying Thyroid Dysfunctions and How to Heal

Monash University FODMAPS

Episode Transcript:

[Music]

INTRO: You are listening to The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, a safe space for moms with Crohn’s and colitis, connect, explore powerful tools for healing and transform our lives to thrive in motherhood and in life. I’m your host, Karyn Haley, IBD health coach, integrative wellness enthusiast, and mom to three outstanding kids. After having Crohn’s disease for 30 years and working as a health advocate exclusively with IBD clients for the last 10 years, I know it’s time to bring the types of candid conversations I have with my clients out into the open. It’s our time to go on an IBD healing journey and do it like only a mom can. Let’s do this.

[music]

[00:52] You’re eating right, you found a diet that works best to help manage your Crohn’s and colitis, you take gut healing supplements and medications when you need them, you’ve even found the best mindfulness practices to help reduce your stress and anxiety around your illness. You’re doing everything right. Why aren’t you feeling better?

Unfortunately for IBDers, this experience is all too common. It’s so frustrating when you know you’re doing everything right, but you’re still not getting any better. It’s such a head scratcher because there’s no one to turn to figure out why this might be happening to you.

I’ve literally sat across from dozens of clients who are part crying, and part pulling their hair out because they just don’t know what to do. What do you do when you’ve tried everything, when you’ve done everything right and you still don’t feel better? What is the magic secret that it seems so many people have and why don’t you have it too?

I really get this because not only have I seen it with fellow IBD mom friends and clients, but this has happened to me as well. For me, it happened when everything was going along swimmingly, in remission, everything seemed great one moment. And the next moment, without warning for any reason, it seemed like everything went to Crohn’s hell. Excessive bloating, gas, diarrhea, abdominal pain… and it took me a moment to figure out what was going wrong.

Now listen, there are so many reasons why things might not be going your way with your IBD, even when you are doing everything right. There’s way too many factors to go into or even fathom for this podcast. When this happens to you, I want you to go see your doctor. I want you to turn over every rock and devour all the information you can gather to help yourself.

But I also have this episode of The Cheeky Podcast to also offer to help you on your journey figuring out what might be going wrong.  When I work with clients, there’s often three reasons why they’re doing everything right but they are still not in complete remission.

3 CONDITIONS THAT MIGHT BE KEEPING YOU FROM 100% IBD HEALING

So here we go with my 3 hidden conditions that might be keeping your IBD and your total health down.  These are little known conditions that for the most part, are not being talked about in mainstream medicine. And that’s why you may not know that you have fallen prey to them.  This is one of those action packed, step by step episodes where you’ll want to have a pen and paper handy. So if you don’t have one, quickly pause and come right back with something to write with.

Let’s start with Hidden Condition #1- Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth or SIBO

What is Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)?

[04:40] Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is exactly what it sounds like, an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine. Most of our microbial bacteria actually resides in our colon. There are small amounts of bacteria in the small intestine but too much there, is not a good thing. It makes digestion and absorption of our food challenging and it damages the lining of the small intestine.

Why don’t I know I have SIBO?

Two reasons really. #1: traditional gastroenterologists and doctors aren’t taught about small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It’s very unusual to find a G.I. doc that talks about it as a possibility when you go for an office visit. And #2: we don’t know that we have SIBO because it’s symptoms are so similar to IBD.

What are the symptoms of SIBO?

Let’s talk symptoms so you can see just how similar SIBO and Crohn’s and colitis really are. Common symptoms of SIBO include gas, bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea or constipation, sometimes going back-and-forth between diarrhea and constipation. Of course, if you have IBD, you already have an in balance in your digestive system which puts you at greater risk for getting SIBO in the first place.

SIBO symptoms can also include non-gut challenges like fatigue, joint pain, headaches, moodiness, skin rashes and respiratory symptoms.

There are several conditions besides IBD that have been linked to being at increased risk for SIBO and they include IBS, GERD, leaky gut, Hashimoto’s, Lyme Disease… and the list goes on and on. And even though some of these conditions seem to have nothing to do with your digestive system, this really makes sense because all roads lead back to the gut. Hippocrates and his wisdom, all disease begins in the gut.

Many people with IBD have no idea that they also have SIBO because the symptoms are just so similar. It’s hard to distinguish between the two. So how do you know? How do you know if you have SIBO?

How do we test for SIBO?

It is of the utmost importance that you get a proper SIBO test. I mentioned earlier that many doctors don’t recognize SIBO as a condition at all. Many G.I. doctors who are familiar with this condition are still not doing proper testing. So, you may be left taking a test, getting negative results. When in reality you just didn’t get proper testing.

According to Dr. Allison Siebecker, SIBO expert extraordinaire, the gold standard in SIBO testing is a 3-hour lactulose breath test. Or, and this just came out very recently, a new test that seems to be even better than a traditional 3-hour breath test, and this is the lactulose 3-gas test. The 3-hour lactulose breath test that I mentioned first, tests for two gases present in the gastrointestinal tract when SIBO is high and those are hydrogen and methane levels. These levels are tested after drinking lactulose, which is a synthetic sugar, sometimes used to treat constipation, but in this test, your body will react to it by increasing these gas levels if you have SIBO. This new test that came out recently looks even better as it looks at hydrogen, methane, as well as hydrogen sulfide in the gastrointestinal tract. This test gives even more information to help with a proper SIBO diagnosis.

Depending on the results of your SIBO test, and which gases are present, this gives your doctor a good indication of which SIBO treatment protocol will work best for you. Methane dominate SIBO has a different protocol than hydrogen dominant.

A SIBO Case Study

[09:15] Let me make this really tangible for you with this case of my client Ginger. She was doing everything right.  Ginger had Crohn’s and had started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, she was on a strong gut healing supplement regime, she was still on 6MP (a medication to help her IBD). Ginger practiced yoga, she walked in nature daily. She had a strong support group of friends to lean on, she was active in her church community… Ginger was doing everything right, but Ginger was still having gut problems. She was feeling gassy and bloated after her meals. She couldn’t find consistency in her poops. She’d have diarrhea for a few days and then constipation for a few, back and forth the cycle went. Ginger was feeling very discouraged when she came to see me. If the SCD and everything she was doing wasn’t working, what could she do? Her doctor was pushing biologics. Should she give up?

In coaching Ginger through her next steps, we talked about some reasons why even though on paper, it looks like she’s doing everything right, there still might be some deeper lingering issues going on. Ones that aren’t often tested for. Of course, SIBO was one of the things we considered. I encouraged Ginger to talk to her doctor about getting proper SIBO testing. Ginger ended up with seriously off the chart hydrogen gas levels from her breath test.

And with this powerful information we realized that there were several foods on Ginger’s SCD diet that were not working for her. Super healthy foods like avocados, ripe bananas, apples, onions, and garlic that are SCD legal, but they just weren’t working for Ginger in this moment due to her SIBO challenges. These are just a few of the food changes I helped Ginger make. When Ginger tweaked her diet, and moved a diet called the SIBO Specific Diet, similar to SCD, but with modifications for those with SIBO, everything turned around for her.

There were other herbals and supplements that Ginger’s doctor added too. But it was game changing for Ginger. Back when she first came to see me, she was ready to throw in the towel. She was down on herself, frustrated, and angry because she was doing everything right. See how just a small tweak can make all the difference in your world?

SIBO. One of those hidden conditions that might be holding you back from those last 40 yards of healing.

What can you do if you suspect SIBO might be holding you back?

[13:35] Start by going to Dr. Siebecker’s website. There, you’ll get up to date, researched back information on SIBO. If you think SIBO might be a culprit for you and you want to know more about it, SIBO symptoms, testing, treatment, etc… that’s the place to start.

Next, talk to the doctor you currently have an ask them to order a SIBO test for you. If your doctor is not open or recommends just a 2-hour test or doesn’t know what you’re talking about, find a nutritionist or functional medicine provider who knows about SIBO and proper testing. I’ll leave a link in the show notes for a functional medicine provider database to find a doctor around the globe. And if all else fails, there are a couple direct to consumer companies you can order a test kit from. One is Direct Labs. I’ve seen people order and test successfully with this company. Reading the test is in an important step and one that all practitioners seem to have their own way for interpreting the results, so it really is your best option to find a provider that can help you with this.

OK, so that’s how come your IBD’s not getting better with hidden condition #1. Let’s talk about hidden condition #2. And that’s Candida. Candida is another digestive ailment that can plague those with IBD, but it’s not talked about in traditional medical circles. Your doctor is not testing for it, and it may be hindering your recovery, even if you’re doing everything right.

What is Candida?

[16:01] Candida is a condition where there’s too much yeast in your digestive tract. This is different from SIBO where it’s a case of too much bacteria in the small intestine. Symptom differences might be subtle in these two conditions, but treatment options are different so it’s important to distinguish between the two before your doctor decides what to do about it.

Candida is short for candida albicans fungus. It’s the most common yeast found in the digestive tract. The yeast can grow out of control, especially when there isn’t enough good bacteria in the G.I. tract. The yeast grows and creates dysbiosis (or an imbalance) in the intestine.  

Many people can be at risk for Candida. People who overuse of antibiotics, people with diabetes, people with autoimmune conditions (especially gastrointestinal like Crohn’s or colitis), people who are on a high sugar or high carbohydrate diet, and people with chronic high stress.

Any of this sounding like you? Candida is much more common than we realize. And it may be the underlying condition that’s keeping you from IBD remission even though you’re doing everything right.

What are the symptoms of Candida?

There are several signs that you may have candida, or an overgrowth of yeast, in your digestive system. I’ll tell you about the ones that I see most often for those with Crohn’s and colitis: Oral thrush or a white spotted coating on your tongue, those with recurrent yeast infections might have Candida, people who experience strong sugar cravings, brain fog, digestive challenges like bloating, diarrhea or constipation, those with fungal infections on their nails or their toenails might have Candida, as well as people who have excessive anxiety or panic attacks. Of course, just because you have anxiety doesn’t mean you have Candida. It’s when we put the whole picture together that the anxiety may be a part of the puzzle.

Why don’t I know I have Candida?

And of course, you don’t know you have it because of the same reasons you don’t know you have a SIBO. They are just way too similar to our Crohn’s and colitis symptoms. Doctors are just not looking for it And if we are following a path of proper eating, proper supplementation and taking our medication’s, and following mindfulness practices that work to reduce our stress and help with the demands on our life and we’re still not getting any better, it can leave us feeling very defeated and uncertain about our future. This is why I’m so passionate about making sure you know about these conditions. Knowledge is key here.

How do we test for Candida?

Practitioners who test for candida will often start with symptoms. When a combination of symptoms like I’ve mentioned comes up to a knowledgeable Candida practitioner, they might decide to dive deeper with testing. The gold standard of candida testing is a 2 to 3 day stool test that looks at the DNA of the pathogens in your poop.

And although I know it’s controversial and this is clearly anecdotal and doesn’t have scientific evidence behind it, I’ve seen people start with a simple at home spit test. The spit test involves spitting into a cup of water first thing in the morning. Often times, people start here because they don’t have a provider that they can go to who knows about candida. So, although I don’t have the research to back up the validity of the spit test, I have seen clients try this first with the spit test coming up positive and then later have stool testing that also comes up positive for Candida. It’s about putting all of the pieces together when it comes to Candida. Looking at your symptoms, getting a stool test if possible, and talking to a doctor who is knowledgeable about the condition is key.

What can you do if you suspect Candida is holding you back?

