welcome viewers i'm your host dr heidi weinhold and you are watching ask the nature path today's topic is nature pathic support for inflammatory bowel disease and i am pleased to introduce to you my my  guest who is the south hills group support facilitator for the koran's and collide as foundation also known as c c f a welcome michelle thank you doctor michele the audience may not be aware that there is a difference between i b s or irritable bowel syndrome and what we are discussing today which is i or inflammatory bowel disease can you explain the difference with with r p yes you could have the symptoms of the cramping or the bloating but it's only with the inflammatory bowel disease that you have the actual inflammation of the bottle and and then i would of of reasons that people attend sometimes they're really diagnosed and just want to know what to expect sometimes they are not satisfied with their doctor to you know have suggestions of different doctors to say  just different treatments questions about treatments we have guest speakers some wonderful speakers and just just a variety of reasons you know you have concerns with your if your child is going to college  and it does fall under the disabilities act so there's just different ways that we can just information that we can give you to support you to have a normal life and he mentioned before that you know not to get there's no excuses to get help with some of the best doctors that treat this absolutely are actually on the national board of the crohn's and colitis foundation right here in pittsburgh right here in pittsburgh we have we have some fantastic doctors right her pittsburgh and i think that sometimes people are a little intimidated about going into pittsburgh to see a doctor for one thing there could be a denial of the disease and you don't want to make that big step or you don't want to to drive into the experts and i agree i mean this is the sooner you can get ahead of this disease the better early an intervention absolutely and you know you mentioned that some children living with inflammatory bowel disease are embarrassed to go to their parents about their their symptoms what is what are some like initial signs or symptoms that parents or even teachers should be aware of well you know i'm not sure i would say the a lot of the blood sometimes with all sorts of politeness these things are really difficult for a child to to deal with and and i don't and i think also it's not just children it's of dolls in history who have to you help possible and if you're not if you're not don't feel that you have the right doctor get to the right doctor you're right people feel guilty people feel guilty about questioning your doctor changing their doctor but go and keep going until until you get help and ray here at that at allegheny general patient center is so close and the center for digestive health the physicians in there are fantastic absolutely you know and it is true that it becomes really isolating for people living with with crohn's or all sort of calais this because like you said they may go to the bathroom twelve to fifteen times and and a day or in the morning and then they get afraid to actually leave their house and because you know what happens if they have an accident or if they if they lose control of their bowels or if they have diarrhea and they and it's become so that they do you find that people living with this condition develop a lot of anxiety  for the majority of patients right but you also have just just the implementation of the digestive system you have you don't absorb your nutrients now so you're not being dead so you're just yet that's i think so important to sue what would is the most difficult thing do you do you find for people living with inflammatory bowel disease i think just everything that was mentioned just just can you just also you know in the when you're when you're trying to get this diagnosed with a year to get to reach a diagnosis and you're going to different doctor you have different appointments there's different the secondary things that can come this way i mean you there's time loss from work there's there's just there's just complications that you have to d how many people are diagnosed with crohn's and and collided in this country all right now we have one point four million people and there are thirty thousand people diagnosed every year with crohn's and all sorts of quite a in our area for our  chapter which reaches from erie to college to charleston west virginia there are twenty eight thousand people and that's just diagnosed yes and a lot of people are living with this condition and they're they are too embarrassed to go go seek help or the doctors are not familiar that's that shrill and so another part of the crohn's and colitis foundation i know you hold conferences yes to educate other nurses and physicians and the public they they give one hundred fifty million dollars to research and a lot of it is local we have just because we have the with allegheny general and you p m c i have tremendous research they're very involved in a genetic initiative which one of the doctors here in pittsburgh played a major role and and children's hospital is right now involved in a  lot of this research is privately funded meaning that it's not coming from the drug companies like a lot right if they funds a lot of a lot of research and as you said it's not from the drug companies they  is this is private research and just to confirm that the choices that they make in the in the studies that they support then a lot of these studies are picked up by the national institutes of h abdominal pain which is another common symptom and it's just you just have to make sure you're getting that high enough dose and they say that five hundred milligrams three times a day six which has been shown to really help and really help keep this disease and in remission absolutely yes so does c c s say they believe that diet plays a role and managing some of the symptoms of of inflammatory bowel disease well they make a general recommendation believe that diet plays a factor in this at all and him but i have to say that really the nature path that we want to look at both viewpoints yes for some people there are some triggers for inflammatory bo around your you know that large intestine that this is a huge part of your immune system and so you know one of the keys in treating this is to remove any irritants from from the diet and for some people that could be gluten org liaden it's a protein found found in wheat products and it just creates an inflammatory immune immune response and more information makes the symptoms worse