Crohn’s is an inflammatory bowel disease most commonly seen in patients between 20 and 40. It affects approximately three million U.S. adults, and the number is increasing each year. As gastrointestinal disorders go, Crohn’s disease is one of the worst. Currently, there is no known cure for Crohn’s disease and no single treatment for everyone. Many people with Crohn’s feel hopeless, but with a functional medicine approach, doctors can help manage your Crohn’s symptoms.
Crohn’s disease is a long-term condition that causes inflammation throughout your digestive tract. This inflammation can affect any area of the gastrointestinal tract, causing painful and debilitating symptoms. If left untreated, a person can also experience life-threatening complications. The GI tract runs from the mouth to the anus. Crohn’s disease affects each patient differently. Here are the most common symptoms of Crohn’s disease.
What is Crohn’s Disease?
Similar to Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease. However, unlike ulcerative colitis, it can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract and all bowel wall layers.
Imbalances caused by outside factors, such as stress and environmental toxins, can trigger the immune response and create excess inflammation in the digestive tract. Inflammation is one of the body’s natural ways of protecting itself, but too much inflammation can cause extensive damage.
This results in painful ulceration, swelling, and scarring of the intestines. While Crohn’s can appear anywhere in the GI tract, it usually affects the small and large intestines.
Below are four types of Crohn’s disease:
Ileocolitis—Ileocolitis is the most common type of Crohn’s disease. It affects the small intestine and a portion of the large intestine.
Ileitis—Ileitis occurs when the ileum (small intestine) becomes inflamed and swollen.
Gastroduodenal—Gastroduodenal affects the stomach and top of the small intestine (the duodenum), causing irritation and inflammation.
Jejunoileitis—This type of Crohn’s disease causes patchy spots of inflammation in the upper half of the small intestine (jejunum).
Crohn’s Disease Symptoms
Crohn’s disease is usually chronic, with flare-ups of worsening degrees in between less symptomatic periods. Each flare-up may cause increasing damage to your gastrointestinal tract. There are a variety of gastrointestinal symptoms, such as:
In addition to the GI symptoms, you may experience symptoms of malabsorption. The surface projections that help absorb nutrients are also damaged in Crohn’s disease, meaning your body won’t absorb nutrients as well from the food you eat. Here are the symptoms you may experience:
In severe cases of Crohn’s disease, you may experience perianal fistulas, bowel perforations, and a distended abdomen.
Causes of Crohn’s Disease
Crohn’s disease dramatically affects an individual’s quality of life. When the gut doesn’t function properly, the whole body suffers. The symptoms can be so severe that every day is painful and uncertain. Worse, the exact cause of Crohn’s disease is not fully understood.
Researchers know that an interplay between genetics, environment, and altered gut bacteria leads to a dysregulated immune response and inflammation that damages the gastrointestinal tract.
Environmental risk factors for Crohn’s include smoking, infections, heavy metals, mold, endocrine disruptors, and dietary factors that trigger an imbalanced immune response. Certain medications, such as antibiotics and oral contraceptives, may also contribute.
The gut microbiome is a huge factor in the development of Crohn’s disease. Patients have an imbalanced gut bacteria characterized by decreased Bacteroides and Firmicutes bacteria and increased Gammaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and invasive Escherichia coli. Additionally, the overgrowth of candida in the GI tract weakens the lining of the intestines, leading to increased gut permeability (leaky gut syndrome). Studies show that this is also associated with Crohn’s disease.
Finally, dietary factors alter the risk of Crohn’s disease by impacting the gut microbiome, intestinal barrier, and immune system.
Difference Between IBS and IBD
You may have heard of IBS or irritable bowel syndrome. Do not mistake IBS for irritable bowel disease. Crohn’s disease is an irritable bowel disease. While similar to IBS, it is not the same thing.
IBS has symptoms that you may also experience with Crohn’s but does not cause inflammation of the intestines. Symptoms of IBS include constipation, loose stool, gas, bloating, bowel urgency, and nausea. In addition, IBS usually does not cause ulcers or lesions in the bowel, and it involves only the Colon.
Complications of Crohn’s Disease
Crohn’s disease can cause various health complications. These complications can be local (involving only the intestinal tract) or systemic (affecting the entire body)
Local complications include:
Abscesses—An abscess creates a pocket of pus caused by a bacterial infection. The abscess can form anywhere along your intestinal wall to the anus. This type of abscess will look similar to a boil. Abscesses can cause swelling, pain, fever, and tenderness. Your doctor may recommend antibiotics to clear up an infection.
Fissure—Fissures are small tears along the lining of the anus. These tears are painful and will often bleed during a bowel movement.
Fistula—Fistulas occur when sores or ulcers cause openings to form between two sections of the intestine. Fistulas can also tunnel into the vagina, the skin, or the bladder.
Malnutrition and Malabsorption—Chronic inflammation can compromise the digestive system and, in turn, the ability to digest food and absorb nutrients.
Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth—Your gastrointestinal tract contains bacteria that help break down and digest food. If these bacteria begin to multiply, they travel up the digestive tract, causing abdominal pain, gas, diarrhea, and bloating.
Stricture—Strictures are thick, narrow areas in the intestines that cause abdominal pain and bloating.
Systemic complications include:
Ankylosing Spondylitis—This severe spinal arthritis can happen to Crohn’s patients. You can also experience inflammation of your heart valves, eyes, or lungs.
Axial Inflammation—Axial Inflammation is a systemic inflammation that affects the spine or lower back. It can cause breathing problems by preventing the ribs from fully expanding and causing permanent damage to the spine.
Peripheral Inflammation—This type of systemic inflammation affects the large joints in the legs or arms, including your knees, wrists, ankles, and elbows. The inflammation can move from joint to joint. Once in remission, the inflammation will subside.
Skin problems can also occur in Crohn’s disease. Small nodules can form on the arms, ankles, and shins called Erythema nodosum. You can develop pus-filled sores called Pyoderma gangrenous if your skin is damaged. If left untreated, long-lasting ulcers can form. Canker sores are also common in individuals who have Crohn’s disease. Finally, skin tags and hemorrhoids can occur.
Crohn’s disease can also affect the eyes, kidneys, and liver. It can cause fatty liver disease, pancreatitis, hepatitis, and gallstones. Bone loss is another common complication of Crohn’s disease. The body cannot absorb calcium or vitamin D, weakening bones.
Functional Medicine Approach to Manage Crohn’s Disease
You may wonder whether people can manage Crohn’s disease without medications. A functional medicine approach addresses the underlying factors contributing to the disease. The goal of functional medicine is to balance the immune system, calm inflammation, and prevent the progression of the disease. Here are a few ways to achieve this goal.
Functional Medicine Tests
The functional medicine approach to Crohn’s disease starts with testing. Traditionally, diagnosis is based on symptoms and confirmed by changes in the intestines via an endoscopy biopsy. A functional medicine approach is more comprehensive. You will receive tests that assess the extent of inflammation in the intestines and the rest of the body. Doctors may test you for nutrient deficiencies, anemia, and infections to help identify underlying factors that could be contributing to your disease.
Here are a few possible functional medicine tests for this disease:
CICA – this is the Celiac, IBS, and Crohn’s Assay. It measures genetic risk markers and antibodies directed against yeast in the gut, which is an indicator of the presence and severity of Crohn’s.
Calprotectin – Fecal calprotectin is a marker of mucosal inflammation in IBD and is used to monitor disease activity.
Comprehensive Stool Test – The GI-MAP assesses the relative amounts of healthy and unbalanced gut bacteria, inflammation and leaky gut markers, parasites, and yeast overgrowth.
Micronutrient Testing – Crohn’s disease often causes nutrient deficiencies that result in immune system dysfunction and impaired healing. Nutrients you may be deficient in with Crohn’s include iron, vitamin B12, folate, vitamin D, magnesium, and others. A micronutrient panel can help you target any deficiencies.
Nutrition
The best diet for someone with Crohn’s disease avoids poor-quality, animal-derived fats, grain-fed animal protein, gluten, processed foods, and emulsifiers. Your diet dramatically impacts the environment of your gut microbiome and its microbial composition, function, and immunity. The composition of gut microbiota can change in response to your diet.
Microbiome Support
A properly balanced gut microbiome is critical for preventing the progression of Crohn’s disease. A diet rich in probiotic foods like miso, kimchi, and sauerkraut, along with prebiotic-rich foods like leeks, artichokes, garlic, and beans, will help nourish healthy bacteria. Probiotic supplements like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium can also help with this condition.
Stress Management
Stress increases cortisol and, due to the gut-brain axis, causes inflammation in the gut. Techniques for managing stress, such as meditation, breathwork, and addressing emotions and trauma, help reduce this type of inflammation.
Exercise
Exercise, however simple, decreases the expression of inflammatory substances and encourages the repair of damaged intestines.
Can Crohn’s Disease be Cured?
Approximately 780,000 Americans have Crohn’s disease. Smokers are twice as likely to develop this inflammatory bowel disease. If you do a simple Google search, you’re sure to discover that there is currently no cure for Crohn’s disease. However, that does not mean you have to continue to live in perpetual pain and emotional discomfort. A functional medicine approach to Crohn’s disease provides a practical course of action for symptom management. You can improve your quality of life and stop disease progression.
A natural treatment for Crohn’s seeks to empower patients with long-term treatment options that do not make them dependent on a medical provider or service. Patients can gain greater control over their daily lives with holistic lifestyle changes.
The caring staff at Rose Wellness is ready to support you and use the latest treatment protocols and proven natural remedies to treat and manage Crohn’s disease, which will help support your body and heal your gastrointestinal tract. The team will work with you to determine which foods irritate your digestive system and possibly aggravate your symptoms.
Rose Wellness offers Holistic, Integrative and Functional Medicine services for treating chronic issues as well as for preventive care. Join us and take control of your health, your most important asset.
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