The last time I wrote a full post was 2016. Typing that sentence was disorienting - has it really been that long? Of course it has. I'm just getting old enough to start noticing the passage of time like old people do, by commenting on it incessantly instead of getting to the point.
tldr: I'm still fine. I had another kid, I ratcheted up to way more work stress, and I still don't eat gluten. But otherwise I'm pretty lax about what I eat, and have been for years. So far as I can tell, I'm basically normal except for a lingering hyper-attention to my poop. I guess that'll never go away.
The longer version is more of a ramble. Settle in, if you dare.
I got a colonoscopy this summer. When I was doing the pre-op visit, the gastro suggested that maybe he could get the Crohn's diagnosis off my chart, if the colonoscopy was normal. I was floored by the suggestion. I pointed out that I had years and years of biopsies confirming the diagnosis, polyps removed, tons of symptoms. He flipped through my chart, shrugged, and said, "Yeah, but there's no evidence of it from the colonoscopy in 2016. If there's none this time, you wouldn't be diagnosed if you were a new patient, and probably don't need to worry about it much." While this is, more or less, how I have been living my life, it was still very strange to hear it from a doctor. And sure enough, my colonoscopy results came back over the phone as a voicemail saying, "you're fine, you don't need to come in for a follow up."
So... I'm fine. Big reveal.
What do I eat? Well, I use meat now almost medicinally. If I go too long eating too much crap (starch, carbs, sugar, whatever) and start having digestive issues, I'll do an all meat week or two and get back on track. Then I'll slide back towards crappy diet eventually. To be clear, my diet is likely still "cleaner" than the vast majority of Americans, still lower-carb and more meaty, but I don't want to give the impression that I'm still doing the same thing I did fifteen years ago. I'm not. Nor do I anticipate needing to, unless I have another real flare up.
How's my health? Interesting! I went in for a physical earlier this year and got a routine blood work up. My iron levels (basically all of them every which way) were off the charts high. I got a test for hereditary hemochromatosis and confirmed that I am indeed a lucky winner. Two out of the three genes! Yay. My brother also has it, but it doesn't look like anyone else in the extended family won that particular lottery. Interestingly, despite eating a very red meat heavy diet, my brother's iron is not high, so he doesn't have to do anything. I'm going in for regular blood draws until my iron levels get to normal, then I'll be giving blood every few months to keep them there. I have no obvious symptoms of high iron, but they can take decades to appear, so I'm happy to treat it early.
Sidenote: If you're of northern European descent, you have something like a 1/200 chance of having hereditary hemochromatosis, and when you're in your thirties you should probably get your iron checked if you're not already doing so.
What else? I can run without crapping myself, to the point where I can get out and work up to six or seven miles in the mornings. Running performance, digestive and otherwise, has steadily improved as I've gotten older and further away from active Crohn's, which is welcome if unexplained. I appear to have baseline middle-age energy levels. My cholesterol was 180 something after that physical I mentioned, which was a bit low for me and probably a bio-marker of eating less meat more than anything useful. I got an electric car and will be getting solar panels? Does that count?
Oh! Sometimes I take a gander around the wild west of the crazy diet internet, just so see how it's doing these days, and I can't help but laugh. Still the same old, same old. Everyone is convinced that they're right, that everyone else is wrong, and fighting it out underneath a thin layer of profiteers looking for their scummy nibbles. It always tickles me when my blog and/or my experience is mentioned, one way or another, in those arguments. Fifteen years and it seems that we're no closer to having any real idea what the hell is going on with Crohn's disease, so the internet will rage on. My advice is to not get too sucked into any of that swirl. "Just eat meat" really is that simple and I still can't believe people can make money consulting about it. Second career maybe?
I suspect this post is a bit of a disappointment, if you've read this far. An anti-climax, at best, yet that's the honest summary of my Crohn's experience since 2016. I would bet if you're reading this on your phone while crapping your brains out, though, an anti-climax probably sounds pretty great, compared to where you are now. So I'll close this off with the same thing I've said to the people who email me or leave comments: it's worth a shot. Eat only meat and water for six months. Take a multi-vitamin if you're worried. Don't cheat, because nature cannot be fooled, and don't become a zealot, because there's more to life than what you eat. Just give it an honest try and see how you feel. I have no idea what the NNT of this diet is, but at this point I'm pretty sure it's both non-zero and non-infinity, so at least someone reading this who takes the dive will benefit.
And if that's all this weird blog ever does, it will be worth it.
Who knows when I'll write my next post, but if something big happens I'll let you know. Until then, it's back to regular boring life for me. Hopefully for you as well!