The best place to start is always by talking to your doctor. You never know unless you bring it up whether they’re willing to talk about Candida and these other conditions we’re talking about today. If you don’t find satisfaction there, remember that there are nutritionists and functional medicine providers who do know about Candida. Don’t stop your search just because the first place you go doesn’t give you satisfaction. Continue searching for someone who can help you. When you do get proper testing for Candida, you may also want to get tested for SIBO at the same time since both of these conditions present so similarly.

Now I know I have Candida. What do I do?

Every provider’s approach to treating Candida is different. But I can give you some general guidelines and what I see most practitioners doing. There are several supplements that can be helpful to get rid of the extra yeast. Antifungals like oil of oregano, caprylic acid, and allicin (from garlic). There are combination antifungal supplements that might be a part of your healing regime. Some people with Crohn’s and colitis tend to be sensitive to multi-strain antifungals so be careful there. Probiotics are also used for Candida after some healing has taken place, but none of these supplements are helpful unless they are combined with diet change. If you’re in the category of doing everything right for your IBD, you’ve probably already changed your diet, but your diet may need some tweaking to make sure it’s tailored to getting rid of your Candida. The low FODMAP diet is really good for this condition. I’ll link to my favorite low FODMAP website in the show notes.

Generally speaking though, a diet that’s low in sugar, low in carbohydrates and that doesn’t include gluten or dairy is preferred when Candida is present. And bone broth or as you know if you listen to this podcast, meat stock is my preference, can be really helpful. As well as including high-quality fats in your diet, especially coconut oil which has that caprylic acid that I mentioned earlier as a supplement, because it helps with Candida overgrowth. Other oils that are good fats and also helpful with candida are extra-virgin olive oil, walnut oil, and avocado oil. Drinking herbal tea like ginger, peppermint and pau d’ arco tea are also helpful as well as drinking black tea because the tannins in the tea help control the Candida overgrowth.

[25:49] When it comes to candida and diet, I just want to mention one last thing about sugar. We want to limit sugar, but we don’t want to get rid of it completely because getting rid of sugar completely can exacerbate Candida. It’s important to focus on small amounts of natural sugars when Candida is present like honey or maple syrup.

Ok, that’s Candida, hidden condition #2 and hopefully some information to get the wheels turning for you to think about and get you moving down the right path if you are doing everything right, and still not feeling better.

Let’s move on and talk about our last hidden condition, condition #3 and that’s thyroid issues. Challenges with your thyroid often times get misdiagnosed, and definitely underdiagnosed. We may be moving along on our IBD healing journey and not feeling as good as we know we should. Thyroid challenges could be at the heart of keeping you from where you deserve to be with your health. Let’s dive into this problem a little deeper.

What are thyroid issues?

Let’s start by talking about what your thyroid is and what can go wrong with it. Your thyroid is a gland, it’s butterfly shaped, and it’s located at the base of your throat. It produces several hormones that have an impact on your total health. Your thyroid gland regulates your body temperature, slows or speeds up your heartbeat, and most importantly for us with IBD, it controls the rate that we digest our food. Unfortunately, this gland malfunctions and sometimes causes thyroid challenges like hypothyroidism (which is low thyroid hormone function or Hashimoto’s disease (where too much thyroid hormone is produced).

Why our thyroid function matter to our IBD?

[28:15] Four reasons really. Let’s talking about reason #1. I already mentioned this when talking about the functions of our thyroid gland, your thyroid hormones control your digestion. Of course, this gives it an immediate and forever connection with our Crohn’s and colitis as proper digestion is the key to helping our disease. Reason #2- Poor thyroid function affects our ability to absorb the nutrients in our food. Ding ding ding, another connection with our Crohn’s and colitis. Reason #3- a poor functioning thyroid also leads to a condition known as a leaky gut, literally the lining of your gut opening small holes where undigested food heads into the bloodstream.

And reason #4- a reason that typically hits very close to home for those of us with IBD and why we might miss the thyroid issue has to do with gluten intolerance that many of us with IBD face. The molecular structure of gliadin, and that’s the protein found in gluten, is almost identical to the molecular structure of the thyroid gland so when gliadin, that gluten protein, moves into the bloodstream because we’re sensitive to it and it causes that leaky gut I was talking about, our immune system says whoa, what is going on here? This is a foreign invader that shouldn’t be here. Our immune system, which is programmed to remove foreign invaders moves to strike down the gliadin. Because the gliadin and thyroid tissue are so similar, the immune system attacks the thyroid too.

Now we have a problem. We have a problem with our thyroid and all because we are sensitive to gluten. Does this make sense? I know it’s a little bit of a convoluted process, but the bottom line is that reason #4 why people with IBD might be impacted with unrecognized thyroid issues is because of our likely sensitivity to gluten.

And because gluten, when we eat it, can last up to six months in our body, and during all this time it can wreak a lot of havoc on our thyroid, it’s yet another reason to not eat gluten if we have IBD.

What are the symptoms of thyroid problems?

[31:45] And what are the symptoms here? What are we looking for to know if we have an undiagnosed thyroid challenge. Well, there’s lots of symptoms that could be an indication of a thyroid condition. Let me tell you about a few of the ones that I see most commonly. When it comes to thyroid challenges, I see things like lack of energy, trouble losing weight, hair loss, low sex drive, a number of gut challenges that we may mistake for our IBD because remember the thyroid controls our digestion. I also see mental health challenges and neurological challenges like depression and brain fog. The symptoms of a thyroid disorder really run the gamut which is why it’s one of those hidden conditions that we don’t know we have. And when it’s left unchecked, it can really cause difficulties for us down the line.

What do I do if I think my thyroid might be the issue?

So, what are you going to do if these symptoms resonate with you? What are you going to do if you think you have thyroid issues? Well, the first thing you’re going to do is get proper testing. And this is a tough one. Because you go to your doctor and many doctors test your thyroid. It’s a very common test during your annual exam at the gynecologist. But unfortunately, many doctors are only testing one thyroid level, your TSH. And if they find that your TSH is normal, they declare your thyroid function fine. We have to get better thyroid testing. We have to dig deeper when we suspect a thyroid challenge. We have to go to our doctor’s appointments armed and dangerous.

When it comes to proper thyroid testing, functional medicine doctors recommend these tests. I want you to write these down so that you can go to your doctor’s appointment ready to request these specific tests. Go ahead and pause the podcast if you need to get a pen and paper. If you’re driving just remind yourself where we’re at in the podcast so you can go back later. Proper thyroid testing should include a TSH, T4, T3, free T4, free T3, reverse T3, and thyroid antibodies. These are just the names of the tests but if you want to know more and exactly what these are looking for, I want you to check out the thyroid link in the show notes. There’s a great article by Dr. Will Cole that I’m going to link to. You can find out more about thyroid function as well as proper thyroid testing there.

This is crucial ladies. We all need to be getting proper thyroid testing. I know for me, I go to my yearly physical and gynecology screening with a piece of paper that has these tests on it. I want to make sure that I am getting my thyroid properly tested at least yearly. The earlier you detect a thyroid problem, the sooner you can begin taking measures to treat it. Please ladies, if you only listen to one thing from this episode please make sure you do this. Get proper thyroid testing. It’s done with a simple blood test. This is something that every doctor can do. Sometimes they just need a little direction from you.

How are thyroid issues treated?

If you go through this testing and you find out that you do have a thyroid challenge, there’s a lot that can be done. Talk to your doctor about eating right for your thyroid. Guess what? Eating for your gut and eating for your thyroid are very similar. You’ll strengthen both at the same time.

There’s a medication that can help with your thyroid as well, both synthetic and natural thyroid replacement hormones. There’s also supplements that can strengthen your thyroid hormones like zinc and magnesium, B vitamins and vitamin D.

Make a plan with your doctor that’s tailored to your needs. Make sure that they know you have Crohn’s or colitis because that will need to be taken into account when deciding on the best treatment plan for you. Everyone’s thyroid needs are different depending on the severity of their challenge. Make a plan together and make sure it includes all facets of help for you. Definitely diet should be in there as well. There’s a lot you can do to help your thyroid with diet alone.

LET’S RECAP THOSE 3 HIDDEN CONDITIONS ONE MORE TIME.

OK my dear, those are the three hidden conditions that may be impacting your ability to feel completely well when you know you’re doing everything right to help heal your IBD. Let’s go ahead and recap the 3 hidden conditions one more time. Hidden condition #1 was small intestinal bacterial overgrowth – SIBO for short. SIBO is an overgrowth of bacteria in your small intestine, and it often mimics your IBD symptoms and makes it difficult for you to know you have this condition. Proper testing is a must. Follow the steps outlined in the episode and you will be on track for SIBO busting success.

Hidden pitfall #2- Hidden condition #2 was Candida. Candida is another condition where the symptoms mimic your Crohn’s or colitis. This makes it really difficult to know if you have it and may be the hidden problem you didn’t know you have. It might be the difference between 80% remission and full remission from your IBD challenges. Again, like SIBO, you want to see a very qualified medical provider to help diagnose and help you with treatment of this condition. Know that it is treatable and that you can get over it. You don’t have to suffer with Candida your whole life.

The last condition we talked about was hidden condition #3- thyroid challenges. Thyroid challenges are notorious for laying low and getting undiagnosed, especially for those of us with Crohn’s or colitis. Thyroid conditions have a very strong gluten connection which makes it even more important for us to avoid gluten when we have IBD. The sooner your thyroid condition is diagnosed and treated, and that’s with a multipronged approach that includes food, the better your overall health will be.

Remember the thyroid controls many functions in your body including your digestion, so we all want the healthiest thyroid possible. Research the testing I mentioned in this episode, don’t be afraid to take this information directly to your doctor to ensure that you get a full range of thyroid testing. Thyroid health can be complicated, but when we put all the pieces together with proper testing, we get a really good picture of what’s going on with our thyroid.

DO IT LIKE A MOM.

Bottom line here, when it comes to issues that might be holding you back from feeling as good as you can with IBD, I want you to do it like a mom. I want you to know just how fierce and strong you are. I want you to know that you are in charge of your medical care. You are in charge of your total health. Don’t let the challenges we talked about today, the ones that aren’t talked about in mainstream medicine stop you from feeling 100% better. You deserve 100% health. You deserve to be there, 100%, first and foremost for you, for your partner, and for your kids.  

Keep striving for health. Keep striving to feel better. I know that I am with you every step of the way. Together, we are stronger. Together, we’ve got this. If you have any questions about this episode or about IBD in general, please get in touch. I’m always available to chat. Reach out at karynhaley.com Let’s bust your IBD together.

Until we meet again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD healing journey.

Chat soon!

Thank you so much for joining me today and for listening to today’s episode. When it comes to IBD, I know there’s a lot of resources out there, and I’m truly honored that you chose the Cheeky Podcast to get your IBD information today. If you found this information helpful, please give us a rating and review. It helps other moms find the podcast and see what we’re doing over here to help IBD moms everywhere. And if you feel called feel a call to do it, share this podcast with an IBD mom who you know could really use an uplifting message today, ’cause that’s what we’re all about over here at the Cheeky Podcast.

