So, you have just been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) or Crohn’s Disease, or maybe your doctor just said you have Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD). The doc sent you on your way with a prescription for an anti-inflamatory, a cortico-steroid and a few pamphlets on your particular affliction. He may have told you you can eat whatever you want. Or perhaps you are to lay off dairy, anything with lactose. Or gluten.

Maybe you have been fighting this for years. You remember the day you were in the position of the person in the first paragraph. You had your advice, you had your drugs and you were armed to beat this thing. After a while though you started to realize that things just weren’t going the way you thought they would. Your doctor isn’t really addressing the issue and sounds like they are just shooting arrows in the dark.

You turn to the internet to find answers, perhaps that’s how you wound up here, and start to find that everyone has an answer, but they all seem to be different. The discussion boards are full of people who have taken every possible drug out there and then some. They have tried every fad diet, every self-help process and seem at a loss for any sort of solution.

Enter the saviors. The guys who have DEFINITELY got it figured out. They drop a little info on your doorstep and it all sounds good. You have tried everything and are desperate so the $80 fee for a scheduled diet and information sounds like it is worth it. Then you realize the diet was obviously not well thought out. How? Because it is impossible to follow and raises more questions than it answers. BUT WAIT! You can get is all explained in the upcoming seminar for only $150. It also comes with a lot more information, so you bite. You just want to solve the problem. Then you download your new information and find there is little more than you already had. you have just been taken for over $200 and have no more knowledge than you had before you started.

To add insult to injury, you keep getting offers to attend more seminars that will help you with everything from understanding your condition to reducing stress. It suddenly dawns on you that the grins on their faces are not there because they beat UC, but because they are making a boat-load of money off YOUR suffering.

Don’t fall for that trap. There is plenty of information already on the web and there are diets and other information available in published form for far less than what you will spend in just a couple of rounds with the guys that have it all figured out.

I am trying to gather information here at GutTalk.com and will have it all available for free. I’m not trying to sell anything. I am looking at the information available and trying to sort it into useful baskets so we will all have something we can take away at the end of the day.

I wish I could tell you there is a simple easy-to-follow answer, but there just isn’t. There is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding, even on the part of doctors, and it is important to look at all perspectives and be proactive in your own care. Use your doctor as your primary resource. IF you find something that contradicts what your doctor has said, don’t doubt your doctor. Ask them about your new found information. He should be willing to discuss it with you and possibly even point you in a new direction with your research.

Be careful about where you get your information. There is a lot of stuff out there that sounds good but has no sound basis. I at Gut Talk do not claim to be trained in medicine or in IBD, UC and Crones. But, I am trying to filter through reliable sources to find some common threads of information we can all use to treat our conditions.

I know it is difficult to hope for something that will take you away from all of this but keep these basic truths in mind as you sort through what you read.

• Stress plays a major role in IBD flares. I have read estimates of about 60% of an outbreak is due to stress.
• The gut takes a long time to heal. If you can go 2 to 3 years without an outbreak, you have a good chance of not having another ever. But that is a long healing curve. So don’t expect immediate changes in your condition and when you do start feeling better, don’t think you are healed. Stay with whatever is working.
• Your doctor wants to help you. If they don’t have all the answers, look up what you can and talk to them about what you find.
• You can’t buy your way out. Be leary of anyone who promises relief for a fee. There are simply too many unknowns and too many people who are willing to take advantage of that.