A Writer's Life Interrupted #crohns #uc #ibd

​Meet Ubiome, a new website for us citizen scientists to take advantage of in regards to #Crohn's, #UC, #ibd and even #IBS. I sent my specimen  in a week and a half ago and was anxiously awaiting my results. 

As my last post showed, I am in the middle of a flare and I do not want to go back on drugs like Remicade and other TNF blockers. I decided to take advantage of Ubiome's testing before I went back to my GI doc because I wanted to have something in my hand that might suggest a different approach. 

Imagine my shock when I downloaded my results.  What I was looking for was probiotics in my gut. I wanted to see what I needed vs what I had and how to make it better. The teal block is the average person. I am orange. Kinda hard to miss.

​HOW IS IT I HAVE NO PROBIOTICS IN MY BODY?

There is no arguing scientific test results so I guess I don't have any. The question now is, is it the Crohn's that has destroyed my defense system or is it the lack of probiotics that is giving me a Crohn's flare? The worst part is that my results  cover all probiotics not just the best or most common ones.  Now I eat, but admit my eating hasn't been the best lately as tolerating food has been difficult. But I am still eating so I should have some, right? 

Nope. Not a one. 

I also have a lot of very rare bacteria: 

UNIQUE BACTERIA
Bacteria name
Rank % of Samples

Allobaculum Genus0 .7%
Acetivibrio Genus 1.0%
Mitsuokella Genus 2.9%
Aggregatibacter Genus 4.7%
Megamonas Genus 6.5%
Acetanaerobacterium Genus 8.9%
Candidatus Stoquefichus Genus 10.5%
Butyrivibrio Genus 11.5%
Synergistaceae Family 14.9%
Synergistales Order 15.0%

Number of Very Elusive Bacteria: 10 (Bacteria found in fewer than 5% of all samples)

These are the 10 bacteria in your sample that are found least frequently in our results. Sometimes these bacteria exist in such small numbers that they are difficult to detect. Others may be more common in some parts of the world, but rare in other environments.
​
 I have no idea what that means in relations to Crohn's disease.  Due to that,  I just moved on. 

Today, I learned about fermenting food. I went to the store and grabbed sauerkraut, pickles, and plain Greek yogurt. I also bought salt and fermenting yeast. I have my first batch of carrots fermenting now. I drained the yogurt to remove the sugar and had my first taste this afternoon. I normally do not do dairy, but when I discovered I don't have the bacteria in me to digest diary vs being sensitive to it, I figured sometimes you have to go through the pain to get the gain.  

Tomorrow I'll set up my follow up appointment and take my results with me. In the meantime, I'll be eating fermented foods to hopefully build up my probiotics. I'd rather do it naturally than with pills since most of the pills don't make it through the gastric juices anyway. 

Here's to health!