[42:45] One last thing, if you’re still with me, and if you are, you’re definitely my kind of gal. We have to get to know each other better. If you’re tired of living on the hamster wheel of IBD with all the ups and downs between flares and remission, if you’re struggling to get control of your abdominal pain, gas, bloating, diarrhea and other troubling IBD symptoms, go to my website. It’s karynhaley.com, and my mom had to be just a little bit different, she spelled my name with the Y. So it’s K-A-R-Y-N H-A-L-E-Y.com and schedule your very own free 30-minute IBD root cause trouble-shooting session with me where we discuss the challenges you’ve been having, we set goals to help you move forward, and we talk about how we can work together to help you get your life back. It’s a power packed 30 minutes. You don’t have to live in IBD status quo. There’s so much that can be done to transform your life so you can thrive in motherhood and thrive with IBD. I’ve seen my clients walk this path and it gives me so much joy to take that journey with them.

My entire coaching practice is run online, so you never have to leave your house and you never have to get out of your jammy or yoga pants for us to work together. You know I’m wearing them to. If you’re ready to take your first amazing step towards healing, I’m ready to chat with you. Schedule your free 30-minute IBD root cause trouble shooting sesh today at karynhaley.com. Click on the work with me tab and I’ll see you soon. It’s important to note that the information in this podcast and in this episode is for general information purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The statements made in the Cheeky Podcast for moms with IBD, either by me or my guests, is not intended to diagnose, treat, to cure, or prevent any disease. Before implementing any new treatment protocols, do yourself a favor and consult your physician first.

Thank you so much for listening, for being here, for saving this space for us to spend some time together. Until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD journey.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Honoring Your Grief During the Holidays

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As this Christmas approaches, you might be thinking more and more about your loved ones who are no longer with you.

I’ve been thinking about my mom who passed away earlier this year trying to come up with ways I can keep her memory alive during the holidays.

If you’re trudging through your own grief, you might be feeling this way too. Trying to find special ways to honor your loved one with the grace and thoughtfulness that they deserve.

My goal is to do that without bringing up so much pain that it becomes counterproductive or induces so much stress that you end up in a Crohn’s or colitis flare up.

Join me, dear one, on this very special episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD as we discover 7 ways to honor your loved one this Christmas. And as an added bonus, see below to discover my compilation of 23 holiday survival strategies to help you with your grief (no matter where you’re at on the journey).

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The power of planning when it comes to enduring holiday grief
• What Hospice teaches us about the grieving process
• The meaningful way to use your loved one’s Christmas stocking as a tool to honor their memory

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Mentioned in This Episode:

My IBD Mom 2021 Holiday Gift Guide

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

Episode Resources

How to Cope With Grief During the Holidays

5 Tips to Cope with Grief During the Holidays

Coping With Grief During the Holidays

64 Tips For Coping With Grief During the Holidays

23 Holiday Survival Strategies to

Help With Your Grief

(no matter where you’re at on the journey)

#1 Make friends with boundaries. Do what you feel up to and say “no” to the rest.

#2 Feel all the feels of grief. Keep the door open to whatever comes your way. No judgement.

#3 Plan ahead for moments that might be triggering.

#4 Honor the traditions you used to have with your loved one. They will bring you solace.

#5 Create new traditions that honor your loved one. They will bring you new memories.

#6 Know your coping skill strengths and be prepared to use them. Meditation, deep breathing, long walks, affirmations… figure out what works for you.

#7 Help others. It takes the focus off your grief and brings purpose and gratitude to your life.

#8 Ask for help. It’s OK to ask for help with chores, picking up the kids, or anything else that’s on your plate. Let others in. You don’t have to do it alone.

#9 Think about the needs of your kids. How is this grief impacting them? In what ways would they like to honor your loved one?

#10 Keep plans flexible. You may not feel up to a gathering you already planned but sometimes, you may feel up to an outing you thought you wouldn’t be ready for. Be open to possibilities.

#11 Prioritize self-care. How can you honor yourself? Bubble baths, curling up with a great book, binge watching a new show, an outing, a girl’s night… what feeds your soul?

#12 Get counseling. Seeing a therapist isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength. Find a good fit for you, even if that means checking a few out first.

#13 Talk about your grief with others who are experiencing a loss. Other family members, maybe a support group, good friends. Talk about your grief. Don’t bottle in your emotions.

#14 Surround yourself with people who make you feel safe and comforted.

#15 Set realistic expectations. Wherever you are at in your grief, that is where you are supposed to be. Don’t judge yourself harshly. Be kind.

#16 Don’t cancel the holidays. You deserve the tradition, just like everyone else.

#17 Make an acknowledgement that this year will be different.

#18 If you don’t feel up to sending holiday cards, let it go.

#19 Crying is good for the soul.

#20 Ignore anyone who makes you feel bad about your grief.

#21 Think about what you’re eating. Is it helping or is it hurting?

#22 Keep lists. It’s harder to remember all that needs to get done during the holidays when you’re grieving.

#23 It’s OK to laugh and even enjoy yourself during the holidays.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

How to Use Herbal Tea in Your Crohn’s & Colitis Healing Plan

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What’s in your wheel of wellness?

That invisible wheel we all have to help us cultivate remedies and solutions that help our Crohn’s or colitis from a holistic perspective—mind, body, and soul.

Your wheel of wellness holds all the spokes (just like a bike wheel) that ensure we are not just taking control of our symptoms, but we’re also grabbing those challenges by the root cause, to make real, lasting, positive change happen.

Your wheel of wellness might include diets like the SCD or GAPS, or IBD-AID. It might include ways to help you navigate your stress and make sure you get enough sleep and downtime. Your wheel of wellness might include medication, meditation, yoga, walking in nature, supplements, therapy, clinical hypnosis or even some more cutting-edge treatments like Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT), stem cell therapy, or rectal ozone treatments.

Thank God there are so many healing options available to us.

My wheel of wellness is a living, breathing, organism that changes as my needs change. Much of my wheel transforms as I move through different states of healing, but there’s a few spokes that just never change. Ones that are so rock solid for me that they don’t need a tweak.

Herbal tea is one of those solid spokes I will never leave behind. That’s just the kind of powerhouse it is.

Could herbal tea be a constant spoke for you as well?

Maybe you’re not sure.

If you’ve ever wondered how herbal tea can help you find symptom relief from gut challenges like bloating, gas, nausea, heartburn, and belly pain this is the episode for you.

We’re diving into the world of herbal tea and as you’ll soon find out, gut remedies are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the power of herbal tea.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Three herbal tea blends that will help you with digestion, insomnia, anxiety, and stress
• My gut healing herbal tea recipe for a holiday classic “Peppermint Bark”
• How your kids can benefit from herbal tea just as much as you

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Herbal Tea 101: Your Starter Guide to the World of Tea for Wellness

My IBD Mom 2021 Holiday Gift Guide

Numi Tea

Traditional Medicinals

Mountain Rose Herbs

Starwest Botanicals

Snap Ball Metal Tea Strainer

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Eating Beyond Your 4 Walls Part IV: Gut Happy, Healthy Travel with Crohn’s and Colitis

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Whether you’re traveling by plane or car, train or you’re taking a cruise, you deserve to enjoy your vacation just as much as everyone else in your family. It’s tough though because everything we do on a vacation tends to revolve around eating out. And that can spell disaster for us Crohn’s and colitis gals.

Unfamiliar food, food sensitivities, and stress about all of it can lead to a vacation that’s awfully familiar to your life when a flare up hits—lots of time in the bathroom, in bed, and time away from family and relaxation when that’s exactly what you planned the trip for in the first place.

If you want to enjoy travel again and stay healthy the whole way through, I’ve got your back girl. In Part IV of my four-part series: Eating Beyond Your 4 Walls, we’re taking a deep dive into what it means to have a happy gut and successful travel experience anywhere you want to go.

Let’s do this!

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The ultimate road trip step-by-step strategy that works for moms who plan and moms who procrastinate
• The “must have” piece of carry on luggage that makes plane travel and gut health possible
• Foolproof ideas to remain gut healthy, even when there’s no kitchen where you’re staying

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My IBD Mom 2021 Holiday Gift Guide

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Eating Beyond Your 4 Walls Part III: The Ultimate Guide to Eating in a House That’s Not Your Own

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When you’ve got Crohn’s or colitis, it’s tricky business to eat at someone else’s house. There’s so much to consider, so many pitfalls to throw you off your gut healing diet or make you sick after eating a hidden ingredient that doesn’t work for your sensitive belly.

If eating at a home that’s not your own has been a challenge for you in the past, or if you’ve just started on a gut healthy diet and you’re going crazy only eating at your own house, this episode is the one for you.

And there’s no better time to have this conversation than now because the holidays are the time when we eat away from home more.

We get more invites to hang out with family and friends, maybe at a co-workers house, a school function for your kids, a neighbor gathering, a holiday party with acquaintances…

Living a life of eating for a healthy gut requires us to navigate the rough waters of meals away from home, especially in December.

When you’re a mom, you just can’t get away from it.

But it’s important that we look at the flip side these challenges as well. Sometimes it’s good for us to get out and socialize and finally get to partake in adult conversations. We just need to find a way to stay healthy while we do it.

In this episode, we’re diving deep with my ultimate (10 tip) guide to eating at a house that’s not your own.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• What’s a snack pack, why it’s an absolute must, and what goes in it
• How to know if you need to bring is a side dish to share or the whole meal deal when you travel to someone’s house
• The super sly, super pro tip to make every potluck event a success for your belly

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My IBD Mom 2021 Holiday Gift Guide

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

The Thanksgiving Calm Before the Storm

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It’s the day before Thanksgiving. How are you feeling mama?

Has your family arrived? Are you traveling for the big day? Are you running around at the last minute trying to make pies and stuff turkeys?

I hope you have my IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook to give you all the recipes you need to keep your taste buds and your belly happy this holiday.

But whatever you’re eating, whatever you’re making, whatever family drama is upon you, I thought we could take just a moment together to find the calm before the storm.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why peace of mind is harder for us to achieve than it is for others in our family
• Finding gratitude in tiny moments that have nothing to do with your Crohn’s or colitis
• The visualization that will soothe your belly, strengthen your intestines, lower your inflammation, and raise your immune system during times of chaos and unbalance

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My 2021 IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Thanksgiving Recipes That Will Make Your Gut Happy and Your Taste Buds Sing

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With Thanksgiving coming up in just a few days, it’s time to ask yourself… am I ready?

For us IBD gals, it isn’t just about the travel or the preparations, or the dread over Aunt Edna’s stifling, perfumey hugs. Those are the types of worries most people have, and let’s face it, their worries are child’s play.

For us, the biggest worry is the food. Will it or won’t it make me sick? And how sick?

In this special bonus minisode, I’m about to share with you my favorite Thanksgiving recipe ideas that will make not just your taste buds happy for the moment, but make your insides happy long after, as well.

Say hello to a happy Thanksgiving again!

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The traditional Thanksgiving dishes an IBD gal should never eat
• Why your worries and your family’s Thanksgiving worries aren’t even from the same planet
• My personal promise to you to make sure everything you eat on Thanksgiving works for your sensitive belly

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My 2021 IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Eating Beyond Your 4 Walls Part II: 5 Simple Steps for Foolproof Gut Healthy Restaurant Ordering

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How many times have you eaten out, only to barely get home because you are running for the toilet?

For me, there were several times when I didn’t even come close to making it home. The restaurant bathroom and I, we became good friends real fast.

It’s embarrassing, it’s annoying, it holds everyone up in your family (or worse, your friends or colleagues).

And you just feel awful.

Today, I want to change all that for you. I want you to know the absolute pleasure of eating out without feeling like crap after.