and there is not a good blood test to catch this like there's there's a delayed food reaction test and i gigi blood test it's not completely active the they're accurate for gluten or delayed and the only way to know is actually to remove it out of your out of your diet and for like at least four weeks and  so i think that's a major problem are not disciplined enough to do that it's if they get overwhelmed why do you think it's just they're overwhelmed just being with the disease and living with the sun the way our society is it's it's it's so hard a people think what right but it actually with a little bit of help and there are many people out there that can help you there it's not that hard to be  what i mean it's not that hard if there's a big meeting coming up and it's free and yet it's open to the public i think it's a mars p a a and in november and if anybody's interested you contact my office we'll get you that that agent and it's also in a lot of our medications so people might be on this gluten free diet and still not seeing improvement but as you know a lot of these these people living with inflammatory bowel disease they're taking a lot of acid alternative treatments or complimentary therapies that they may have tried yes and i think one thing is is that because of the doctors that we have available to us that there isn't one once they may of the nature of this disease your reaction is so much faster to two different as the dietary changes which then lead you into the alternative or integrated help ok and and you know i know with us once people found out that the there was carone they were ready to just they had that magic pill yeah and and we receive phone calls and trying to and want to help and that they do they want to help and they read it on the internet but they're going to call it and you and i just that is just something that i think where where i am right now is how much i have seen when you when it's not regulated and when you enter into that it is it is really scary and people will watch t v or they'll get on the internet and then they'll go and buy supplements and they don't know what they're doing and as i said or you'll find people that will treat it just the one size fits all and it is not that type of  diseases but this one in particular and that's why people like you are so important well thank you thank you for that you know i've heard you say that you know going into some of these good health food stores or vitamin worlds or what have you that you know a lot of people have heard you make the statement that they are selling hope and not has that's right and i and i love that because i do i find that that is that is so true and i think in a lot of people they have just a little bit of knowledge that just a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous and treating something like this severe of a condition because these people are trained and anatomy or pathophysiology of just as far as the diet is concerned they will say don't eat this like don't eat any meat and and you know what there are things now there are studies that come out with it and i don't know much about it but t i mean you need me you need eggs but you need grass fed you need good good quality meat expense that is how you feel right because you need some protein because actually you made the point earlier that you know these bowel disease they are starving themselves because they are not really absorbing any of these nutrients and when you are having constant diarrhea and there's stalls and you're not absorbing the protein that you need your body starts to you start to lose protein start to have and that's so that's so dangerous and you do need protein i i really feel that you know ways around that is even having like if they're having trouble digesting it to make soups  because there are so many digestive issues and things aren't being absorbed and they're selling you know tablets at the vitamin store and that's they're not really broken down and you know a lot of people with living with all sort of you know they do with some of that we call that the mall center herbs that are really soothing that actually help to increase use and the digestive tract because that's it that's limited and all sort of calatinus and you can tell people even just to open up some of those capsules and put them in water so they don't have to it's more easily absorbed they should look for things that are in powder form or in a liquid because you're just you're going to absorb that so much better and other other things that can be helpful are things like glutamine powder you know glutamine palate or you can get involved and it's not expensive and it doesn't taste bad and you can put it in water you can put it in souping put it in juice it's but it specially and as you know being this group facilitator you know i've seen it you just walk in the door today you're helping people and help and getting on the right the right care and boy i think that's you know such such direction and it really is it's beautiful and that this this is a great opportunity to spread that that aware and it is it's trauma it is and you know i really appreciate the opportunity for just just all of the people out there suffering to possibly reach of our speakers provided by the yeah this provided by the c c s a gym boy he has c d s available and just just to let people know about that we're where can they get them because they really helped a lot of my patients and that they guide you through like a guided meditation and and teach you some stress management techniques also i don't know if it's current but at the time that you came to speak he was doing a study yes so it would be wonderful if people would be interested i mean  they keep it they keep it in and they they suppress it and they hold it and i think that just makes your symptoms worse and it's absolutely and you know anything they can they can help you know relax that because really when you right now it is the i get questions about grohl oil all the time but it really is a fad and you want to look for for fish oil but you have to read the bottle when it says a thousand milligrams of fish oil you need have to equal a thousand but now they even have a giant eagle i mean they have a good quality of fish oil and if people that are that are taking fish oil with digestive issues if they see like a sheen on their stalls or it's or not digest and while they might need to digest events i've dealt with it or if you take it at the beginning of the meal it will help to it absorb it absorb it better boy you've said after you've made one other statement the past that this disease needs to be discussed