Monthly Archives: June 2016

Turmeric as an anti-inflammatory

Crohn's, Health

Yesterday I had my follow-up appointment with Erin. As I’ve said before, Erin is a Nurse Practitioner. She can do pretty much anything an MD can do, but is nicer. So anyway, I’m just going to refer to her as my doctor.

I expected that this post would be about the questions and answers around going on Humira and that was mostly what my appointment was about. Erin was great at explaining how Humira works on Crohn’s and answering my questions about side effects, costs and alternative treatment approaches. But there was one small detail that stood out for me. When I asked her about diet she mentioned that turmeric had been shown to be an effective anti-inflammatory agent.

“What?!?” This took me aback because she has been very much toeing the party line of western medicine. She’s given me straight answers about the body of research around Crohn’s and the treatments for it. So if she would even mention something that you can buy in the health supplement section of HyVee, there must be something to it.

I did some research and it turns out that this little rhizome has some pretty impressive health benefits.

What is turmeric?

Turmeric, the spice, is made from the rhizomes and roots and bulbs of the turmeric plant. turmeric is a relative of ginger and the rhizomes look very similar to ginger rhizomes, but when cut open they are bright warm yellow on the inside. It is a main ingredient of curry and is used in many asian cuisines. It’s what gives the yellow color to curry dishes. It has long been known for it’s medicinal qualities and is a major part of Siddha medicine of Southern India.  Incidentally, my daughter Quinn was WWOOFing at Hale Akua farm on Maui, where the main crop is turmeric. The Hawaiian word for turmeric is ‘olena, which is also the word for yellow.

Curcumin is the compound in turmeric that gives it it’s health benefits. This article from the University of Maryland Medical center is a good list of curcumin’s benefits, from indigestion to heart disease, and the state of research into each.

Needless to say, as soon as I got home from the doctor, I headed over the HyVee and got a bottle of turmeric capsules.

 

Colonoscopy

Crohn's, Health

golytlelyColonoscopy day, everyone’s favorite day. Mine was last week. I’m lucky I get to have one every five years instead of the recommended 10 for those of us over 50. Thanks again, Crohn’s disease. There are few things easier to put off than having a camera up your ass. In fact I was about 3 years behind (no pun intended) schedule, so of course I was sure that there was some nasty malignancy brewing in there, undetected because of my procrastination.

For those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure, this might be hard to imagine, but the procedure itself isn’t bad at all. The start out by shooting you up with Versed and Fentanyl. Which is to say they send you to Happyland. Besides you get to watch the live video of the journey up the poop chute, it’s almost like science fiction.

No it’s not the rubber tube being threaded up my ass that I dread. It’s the prep. They want your colon to be squeaky clean when they make their entry. If you’re going to go diving for treasure you want it to be in a clear spring fed river, not a murky Minnesota mud lake. So the day before you get to fast and flush. And by flush I mean drink a gallon of a foul-tasting liquid that has the most ironic product name in the universe, Golytly. There is nothing lyte about it’s effects. As the instructions say, “Expect to experience diarrhea, stay near a toilet.” Even a person like me, with forty plus years of Crohn’s, will be shocked by the purgative effects of this intestinal rocket fuel.

After the fun part was over and it was time to move on to the procedure itself, I got an extra bonus dose of discomfort. It’s become aware that I’m a difficult subject for I.V. poking. It’s hard to find a usable vein in my skinny arms. It took three tries to get me hooked up. The first two nurses failed so they had to call in the top gun to do the job. Maybe they could have had the expert go first. Just sayin’.

This time around the captain of the anal explorer wasn’t my usual G. I. doc, because we wanted to get in as soon as possible. Since my usual butt surfer is a guy not much younger than me, I was expecting a younger person, but when he showed up he looked like a clean-shaven Santa Claus. Maybe young people just aren’t taking up anal exploration as a specialty anymore.

So the spelunking began, the camera went into the cavern, some polyps were found and clipped off and everything seemed to go just fine. I got the report the next day that the polyps were just from inflammation, they weren’t malignant and would not become malignant. So good news. The bad news is that because there was active inflammation, they were unable to take biopsies for an assessment of the Crohn’s disease progress. It’s kind of funny how the report stated it. It said a follow-up would be required, but a couple of paragraphs down it said “This is an optional procedure.” OK, I pick the “not doing it” option.

Tomorrow I have a follow-up appointment with Erin, the NP that I saw a month or so ago. She’s going to give me the Humira pitch. I’m going to be a tough sell.

I’d love to hear suggestions for questions to ask about treatment options.