Without running to the bathroom, without setting off a flare up, without spending more time on the toilet than you spend with your kids or your partner. Less time in bed and less time at the doctor when the experience really sets off a chain reaction.

I want you to go out and truly enjoy the eating out, feeling confident that what you are eating, won’t harm you.

Instead of your belly saying, “Why me?”

Your belly will say, “Thank you!” (long after the meal is over).

Eating out and not getting sick… it’s possible. In 5 simple steps.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The most important thing you should do 10 minutes before you go out to eat
• The ordering mistake most moms make that costs them dearly
• The gut healthy benefit of never opening the menu at a restaurant

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My 2021 IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Eating Beyond Your 4 Walls Part 1: The Secret to Gut Healthy & Gut Happy Eating Out

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Most of us love to eat out.  It isn’t just about the food either. 

It’s about the stress free eating you get to enjoy because you didn’t have to work hard making it.  It’s about the companionship of good friends and family while you are out together. 

And it’s about relaxing after a long day of work, kids activities, and commitments.

Dining out is an important part of our everyday life and you shouldn’t have to miss out just because you are eating on a gut healing diet like gluten free, dairy free, Paleo, SCD or GAPS. Not long ago, eating out successfully on diets like this was a nearly impossible. 

Today, it is definitely possible. 

With a couple tweaks and some extra sneaky tips, you’ll be a gut healing dining out expert in no time.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The #1 ingredient to add flavor and zing to your dining out meal, actually fits in your purse
• The best phone apps that will take your eating out success rate from zero to awesome!
• The supplement that will give you peace of mind when you eat out

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My 2021 IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Is Your Restrictive Gut Healing Diet Constricting You?

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There’s eating healthy and then there’s eating “gut” healthy.

Normal healthy eaters have got nothing on us!

When we eat with healing our Crohn’s and colitis in mind, we take health to a whole new level.

Gut healthy diets like eating gluten-free or dairy free, Paleo or Specific Carbohydrate Diet, IBD-AID or GAPS… they all have amazing positive qualities.

They have the power to help us control our diarrhea, abdominal pain, gas, bloating, mouth sores, fatigue, lack of energy, poor sleep, achy joints, headaches and so much more.

But gut healing diets like these aren’t all puppies and rainbows.

These diets can be quite restrictive, with a myriad of foods you absolutely must stay away from in order to be compliant and see results.

You likely hear everyone on these diets talking about the positive effects, but it’s time we have an honest conversation about their downsides too.

Because these gut healing diets are so restrictive, they also have the power to negatively impact our mental and emotional health.

They lead to feelings of:

🌿 Sadness

🌿 Resentfulness

🌿 Guilt

🌿 Depression

🌿 Frustration

🌿 Jealousy

🌿 Anger

🌿 Denial

🌿 Bargaining

And if we are committed to sticking with restrictive diets like these (and I believe we still can be) because they are helping us physically, we have to find a way to make peace with our diet, so we feel less constricted and less FOMO all the time.

That’s exactly what we’re chatting about on this episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• 3 questions to ask yourself to find out if you’re feeling constricted on your restrictive diet
• 5 ideas that will help you to embrace your restrictive diet (with less guilt and shame)
• What to do if you’ve tried your best, but you still feel constricted and want to give up

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My Food Diary System: The Food-Mood-Poop-Journaling System

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Healthier Halloween Recipes for Kids {and mom too}

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Halloween is right around the corner. Are you prepared?

Costume? Check.

Pumpkins carved? Check.

A meal plan fit to celebrate Halloween in style? Not so much!

Don’t sweat it my friend. I’ve got your Gut Healthy Halloween Meal Deal which includes scrumptious, kid-tested breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, and dessert recipes all in one handy dandy recipe booklet.

And in this episode of The Cheeky Podcast, I’m sharing my mom-tested behind-the-scenes best Halloween recipe practices that I’ve learned after making these spook-tac-u-lar treats over and over.

Extra bonus tips, extra ways to make these recipes work for where you’re at on your gut healing journey, and extra hints to make these goodies tasty for everyone in your household.

I’m only spilling the tea with my best Halloween meal tips on this episode, so go grab your recipe booklet and get ready to take some notes!

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The secret to making your grain free pancakes light and fluffy
• The best way to get your kids to eat something new
• A sinfully healthy Halloween dessert you’ll be dying to serve your family

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

My Gut Healthy Halloween Meal Deal Recipe Booklet

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

{#herIBDstory} From Ulcerative Colitis to SCD: Jennifer Brown Leads A Life of Happenstance

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Three weeks into October…

Are you already hitting a wall finding easy fall recipes that are good for your crohn’s or colitis, and also get the kid stamp of approval too?

If you love a tasty fall recipe that’s also good for your gut and something everyone in your clan will enjoy, you’re going to love this episode.

You’re also going to love this episode if you’re looking for a real life story of how the specific carbohydrate diet can work to help control your IBD symptoms. With me on this episode of The Cheeky Podcast is Jennifer Brown, SCD follower and chief recipe developer at her website A Life of Happenstance.

Jennifer and I talk about so many hot button issues for those of us with Crohn’s and colitis.

We explore how anxiety and stress affects our disease, we get into hormones and pregnancy’s effects on Crohn’s and colitis, we talk about Jennifer’s Specific Carbohydrate Diet journey and how this gutsy lady who never knew how to shop for groceries or make meals became an SCD pro, a seasoned cook, and a recipe developer.

Grab your tea and put your feet up mama. Get ready for a juicy conversation!

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How Jennifer found success on the SCD when she didn’t know how to grocery shop or cook before she got started
• The ways stress and anxiety has an impact on your Crohn’s or colitis
• How you can get your hands on Jennifer’s latest fall recipes (I’ll just tease you with 3 little words– apple cider cake)

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

CONNECT WITH JENNIFER:

Jennifer’s Website: A Life of Happenstance

Jennifer on Instagram

Jennifer on Facebook

CONNECT WITH KARYN:

Karyn on Facebook

Schedule Your FREE 30-Minute IBD Consult

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Bonus Episode: More Fall & Winter Immune Boosting Ideas {for you and your kiddos}

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Last week’s episode: 5 Supplements That Make the Cut to Boost Your Immune System and Keep you Healthy and Your Crohn’s or Colitis Happy This Cold and Flu Season covered a lot of ground.

We talked about supplements that should be a staple in your house—for both you and your kiddos. We went over the highest quality, batch tested brands that are worth the purchase. We also learned about the best online resources for those supplements.

But there’s a few things we ran out of time for.

Kitchen staples (food and drinks) and important natural detoxifiers we should all keep on hand as preventives and remedies for the myriad of germs that constantly circle us this time of year.

These kitchen staples are the perfect complement for your supplement arsenal.

In this bonus episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, we wrap up our important immune boosting conversation.

It’s a conversation that will not only keep the fall and winter sickies at bay but will keep your Crohn’s & colitis happy too!

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The immune boosting beverage that also works as a healthier alternative to coffee too
• Hands down, the best honey to use as a cough suppressant (and it’s good for your belly too)
• The morning preventive detox water recipe that you can make with staples that are already in your kitchen

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Get Your FREE Kitchen Arsenal Morning Detox Recipes Here

Got a Question? Bring it to My Facebook Page

Episode 26: Far Infrared Light Therapy

Episode 46: 4 Stellar Coffee Substitutes That Make Your Gut and Your Tastebuds Happy

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

5 Supplements That Make the Cut for Your Fall/Winter Immune Boosting Arsenal

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So I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

Good news first.

Fall is in full swing and all the fun that goes along with it is happening. Beautiful fall leaves, kids in school, pumpkin patches, my favorite delish root veggies are at their peak of the season and are ready to be roasted.

Now for the bad news.

Fall is here and that also means we’re heading into cold and flu season. Covid is still wreaking havoc in some parts of the United States and definitely in other parts of the world. There’s never been a more important time to boost your immune system.

So all of those ailments that love to take up residence in your body, those lingering viruses and infections—they simply pass you by, your Crohn’s or colitis stays stable and you enjoy all the good times that fall and winter have to offer!

Today I’m dishing on the Top 5 Immune Boosting Supplements to keep on hand this fall and winter as preventives and remedies for everything that ails you.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The 2 reasons why your vitamin C isn’t working as well as it could be
• The problem with most vitamin D supplements
• The fall/winter immune boosting supplement your kiddos shouldn’t be without

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Got a Question? Bring it to My Facebook Page

Episode 22 Juicing vs Smoothies: What’s Better for Gut Healing

Episode 24 Soup’s On: The Best Gut Repair Soups to Bust That Flare-Up

Homemade Elderberry Syrup Recipe

iHerb.com Online Supplements

PureFormulas.com Online Supplements

Episode Links:

Vitamin D, Vitamin K, and Bone Health

T-Lymphocytes and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

9 Benefits of NAC

Benefits of Glutathione

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Is This a Flare-Up? 3 Questions to Ask to Know For Sure

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I’m flaring bad!

Oh, she’s in a flare-up! It’s a flare-up!

How often have you heard statements like these from your fellow Crohnie’s or gals with UC? I bet you’ve said things like this about yourself at least time or two, or 5 or 20 or more depending on how long you’ve had your digestive disorder.

When it comes to Crohn’s and colitis, it’s all about the flare-up. We live in a constant state of, “Am I flaring or am I in remission?” and it can definitely be all consuming.

But how do you know if what you’re going through is truly flare-up material when it could be a stomach pain like all “normal” people have from time to time or some diarrhea or other digestive symptoms from something completely unrelated to your Crohn’s or colitis.

That’s what today’s episode is all about. How do you know if it really is a flare-up?

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why getting on a flare-up right away is the key to a digestive blip vs a long term sideline from life
• Why Covid complicates things
• Now that you know it’s a flare-up, what do you do?

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

7 Reasons Why the Specific Carbohydrate Diet Didn’t Work For You

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I see it all the time.

Women come to me and say, I don’t get it. The SCD (the specific carbohydrate diet) seems to work for everyone with Crohn’s and colitis. I’ve tried it and I did everything right—fanatical adherence. And I still feel awful—maybe even worse.

Why didn’t it work for me?

Have you experienced this too? It’s so much more common than you might think when you’re out there doing this on your own feeling like the only one.

If this sounds like you, you’ve tried the SCD, you did everything the experts told you, you rocked it, but you still feel horrible. If you were left feeling defeated, frustrated and alone—this episode is tailor-made for you.

And if the SCD is on your radar, but you’re still gathering info and trying to decide when is the best time to start, this episode is definitely for you too mama because it’s going to save you wasted time and heartache as you venture out into the world of SCD

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The reason why even though you feel like your miles away from SCD success, you really just steps away
• The best nut flour for your digestive health
• Why grains could be on the menu for your SCD gut healing plan

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

Episode #5: The Top 3 SCD Missteps Everyone Makes

Episode #25 Coconut Flour 101

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Crohn’s & Colitis Meal Planning Made Easy

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Happy New Year!

I can hear you saying, what?

I like to think of September as The New Year for Moms. When the kids go back to school, it’s time to get more “you” time, time to start something new that will give you big, bold traction on your Crohn’s and colitis healing, something like… (drum roll)… meal planning.

Wa-wa (like you got the answer wrong on a game show).

Not the climax you were looking for I bet. Many mamas groan when they hear those two words, but that’s only because they haven’t figured it out yet.

Today, I’m helping you figure out how doing meal planning the right way can give you less stress, more free time, and allow you to spend less moola on groceries.

