Misery Loves Company

As most of you who read this know (ok, who am I kidding, if you are reading this, you know me), I suffer from chronic pain. It is probably related to having crohn's, which is an inflammatory auto-immune disease which affects my small intestine and colon, but the chronic pain mainly manifests itself in my spine, bursae, and tendons. As any kind of chronic condition goes, you have your good days and your bad days. Today is a bad day. Actually, this month has been a bad month, but today.......

Well anyways, as I was sitting at my desk trying to just not hate life, trying to not hate my body, trying to not feel sorry for myself, I came across an article in the Washington Post, which linked me to the American Pain Foundation website. They have cool links to how to advocate, resources and art about pain. Pretty cool, and mainly it helps to just know that #1: you are not alone, and #2 there are people worse than you are (I know, that sounds awful, but it does help quite a bit with battling self-pity and hopelessness).

I'm so lucky to have finally found a pain management doctor who treats me with respect, doesn't doubt me, or treat me like a drug addict, and actually cares about how I feel. Other doctor's have either given me very short term band-aid responses, or poo-pooed the idea that pain needs to be treated at all, especially if it is chronic (you know, grin and bear it because you don't have a choice in the matter anyways). So many people all over the world are suffering and are being ignored.

The rheumatologist that I was sent to told me that his wife, who has Ulcerative Colitis (similar to Crohn's) and who also suffered extra-bowel pain, swears by something called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). Has anyone out there heard about this diet? I have decided to give it a try, but am a little nervous. It takes great commitment and vigilance in what you eat. The diet basically amounts to: No sugars (besides fruit and honey), no grains, no starches, and no processed food. It also involves making your own yogurt, which overwhelms me when I think about it. If you know anything about this diet, let me know. I will post more about it once I start.