Do you...

“I just feel like no one gets it.”

This is a common feeling of those of us with Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis.

IBD is often an invisible disease. We can look fine on the outside, but inside we feel like we are falling apart. People will tell us we look tired, or that we’re too thin and we should eat something, or that if we just “lose some weight” we’ll get better. And when those flares ramp up we feel like no one truly understands the pain we are in. Add to that the embarrassment we often feel talking about a disease that largely has to do with our bowels...yeah, not fun.

Well, I get it.

A decade ago I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Colitis (Crohn’s disease of the large intestine). After being sick for over a year, I was relieved to finally have a name for what had been plaguing me, but I was also more confused than ever! What do I do now? What foods should I eat and what should I avoid? What can I do to feel better during a flare? So many questions that a simple brochure and a prescription were not going to answer.

Sound familiar?

I began doing my own research and was amazed at how important proper nutrition was to managing my disease. Inspired by the very illness I had despised, I headed back to graduate school and earned my Masters in Nutrition and my CNS® credential. For the past 10 years I have had ups and downs, flares and quiet, and have learned A LOT.

Everyone’s experience with Crohn’s and colitis is different. Some can heal with natural remedies alone, some cannot. There is no wrong way, there is no failure. There is only trial and error... and educating oneself as best as one can.

My goal is to teach you the best ways to manage your Crohn’s and Colitis symptoms from a nutrition perspective.

This will involve...

• Diet changes that may alter during flares and remission

• Supplementation to replace what we are not absorbing due to our IBD

• Understanding the impact stress has on our immune system (and therefore flare ups)

• Grasping the challenges - and solutions - of exercising with IBD

• Learning how sleep impacts our health and how we can improve it