Don’t think it’s possible? Oh, it is! Come join me and I’ll show you how.

Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode

• What is meal planning with your gut health in mind
• 11 amazing benefits of meal planning that are also good for your gut
• 3 tips to help you start meal planning today

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Mentioned in This Episode:

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Crohn’s & Colitis Friendly Condiments from the Condiment Queen

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Do you love condiments as much as me? Ketchup, BBQ sauce, mustard, salsa, and dips like guacamole and hummus?

You bet you do!

They add a little flava-flav to just about everything you eat. But when it comes to being able to enjoy condiments like these on your favorite foods, you run into two problems…

#1- The ingredients in traditional condiments wreak havoc on your gut (whether you know it or not).

And…

#2- Condiments like these, the ones you find at your local grocery store, are never on your gut healing diet. The ingredients are either full of sugar or chemicals (and often, both).

If you’re a condiment lover, hold on to your hat mama because this week on the podcast, I’m setting you up for condiment success.

I’m dishing out some seriously good news when it comes to these flavor makers. Condiments that turn your plain food from iffy to spiffy (yep, I said it) and at the same time, make your belly happy too!

We talk about:

• The ingredients in 95% of all condiments that make your gut do a tailspin
• Quick and simple recipes if you want to make your condiments at home (great for knowing exactly what’s in them)
• How you know when you’re ready to start eating condiments like mayonnaise, ketchup, BBQ sauce (all the good stuff) when you’re on a gut healing diet
• Why condiments are the key to getting your kids to eat healthy food

And so much more!

After this episode, you’ll have simple and delicious condiment recipes at your fingertips, knowledge about which store-bought condiments are gut healthy, and access to all the best condiment brands on the market. You go, condiment queen.

Episode at a Glance:

• [07:00] The ingredients in 95% of all condiments that make your gut do a tailspin
• [09:16] Why Mrs. Butterworth isn’t as friendly as she looks
• [14:10] Quick and simple recipes if you want to make your condiments at home (great for knowing exactly what’s in them)
• [15:00] Gut healthy, yet super tasty condiment ideas you can buy at the grocery store
• [15:31] The absolute best condiment brands you can always trust
• [16:18] How you know when you’re ready to start eating condiments like mayonnaise, ketchup, BBQ sauce (all the good stuff) when you’re on a gut healing diet
• [19:15] Why condiments are the key to getting your kids to eat healthy food
• [22:23] The benefits of the condiment caddy and what to put it in
• [24:04] The best way to take this conversation to the next level and get your gut healing plan in place today

Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Mentioned in This Episode

You’re FREE Resource: Condiments for a Healthy Belly and a Happy Mama

Book Your 30-Minute IBD Consultation HERE

DM Me on Facebook

Episode Transcript:

Do you love condiments as much as me? Ketchup, BBQ sauce, mustard, salsa… dips, aw dips, like guacamole and hummus?

Definitely tasty, but the problem is, with so many added ingredients like sugar and salt, plus chemicals to enhance flavor and color, and preservatives to increase shelf life, they’re usually not so healthy for your gut. But today we’re going to change all that so you can rest assured that the condiments your consuming aren’t messing with your digestive system. In this episode, I’m going to share with you the best gut healthy condiments you can have, ways to make the unhealthy condimnents healthy, and all the while, keep your Crohn’s or colitis belly happy.

If you love condiments as much as I do, it’s time to take your condiments from iffy to spiffy. Uh, the corniness has begun. Let’s get this condiment party started!

[Music]

INTRO: You are listening to The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, a safe space for moms with Crohn’s and colitis, connect, explore powerful tools for healing and transform our lives to thrive in motherhood and in life. I’m your host, Karyn Haley, IBD health coach, integrative wellness enthusiast, and mom to three outstanding kids. After having Crohn’s disease for 30 years and working as a health advocate exclusively with IBD clients for the last 10 years, I know it’s time to bring the types of candid conversations I have with my clients out into the open. It’s our time to go on an IBD healing journey and do it like only a mom can. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hello dear one and welcome back to The Cheeky Podcast—the best place to be for moms with Crohn’s and colitis who are trying to heal with out of the box remedies that honor not just your symptoms, but your mom lifestyle as well. I am so thrilled to share this time with you today. Whether you’re dropping the kids off at school, washing the dishes, exercising or just laying down and chilling like you deserve mama, thanks for hanging out with me for a bit, I couldn’t appreciate you more. I love this podcast medium. It’s the perfect way to connect with you, my fellow gut loving mama.

After last week’s deeply personal and sometimes dark episode, episode 50 (go check it out if you haven’t yet), I needed something a little lighter this week. Something equally important for your gut health, but a little lighter. Something that brings joy to my life, and I hope joy to your life too.

And that’s condiments.

You know me as Karyn, the Crohn’s and Colitis Health Coach, but in my family, I’m known as the condiment queen. Move over Queen Elizabeth. I never met a condiment I didn’t like. Whether it was pre-Crohn’s as a kid, or after I started eating gut healing and healthy food, all the way to today. Condiments and I are, as the cool kids say, BFF’s. How about you? Do you love a good condiment? Do you have to have ketchup and mustard or mayonnaise on your burger? Maybe it’s relish or barbecue sauce? I’ll put condiments on anything but when it comes to a burger for me there’s nothing better than a barbecue sauce mayo combo and for a hot dog I like traditional yellow mustard and relish. If I’m lucky, some kraut.

Mouth watering yet?

[05:30] I’d love to know your sauce or a condiment obsessions. I remember way back in the day, when I was a kid, I had to put ketchup on everything. From breakfast eggs to dinner steak and everything in between, ketchup was my jam. My youngest child must take after me because he was quite the ketchup connoisseur as well. Lately he’s started to shy away from ketchup a bit, I think because his brothers like to tease him about it (and we all know how the whole older sibling younger sibling dynamic works), but if he had his way I think he’d put ketchup on salad.

Like I said, as a kid it was all about ketchup, but as I got older I fell in love with blue cheese on my pizza—maybe for you it’s ranch… fries dipped in mayonnaise (you can thank visiting the lovely country of Belgium for that), and to this day whenever I go out to a fancy restaurant, I have to order a sauce like bearnaise, or green peppercorn for my filet mignon.

[07:00] Condiments can enhance the flavor of pretty much everything we eat, but condiments, the kind we buy at the grocery store are usually really unhealthy for even healthy people, and for those of us with gut disorders like Crohn’s and colitis, the ingredients can be so disastrously disruptive, that at best, they said us to the toilet, and at worst they ignite the flames of a flareup.

Most store-bought condiments like ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, salsa, salad dressings, hot sauce, soy sauce… all the ones that are probably in most kitchen refrigerators are usually filled with added sugars and salt. And over time, the sugar especially, will mess with your gut and create a bacterial imbalance and a host of distressing digestive symptoms.

If it was only natural sugar and natural salt that was added to condiments, I think we could find some work arounds, but the worst part of about these grocery store condiments is that they are filled with artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, even chemical preservatives and those of us with the gut disorders can be really sensitive ingredients like these. Even if you don’t feel it right away (like running to the bathroom 5 minutes after you eat), these artificial ingredients can make your Crohn’s or colitis worse and be one of the factors that keeps us from finding true and lasting remission.

Let me  give you a few examples so you can see exactly what I’m talking about here.

Let’s take maple syrup- Mrs. Butterworth? Seems like a friendly lady right. Think again. That’s definitely not maple syrup that’s hangin out in that kind of freaky looking bottle where we pour the syrup from the top of her head—come on, you know it’s weird. Syrups like Mrs. Butterworth, not to pick on her because there’s lots of other maple syrup imposters out there, have no maple syrup in them. Instead they’re filled with high fructose corn syrup, and, because hfcs wasn’t enough, then some more corn syrup, and then some cane sugar because the hfcs and the corn syrup wasn’t enough sweetness for the manufactures. Also caramel color and sodium hexa-meta-phosphate, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preservatives), and then there’s that added artificial flavorings (and who even knows what that means).

BBQ sauce is loaded with multiple types of sugar.

Many queso dips contain MSG.

Teriyaki and soy sauce are both loaded with sodium and gluten.

And don’t even get me started on your favorite store bought, supposedly healthy salad dressing. A salad should be a healthy meal. But the chemicals, the artificial flavors, preservatives, the gut disrupting gums that are used to keep the ingredients emulsified, the added sugar… makes your “healthy” meal anything but healthy.

If you’ve looked into or started any gut healing diet for your Crohn’s and colitis, you know that none of these store-bought condiments are allowed. There’s just too much crap. They’re not natural, and their ingredients cause major disruptions to your already disrupted gut.

So, even though you know you’ll miss condiments like crazy, you are motivated mama and you start that gut healthy, gut healing diet and all these condiments are off-limits. You’re eating dry chicken and tasteless vegetables. Your food has no pizzazz, no flavor, no flair. And it just makes you feel serious FOMO. Everyone else can eat jazzy, spicy, bold, flavorful, delicious treats, but you’re stuck with boring, bland, tasteless cardboard.

[13:04] If you’re smiling or laughing right now, you get it. You get the dilemma. It’s not fair.

But, hold the phone mama because I’m here to change all of that for you. Just because you’re eating gut healthy doesn’t mean your food has to be tasteless or boring. Hell to the no! Healthy food can be super tasty. You just have to add your own flair to it.

You can say yes to ketchup, you can say yes to a sweet and tangy barbecue sauce, you can say yes to creamy, delectable mayonnaise and salad dressing and sauces that make your Asian dishes sing. It’s all about finding a way to either create your condiments in a really simple and speedy way in your kitchen or knowing which brands have ingredients are best for your sensitive digestive system.

If you’re like me and you love condiments and food that tastes good, you’re going to definitely appreciate a brand new resource I have to share. I created this one especially for my clients who understandably refuse to give up flava when they’re in gut healing mode. It’s my pdf guide—”Condiments for a Healthy Belly and a Happy Mama” and it’s yours absolutely free. This condiment resource has quick and simple recipes for some of your favorite condiments, it has ideas for healthy condiments you can buy at the grocery store, and it also has my favorite condiment brands, so you know exactly what to buy and where, when it comes to your purchasing options. If you are a condiment queen like me, you’re going to love this resource. You can get it by going to Karynhaley.com/condiments That’s karynhaley.com/condiments

You can also get your free resource by checking out the show notes. I’ll leave a link there as well.

Before we wrap up for today, I want to address one of the questions I always get asked about condiments when it comes to eating for your gut health. Many gut healing diets like the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, The GAPS diet, Paleo, even the gluten-free or dairy free diets, don’t get into when is it OK to add condiments (healthier condiments) like these to your every day eating plan.

[16:18] Although everyone is individual and some condiments that work for one mama will not work for another, the rule of thumb I like to follow is when you can eat all of the ingredients in the condiment separately without any G.I. or non-G.I. reaction, you can eat that condiment, in all its glory.

So if you’re waiting to enjoy mayonnaise for example, check out your mayonnaise recipe if you’re making it homemade, or the ingredients list for a store-bought option. It might include ingredients like eggs, a specific type of oil, maybe some Dijon mustard, sometimes you’ll see lemon juice or vinegar in mayonnaise. Can you tolerate all of these ingredients individually, by themselves? If you can, that condiment is yours for the taking.

Make sense?

