Time for an experiment.
The rash is gone. GONE. Two days off dairy and it's as if it was never there. I'm purposefully eating gluten (making sure that it is dairy/casein free) and eliminating ONLY dairy to be absolutely sure that this is what's causing the problem. I'm doing this for the two weeks up until the next appointment with the Doc. I am very curious to see how the next two weeks play out.. what if all this time it's been a dairy allergy and not gluten?!?! I realize that it's quite possible, even likely, that I have issues with both, but imagine if it was only the one. Most gluten foods also contain dairy which is possibly the cause of confusion if it's only the dairy that I have issues with. What if I don't have Crohn's at all, and it's the dairy allergy that causes the ulcers? My great-grandfather had stomach ulcers and for the longest time they couldn't figure out why, and he cut out dairy and was cured. It just seems that a lot of the foods that I thought were giving me problems because of the gluten content, also contained dairy, and so what if it was the dairy all this time? My symptoms line up exactly with milk allergy, whereas I could never really wrap my head around the Crohn's diagnosis. I don't spend days upon end in the bathroom like most Crohn's sufferers. I've always felt like I wasn't a true "Crohnie" because I couldn't commiserate with other Crohn's patients. Stories of days and days of diarrhea, not making it the bathroom, the gut wrenching pain, never were issues for me. I know there are Crohn's patients out there with less severe symptoms, but even then, I've always known that my issues were directly related to the food I eat. It's so confusing and frustrating, but I feel good today and that's awesome. My back doesn't hurt, my rash is gone, my stomach is mostly calm. It's adjusting to the lack of dairy after the overload of the last two weeks, but otherwise, I feel good. So strange. And by the end of the week who knows how I'll feel?? Well, I guess I'll keep you posted!
Comments
I went through a similar thing: I only avoided the lactose in dairy at first, thinking it was that that was bothering me -- I found out later it's the protein casein in dairy that I can't tolerate (and as you know I'm sure, little bits of dairy are in a lot of things, so look out for words like "caseinate, whey, lactose...) Keep us updated on how it goes!