Cool, so go for it with healthy homemade or store-bought condiments from my pdf resource guide because they really will jazz up any gut healing food you’re eating. I remember when I began the Specific Carbohydrate Diet back in 2008, condiments and seasonings became my go-to for every meal. It’s amazing how wonderful and deliciously healthy gut healing food can taste when you have the right condiments and the right spices and seasonings. It doesn’t hide the food like so many traditional condiments do. It brings out the natural flavor in the food. It’s just an absolutely different gastric experience when you eat this way.

So that’s good news isn’t it? Condiments are not off the table even when you are trying to eat gut healthy for your Crohn’s and colitis. Want to know something that might be even better than that? I’m going to tell you how to do condiments like the bad ass boss mom I know you are.

Let’s do condiments like only a mom can.

When you’ve collected all of these delicious and healthy condiments, you want to have them at the ready for you, but you can also have them at the ready for your kids too. Condiments are the key to getting your kids to eat healthy food.

[19:15] I’ve gotta shout that from the roof top one more time: Condiments are the key to getting your kids to eat healthy food.

The key to doing condiments like the mom I know you are is to set up a condiment caddy, one that is circular and spinnable. Some people call it a Lazy Susan. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google Lazy Susan. You’ll see exactly the device I mean. It’s a round platter that spins. When it comes to breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, set out the condiment caddy right in the middle of the table and watch what it does for your kids taste buds.

There’s two rules that bad ass moms follow when it comes to the condiment caddy. Rule #1 about the condiment caddy that works perfectly in your kids favor is that they are allowed to put whatever condiment from the condiment caddy they choose on their food. Even if you think it’s gross. I mean, even if they choose to put ketchup on their salad.

The second rule about the condiment caddy is that initially, they are allowed to put as much of that condiment as they want wherever they want. So again, back to getting your kids to eat salad, they are allowed to put as much salad dressing on that salad as they wish… at first.

Those two rules definitely go your kids favor. But with rule number two, as you get your kid used to whatever healthy food you’re dishing up, you start to pull back a little bit on the condiment. Eventually and hopefully you’ll be at an amount you consider to be sane.

[22:23] I got my kids to eat broccoli this way. A little parmesan cheese and butter on their broccoli and voila, they are now broccoli lovers. Same thing with spinach salad—at first they loaded it up with ranch dressing. Little by little, they were easing up on the dressing and loading up on the spinach—well at least it worked for 2 of my kids and don’t they say 2 out of 3 ain’t bad!

And if you’re wondering what would I possibly put in my condiment caddy, you’ll definitely want to check out my free pdf resource: Condiments for a Healthy Belly and a Happy Mama. It’s got condiments galore so I have no doubt you’ll find some condiments you and your kids will love. Remember you can find your PDF resource by going to the show notes or typing in KarynHaley.com/condiments into your browser.

Do it like a the amazing mom I know you are with the condiment caddy.

OK my friend, did I answer all of your questions about the best ways to use condiments to jazz up healthy, gut healing food… about buying healthy condiments at the grocery store and making super simple delicious condiments that will make your belly happy at home… and how to get the kids involved by making condiments the gateway to health food? If anything I’ve talked about today is unclear or you still have questions, be sure to DM me on Facebook. I’m happy to continue the conversation over there. On Facebook I am @TheIBDHealthCoach. @ TheIBDHealth coach.

[24:04] And if you’re a Crohn’s or colitis mama and you’re struggling—maybe you were just diagnosed, or you’re struggling to get off the toilet, struggling to have enough energy to enjoy time with your kiddos, struggling to get your head around the steps you need to take to create a healing path for you—that’s definitely my specialty… know that I’m here for you. I offer free 30-min coaching sessions for moms with Crohn’s and colitis who are ready to get clear on their healing path, so they can move forward with confidence, clarity, and good gut health. During our 30-minute consultation, we set goals together, we talk about how we can marry your symptoms and your lifestyle to create the best plan for your needs and wants, and we talk about how we can work together with me as your guide to get you to the other side faster and with less roadblocks. And whether we decide working together is a good fit or not, you leave the session with tools you can use to jump start your Crohn’s or colitis healing journey right away.

Win-win.

If you’re ready to take big bold steps mama to heal your Crohn’s or colitis, I’ve got you covered. Schedule your free 30-minute consultation at KarynHaley.com/IAMREADY.  That’s KarynHaley.com/IAMREADY

Dear one, just for today because we like to take it one day at a time– be bold, be brave, be kind to yourself, but always, always be true to who you are.

Until we meet again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy gut healing journey.

Chat soon!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

After 35 Years With IBD: 5 IBD Breakdowns That Turned into Breakthroughs

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It’s the big 5-0 (episode 50) and I’m getting personal to celebrate this milestone.

Thanks for hanging out with me over the past 50 episodes and for stopping by each week for your dose of IBD information from a food, lifestyle, and mindset perspective. I appreciate you more than you know!

Throughout episodes 1-50, you’ve heard others share their story. You’ve heard me talk about my clients, but I haven’t really shared a lot about my IBD journey, up close and personal, warts and all.

You’ve even sent me some really lovely emails asking why I do the work I do and why I started this podcast. You asked for a while now, so here’s goes nothing.

Today, I’m getting vulnerable, taking a break from my introverted self, and pulling back the curtain to share a few things I’ve learned in my 35-year Crohn’s experience with 5 breakdowns that threatened to take me down, and 5 breakthrough paths I chose to take instead. There’s lots of heartache in this one, but with lots of triumph thrown in too. Hope you enjoy and that some part of the episode speaks directly to you.

We talk about:

• The dangers of using prednisone steroids long term
• How bad 80’s hair isn’t so bad when you consider all the other bad things that happen in this life
• Why gut healing food isn’t the only answer when it comes to keeping your IBD in remission
• How you can get through any embarrassing IBD bathroom situation with a little stealth and a lot of humor
• How everything in your IBD life comes back to your Wheel of IBD Wellness

And so much more!

After this episode, you’ll definitely have your answer to why I created this podcast and why I do the work that I do. And most of all, I hope this information sparks some inspiration for you to keep fighting when you want to give up, keep asking questions and finding answers, and always, always be the one in charge of your healthcare.

Episode at a Glance:

• [06:24] How bad 80’s hair isn’t so bad when you consider all the other bad things that happen in this life
• [15:50] What a Sitz Bath is and why it could be your best friend when you Crohn’s or colitis rectal involvement
• [16:49] How you can get through any embarrassing IBD bathroom situation with a little stealth and a lot of humor
• [20:55] The dangers of using prednisone steroids long term
• [22:15] The benefits of having a supportive mom by your side
• [32:01] How you’ll need to pivot your IBD plan many times in your lifetime
• [35:00] Why one particular infertility doctor is stupid
• [37:53] Why you shouldn’t get cocky when it’s 10-0 in the 7^th inning stretch
• [45:15] Why gut healing food isn’t the only answer when it comes to keep your IBD in remission
• [46:36] How everything in your IBD life comes back to your Wheel of IBD Wellness
• [53:10] The best way to take your IBD healing journey to the next level.

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Episode 30: I’m Doing Everything Right, How Come I’m Not Better

Dr. Allison Siebecker

Episode Transcript:

Welcome to episode 50 of The Cheeky Podcast. I can’t freaking believe it. Our little engine that could is raising our consciousness and giving hope to women all around the world that we mamas with IBD, we are bad assess and we will never give up, and we will never stop finding the true healing path in all of us.

Podcasts are and amazing invention, aren’t they? Connecting us to each other so we can find ways to help our Crohn’s and our colitis and I’m really proud to be a part of that.

Have you been with me since the beginning? You go girl! Joined halfway through? Amen sister friend? Maybe this is your first episode. Welcome aboard! No matter when you joined the conversation mama, I am so happy to have you here, I’m so grateful for you and I can’t wait to share some IBD wisdom with you in this special and very personal episode #50. Buckle up, because it might just be a bumpy ride.

Here we go!

Hey hey dear one. I’m so happy to share this time with you today. It’s episode 50. Whoo, hoo!! We made it. And to celebrate, would you do me a favor? Whether this is your first or 50^th time with The Cheeky Podcast in your ears, if you’re enjoying the information, would you please take a minute to give us a positive rating and review in itunes? It helps other IBD mamas hear about all the IBD goodness we’re putting out each week. Thanks dear one, I appreciate you. Now we’ve got lots to talk about today.

Like I mentioned at the top, this is episode 50 and throughout the weeks and months that the podcast has been on, you’ve sent the most lovely and supportive emails and several have asked me to do this for quite a while. You tell me that the how to’s have been valuable in your healing, and you’re loving the interviews, but you’re wondering why I haven’t shared my story yet. What made me want to start the podcast? What’s my IBD story?

If I’m being really honest with you and with myself, I’ve put off talking in depth about my IBD story because I’m just not that comfortable being at the center of the story. I love telling client stories, talking about what I’ve learned on my IBD journey, but talking about myself, my mama always taught me the best way to shine is to shine a light on someone else.

But today, in honor of the big 5-0, I’m going to swallow my introverted nerves, and put it all out there, my Crohn’s story—at lease the parts I think will benefit you. I hope it inspires you in some way, to see your story in my story, to keep pushing forward, to never give up, to believe in your power, to know the strength and value of what you bring to the table with your intuition and insights– through all your provider interactions, and ultimately how you have the power to take charge of your own healthcare decisions. That’s the main thing I’ve learned in my 35 years with IBD. So, I’m getting vulnerable with 5 breakdowns I’ve experienced in my time with IBD and how I was able to turn those breakdowns into breakthroughs. Maybe you’ll see a bit of what you’ve gone through in my story, and insights to take with you for what you have yet to go through on your IBD journey.

Let’s go ahead and dive in with breakdown to breakthrough #1. It all starts with the diagnosis.

Like so many with Crohn’s and colitis, my story begins in a hospital.   

At 17 years old, I was just graduating from high school, ready to go to college 3 ½ hours from home to study dance with hopes of continuing my dancing career that started at age 3.   

I was ready to take on the world!   

[06:24] And let me give you just a little more context into where I was at, at that time. In my nuclear family, I was the “baby” in a house full of boys—the only girl with 3 older brothers- or more accurately, it was more like having 4 fathers who loved to watch my every move! I grew up in an upper/middle class family in the privileged community of Orchard Park, NY.  Go Quakers! I was fairly sheltered, moderately spoiled (although my brothers would tell you mega spoiled) and through most of my life up til that point, my biggest worry was “Do I have enough hairspray to hold up my big 80’s hair?” 

But back at the hospital, I was coming out of exploratory surgery where a colorectal surgeon was trying to find out why I kept having bloody poops and why I had several rectal fissures (tears in my rectal lining that bled when I pooped or sat down, or stood up, or moved…). 

“Hrfmmmbbrrrr….. Croobsh Distreshffff….. Vefishr Siknerth…..”   

No need to adjust your earbuds. These are just the sounds I woke up to as the anesthesia wore off after surgery. I can still hear it in my head today, these muffled voices and I remember seeing a blur of people I vaguely recognized as my parents and my doctor.  They were talking in hushed tones like people do in a hospital.  I remember, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, just those mumbles.  And the image lasted only a moment and I was out again, blissfully unaware that my life was about to change forever.  When I think back on those last moments of unknowing I had IBD, I wish I would have known that change was coming.  I wish I would have fully embraced those last few moments of true childhood innocence. 

As many loving parents do in a situation like this, mine tried and shield me from the emotional and physical pain they knew would follow.  Even when recover and wake from surgery, they didn’t tell me anything.  They said “the procedure went well” and “we’ll talk when we get home”.   

This isn’t the first time I have been shielded from the truth.   

Since I was 14, strange symptoms were creeping up with no known cause.  I went from stomach pain to esophagus pain to canker sores in my mouth and finally to bloody poop.  Well-meaning doctors diagnosed me with everything from Esophagitis to Endometriosis. 

It seems crazy to me now that they didn’t put 2 and 2 together. Or if they did, they were clearly getting 5!

So many of us have experiences like this before we get our IBD diagnosis. I’ve heard about this happening over and over from GLC members and clients—that it took years to get a proper diagnosis.

I have no clue why it takes so long.

 At the time, when I was getting all these non-IBD diagnoses—for 3 years, I didn’t question anything.  

I never asked, “Why would an otherwise healthy 14-year-old girl have esophagitis?”  In hindsight, I feel kind of stupid for not asking the right questions, but I don’t even know what the right questions would have been.

THE DIAGNOSIS THAT CHANGES MY LIFE

A couple days after that surgery, my parents sat me down to tell me the truth, “The doctor did a biopsy while you were at the hospital and discovered you have Crohn’s Disease.”  

You know exactly what my response was, I know you do. What’s Crohn’s Disease?

I didn’t know what Crohn’s was, but I knew the word DISEASE and it definitely didn’t sound good. 

At 17, I endured my first real breakdown moment in life when I got that diagnosis. Can you think back to that moment for you? When you got that diagnosis. It sucks right? Definitely a breakdown moment. Maybe a little bit of a relief because now you know what you have, but at the same time, it still sucks.

For me, sure, I had had some teenage challenges before this. I had boyfriends dump me, got through catty girl stuff and actually endured some pretty nasty bullying in middle school, but this breakdown, this IBD diagnosis was different. It made the other teenager challenges seem silly and frivolous.

The good news is that with this breakdown, I didn’t stay in the broken phase very long.

Even though any sort of physical healing from Crohn’s was still 20 years away for me, this physical breakdown of my body, led to an emotional breakthrough that still carries me through every challenge I encounter in my life.

Something I have to tell you as a side note, before I go any further is that I come from a long line of really strong women.  Great, great grandmothers and great aunts that immigrated from Italy with nothing.  An Italian grandmother I called Nana who lived a life of only going to school until the 4^th grade, never owning a single toy or a doll, marrying an abusive husband, yet still carrying on– always bringing me to laughing tears with the stories she would tell.   

And my mother, who underwent multiple eye surgeries—6 or 7 I think before she turned 18 months old—throughout her life, she was legally blind in one eye. When my mom was 77 years old, she was diagnosed with liver cancer. Her doctors gave her 6 months to live, but she lived 6 years—mainly out of shear willpower and faith.

The Train Leaves the Station 

It’s because of these remarkable women in my life that after I graduated from high school and was diagnosed with Crohn’s that it was just expected I would carry on, strong and confident, that I could get through this, no sweat.  The strength of the maternal women in my life got me through that first blur of a summer with multiple doctor’s appointments, multiple medications and a new lifestyle to adjust to.  

In July, the summer I was about to turn 18, I remember vividly a conversation I had with my mom where I said to her, “Mom, I don’t think I can go to college anymore.  I’m so sick.  I’ve lost so much weight.  I’m so scared of how I will make it at college 3 ½ hours away from home.”   

My mom didn’t miss a beat.  In a loving way she sat me down and said, “It doesn’t matter that you’ve been diagnosed with Crohn’s, Karyn. You will get through it. What’s more important is that the train of life is leaving the station.  If you don’t get on the train, Crohn’s be damned, your life will pass you by.”  That was all the discussion we had about it. I went to college.

With support like that, there’s no room for self-doubt.   

My first physical breakdown of the diagnosis of Crohn’s that turned into an emotional breakthrough happened when I went away to college two months after being diagnosed and I am eternally grateful that my mom didn’t let me wallow and lag behind.  College still holds some of the best memories and life lessons I could ever imagine.  

IBD and College: Life with Crohn’s in a College Far Away 

Breakdown #2

Breakdown #2 that turned into a breakthrough picks up my story about where we just left off. The breakdown begins as soon as I hit the college dorms.

It involves a sitz bath, 5-ASA medications that didn’t work, a year’s worth of steroids with 20 lbs of weight gain, face mooning, and finally becoming suicidal.

Let me break down my breakdown for you.

So, I have to start off first with complete honesty. While I was at college, I did engage in the typical college antics—parties, drinking, sorority life— but much of my college life, as I’m sure you can imagine, having IBD too— it was different than those around me.  

When I went to college, I was having really painful poops.  Like cry out in pain when I pooped painful. Those rectal fissures I told you about earlier?  Still there, except now I had more of them.

[15:50] It hurt so much to poop, that I had to use this contraption called a Sitz bath when I went #2. Have you heard of these? If you’re having painful poops, maybe a Sitz bath can help you too. Basically a sitz bath is a plastic, round bucket that sits on your toilet seat. You fill it with warm water and do your business in the water filled sitz bath, then flush all the contents down the toilet. In my experience, the warmer the water the better. It definitely lessens a painful poop when you have fissures or hemorrhoids.  

Every time I had to poop my freshman year in college, I’d go to the community toilet in the dorm (yeah, one of those gross community bathrooms everyone on the floor uses), I’d go in there hiding the Sitz Bath, a jug for the water and a towel to wipe my bum in a duffle bag.  I’d try to go to the bathroom when no one was around so they wouldn’t see me filling the water jug at the sink before I went into the bathroom stall.  I was super self-conscious that someone would ask, “why the hell are you filling a water jug and taking it into the stall?” 

Sometimes I was stealth and no one walked in.

[16:49] Sometimes, my dorm mates would see me and give me really strange looks, but thankfully they never questioned it—at least out loud.

I can laugh about the ridiculousness of it all now! 

Freshman year, there was also the rectal abscess I endured where I got a high fever from the infectious, puss filled, hard, sack in my butt. My doctor inserted a tube just to the right of my rectum to drain it. I had to keep it in for moths, and I hobbled along, even danced in a showcase performance, with this small tube sticking out of my butt. It sucked.

Someone please tell me that the treatment for rectal abscesses has advanced over the years. That’s just crazy!

But the worst part of my college experience happened my sophomore year when my disease had progressed beyond Dipentum, Asacol, Pentasa and antibiotics like Flagyl and Cipro. 

Shout an “Amen” if you remember any of these oldies! They’ve all been replaced with other, hopefully better, 5-ASA’s now. 

My doc told me it was time for steroids— specifically prednisone.  And of course this was a point in my life where I was a good little patient and did what I was told. If my doc said, steroids, I said, sure!  He mentioned to me about the weight gain, the “mooning” of the face, the acne that might follow… but the part about the emotional symptoms that might come up… not so much.   

Plus this was in the early 90’s. The days when steroids were given long term. After one year on these toxic drugs, I was teaming with anger outbursts, I was so moody my friends never knew if Dr. Jeckle or Mr. Hyde would show up, I was being teased with guys telling me, “You missed the freshman 15 and decided to gain the sophomore 20, huh? And finally it was the long term depression that set me into a downward spiral and messed with my mind. Eventually I started having thoughts of suicide.

Talk about a massive breakdown. How could this possibly turn into a breakthrough? Again, it took my remarkable mom stepping up and stepping in.

[20:55] One day when she was visiting me at college, I told my mom that I had started to feel suicidal. Again, this unflappable lady, she didn’t miss a beat. She marched me straight to my doctor’s office—I remember we definitely didn’t have an appointment—she demanded that the doctor see me immediately. I don’t think we even waited in the waiting room (maybe because the staff was afraid of others encountering my mom’s wrath) and when the doctor came in, she told that doctor that he was to immediately taper my steroids. She was appalled that they had kept me on them for so long and that they had better come up with a new solution, pronto.

Of course, I can’t claim with 100% certainty that it was the steroids, but I do know that I was never suicidal before prednisone, and I have never been suicidal since.   

Thank God, it isn’t standard practice to keep patients on steroids so long term anymore. I feel confident that this breakdown won’t happen to you.

Breakdown to breakthrough #2: suicidal on steroids to mama saving the day.

Breakdown to breakthrough #3 takes me from painful years of infertility to finally having the blessing of three amazing children. Let me tell you about it.

If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you’ve got kids. You’ve got Crohn’s or colitis and you’ve got kids. It’s a real struggle isn’t it—kids and IBD? I’ve definitely had my challenges being a mom with Crohn’s, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. I think I always new I wanted to be a mom—from as long as I can remember, but there was a time in my life when I thought my IBD would keep me from my motherhood dreams.

IBD and Marriage: Is he husband material? 

For many, many years, I followed the advice of my doctors.  I followed the conventional path.  I was still following the advice of the medical professionals who told me that food had nothing to do with my illness when I met a man that changed my life.  He was a friend of my brother’s, studying to be a Psychologist at the same graduate school I went to.   

You’ve met my head shrinking, coffee drinking, hubby on the podcast. He’s made an appearance or two.

We met on a skydiving trip—something we’d probably only do in our younger years. After that, we became inseparable.  

He’s been there through all of my Crohn’s hell and my bowel resections. I remember vividly when he held me in his arms and let me cry until I couldn’t cry anymore after I told him 4 ½ feet of my small intestine had become the size of a string of spaghetti and doctors were going to operate to take that part out.   

He was there again for my next bowel surgery when 4 ½ feet was removed again. But the best thing he ever did for me was to stand by me and our marriage when I broke down, thinking we’d never be able to have children.

 IBD and Infertility: Can I have a baby please? 

Within a year of getting married, Bill and I started trying to get pregnant.  With my Crohn’s history, I was worried it might be a struggle to get pregnant and I was right.  After two years of trying to conceive, we still weren’t pregnant.  We tried temperature readings, fertility drugs, scheduling sex at certain times of the month…. it was really stressful!   

I remember saying to Bill, “I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to have a child.  If you want out of our marriage, I will understand.”  Bill, my rock, said he was with me for the long haul.  He wasn’t leaving just because we couldn’t have children.   

Of course, we thought about adoption. We didn’t care how we became parents. We were seriously considering it while we also going through fertility treatments. I remember one idiot fertility specialist we met with—and trust me, I don’t use that word often or lightly and I understand how derogatory it is, but this doctor deserves it. He told me that the reason I wasn’t pregnant was because besides having Crohn’s I must also have anorexia because I’m so thin. He told me to get help for my anorexia and then I would be able to get pregnant. I didn’t have anorexia! In the words of Hermione in the first Harry Potter series, “What an idiot.” He truly didn’t get Crohn’s or colitis at all.

Just when I was at my lowest point, hormones raging from fertility drugs, we conceived our first child through a fertility procedure called IUI. I remember getting the phone call from the doctor telling us we were pregnant and literally dropping to my knees in pure joy and astonishment.  After such a dark times, what a breakthrough! And to my surprise getting pregnant my first time set off my fertility juices because I got pregnant two more times after that. We have three beautiful boys now—two of them grown men– and I feel so blessed that they are a part of my life every day.  

Breakdown #3: years of infertility to the miracle of 3 kids. What a breakthrough that was! If you’re struggling to get pregnant, please don’t give up hope. I’m so grateful that I kept trying.

Breakdown to breakthrough #4

[36:01] Probably the biggest breakdown to breakthrough I had in my almost 35-year Crohn’s journey was going from looking at my illness from an approach of making no decisions and no moves on my own, looking to everyone else for answers, keeping the power and the knowledge outside of my control, which by the way got me nowhere. Not once in those 20 years did I ever feel well. Not one day. And the breakthrough that emerged from this breakdown was the biggest transformation and mindset shift of my life.

In 2007, our family move back to the states.  We had been living in England for 4 years while my husband was in the Air Force. He was getting out of the military, and we were settling in Maryland.

I wasn’t feeling well.   

I was a mom with 2 little ones, 17 months apart. I was running myself ragged. I was stressed.

The immunosuppressive drugs I was on wasn’t suppressing my Crohn’s symptoms, but it was suppressing my immune system so much that I was constantly fighting off one infection after another.   

I went to a new gastroenterologist who ordered a colonoscopy and endoscopy.   

When the tests were complete she gave me this news, “There’s nothing else I can do for you.  You’ve had so much of your small intestine taken out that you shouldn’t have more surgeries.  You should wait and hope for a small intestinal transplant.”  

Of course, medicine hasn’t advanced that far yet! 

I was devastated.   

I’ve done everything I was told to do for 20 years. I listened. I took all the medication, as prescribed. Endured pooping in a bucket, a rectal abscess, steroid rage and depression, and 2 bowel resections. How can you be telling me there’s nothing else I can do for you. It felt like the medical community had failed me. 

What the hell do I do now?   

In that moment the mantra my mom taught me 20 years earlier, back when I chose to go to college instead of climbing in bed and staying there was pounding in my head—-  

“The train of life is leaving the station… The train is leaving the station…”  

And then it hit me.  The medical community may have given up on me, but I still have hope.  

I raced home from that doctor’s appointment and ran to my basement where books and trinkets are packed high in boxes.  I search and search until I found Breaking the Vicious Cycle—the book Elaine Gottschall wrote about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.   

Even though I had bought it and read it 5 years prior, at that time it just read like Greek to me. Gluten free, grain free, dry curd cottage cheese, almond flour, homemade yogurt? Know one was talking about gluten back then. I was not ready to hear it. But this time, right then and there, as I read it again, cover to cover, highlighting so much that all the pages looked bright yellow, taking notes in the margins… this time, for some reason, it made sense.   

 Somehow in that moment, the breakthrough just washed over me. I just knew that the words in this book were the step-by-step plan for my future. 

Gluten Free/Grain Free Eating Takes a Village 

I also knew that healing like this wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t healing in a magic pill. It was hard work. It took time, but finally, after 20 years of hell, I knew it would be time well spent.

So even though I knew that this was the path I needed to take, I was still daunted.  It was a whole new way of eating for this Italian girl who lived on bread, pasta, cereal, and mashed potatoes. 

Even though the internet was not what it is today, I scoured and scoured until I found an SCD expert. A Health Coach who showed me the ropes and walked me step by step through the maze of SCD “legal” and “illegal”.   

I had never heard of a Health Coach before, but I jumped in with both feet with the clarity of a woman who knows she is on the right path for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time in her life. 

The SCD Diet: Game Changer 

So, I did the SCD intro diet and to be really honest with you, it kind of sucked, especially in the beginning.   

I ate like a baby.  Mashed bananas, homemade fermented yogurt, pear sauce, carrots cooked until they were mushy, chicken broth…   

Those first few days, I missed my old food and I felt like crap.   

But as the weeks went by, my crappy symptoms began to disappear.   

My stomach pain was gone, completely GONE.  My diarrhea began to improve. I couldn’t believe it

I hadn’t felt this good since my early teens! 

On the SCD, my initial plan was to try to go off all my meds in one year, but after just 6 months, I felt so good, that I just went for it.  

It’s been 13 years since then, and I’ve never regretted my SCD decision. Not once. The SCD saved my life.

Breakdown #4: From “there’s nothing else I can do for you” to an SCD breakthrough of healing proportions.

[37:53] You might be thinking that after that triumphant breakthrough, life with Crohn’s has been on easy street for this gal. Well for a while, I thought that was the case too. I’d been looking for a way out of all the pain, the medications, the uncertainty of what hellish symptom would appear next. SCD gave that to me. But what I learned in the last several years is that keeping my IBD under control isn’t just about diet, it’s about a lot more than that.

Breakdown to breakthrough #5, my final breakthrough so far. I hope that what I’m about to tell you can be a learning experience for you too. So you never have to go through my trials and tribulations.

For years, the SCD kept my IBD completely in remission. I ate huge salads for lunch every day. My once a day poops were so solid, that I experienced occasional constipation. My energy was through the roof, and I didn’t take it for granted. I savored every bit of a strawberry, of pumpkin seeds, of chrunky fibrous nuts.  

I thought, why isn’t everyone doing this? The SCD is the cure. After the most profound experience of my life, turning my IBD around with this diet, I became a Health Coach to serve others on their healing journey.

But about 5 years ago, a few things happened that brought me back to square one, and showed me that there isn’t just one path to healing. There’s several. About 5 years ago, I had to find my way past yet another breakdown so I could begin to rebuild again.

Within the course of a few months two illnesses struck me hard. First, I go the flu. Not a stomach bug, but the diagnosable flu. It wiped me out. I felt horrible. I laid in bed for a week, sometimes unable to pick my head up. I became severely dehydrated and required IV fluids. Thankfully, I did recover. Only a couple months later, I got plagued with food poisoning. E coli to be exact. It seemed like everything that was in my insides was coming out of both ends. I couldn’t get off the toilet for a several days. I think the flu I had had recently, had set up such gut dysbiosis that this food poisoning pushed it over the edge.

Looking back, I think if just one of these ailments had brought me down, I think I would have been able to fight it back. But the two of them, bam bam, together like that, it set up the stage for a lasting bacterial imbalance that I’m still fight to this day.

After months of trying to get back on track, I started working with a wonderfully gifted nutritionist, who diagnosed me with SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It’s common to contract SIBO after bacterial upsets like a bout of food poisoning. And SIBO is just want it sound like, an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine. When we think of the bacteria in the intestine, many people think that we have equal amounts of bacteria throughout the digestive track, but actually, most of the bacteria in a healthy individual lies in the colon—the large intestine. When too much bacteria travels to the small intestine, we can end up with SIBO. And it’s so much more common that many realize, especially for IBDer’s. Most mainstream doctors are not testing properly for SIBO and the symptoms are so similar to Crohn’s and colitis that we don’t realize we have it.  But it’s really important that we do figure it out because the treatment for SIBO is different than the treatment for IBD.

If you’re wondering about SIBO, if it might be a factor in your symptoms, and you want more info on symptoms, testing, and treatments, check out episode 30: You’re Doing Everything Right. How Come You’re IBD Isn’t Getting Better. It’s one of my most downloaded episodes and it’s got some great SIBO information. I’ll link to the episode in the show notes. Another great SIBO resource is Allison Siebecker. I’ll also leave a link to her SIBO work there as well. There’s a ton of good information on her website.

SIBO is a bit of a monster. You can treat it, but it usually takes a few treatment courses, and then in times of stress or bacterial imbalance, it can rear its ugly head again. SIBO is definitely something I continually work hard on to keep it in check in my own body.

I worked really hard to tackle SIBO and just as it was finally settling down for a long winter’s nap, I began struggling with small intestinal scar tissue from my old surgeries. The scar tissue was blocking my intestines, causing partial obstructions. Obstructions, maybe you have dealt with those in your own IBD life, are really the worst. Your abdomen fills up like a balloon, the pressure and pain on your belly is intense to say the least, and in my case, I just have to wait until the food passes through, which can be an excruciating few hours.

As annoying as all the physical aspects of illnesses, SIBO, and scar tissue can be, all of these physical setbacks began to take an emotional toll on me. When you’re doing everything right, you’re taking care of yourself, you’re eating right and you still get struck down with challenges you can’t control, it’s emotionally exhausting and infuriating. It was definitely a breakdown for me.

And unlike many of the IBD challenges I’ve been through in the past, the breakthrough with these latest setbacks wasn’t an instant a-ha or quick fix. This breakthrough has come to me in waves.

[45:15] Over the last few years, I’ve realized that staying well, isn’t just about one thing. It’s not just about finding a diet that works for you. It’s about what I like to call your wheel of wellness. To get through and thrive with IBD and the extra challenges it creates, I had to expand my healing circle. It doesn’t matter whether it’s another autoimmune disease that creeps up on you, which is really common for IBDer’s, or dealing with your IBD in the time of Covid, worrying about contracting the virus or whether or not to vaccinate– which of course creates stress that can impact our disease as well, or even other IBD related problems like SIBO, or candida, or scar tissue, or arthritis… we all have to use the abundance of resources at our disposal to create the breakthrough—to develop a fully functioning wheel of wellness.

For me, my wheel of wellness and the breakthrough that came from breakdown #5 means creating a wheel of wellness that centers around learning the ancient art of breathwork, dealing with my stress in a healthier way, focusing on ways to get more sleep, meditating, practicing yoga, trying energy modalities like reiki and craniosacral therapy, getting out of guilt mode when I need “ME” time, prioritizing what’s important in my life, journaling and feeling gratitude deeply every day, manifesting and visioning the change I want to see in myself. And of course, gut healing food too.

At their core, these are mindset and lifestyle practices and over the last few years, I’ve come to rely on these practices more and more. I find as I get older, I need them more and more in my life. And it’s been truly astounding just how powerful of a component the mind is when it comes to healing.

That’s what led me to starting this podcast. As I developed a larger wheel of wellness for myself, I wanted to share ideas with you that could help you develop your own wheel of wellness. If the last 5 years have taught me anything, it’s that everyone’s wheel of IBD wellness should look completely different, but I want to make sure you know all your options, so you can take that information and develop the healing plan that works for you.

These 5 breakdowns to breakthroughs that I’ve shared with you today are not the end of my journey. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that, when it comes to IBD, the journey continues everyday. There’s always obstacles that we get in our way. There’s always going to be breakdowns.

Healing and growing and learning how to rise above, is about finding a work around, finding a road less traveling, finding a path that’s dedicated to your name only. That’s where your breakthroughs lie.

There are many others in the IBD space—practitioners of one sort or another who tell you “this is the way to healing—the one way.” They may tell you the only way to help your IBD is with medicine or the only way to help you IBD is without medicine, but what I’ve learned through all my years with Crohn’s, through all the breakdowns and breakthroughs I’ve been through, is that there is no one way to find remission, no one way for all of us to heal.

If I could pass down just one important message to you from all the time I’ve spent on my own healing journey and witnessing others healing journeys, it’s to keep searching for your way. When it comes to Inflammatory Bowel Disease, we are all different. What works for one isn’t what works for another. But we do have one thing in common, one healing tool that you and I both need. And that’s our own personal wheel of IBD wellness. That invisible wheel that’s a combination of all the healing modalities that serve you best.

Keep cultivating your wheel of wellness and keep supporting your right to have the biggest say in how you treat your IBD.  In the next 50 episodes of The Cheeky Podcast, I promise to keep giving you big ideas that have the power to grow your Wheel of IBD Wellness—in the way that works for you.

It’s been my honor and privilege to bring you 50 episodes of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD. I can’t wait to see what the next 50 will bring.

Thanks for hearing my story today. I hope it brought some light and intention to the struggles you’re going through. You are in my heart dear one.

Until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy IBD healing journey.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This podcast, video, and blog post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.