- Hello Eyton,
Thank you for the nice article, I learned a lot from reading it. Could you please clarify yet one more point: is it possible to cure U.C. completely? That is - to reach a stage, when the person is not only in a long remission, but really rid of the disease till the rest of this lifetime? Have you managed to go to that stage with your patients and how would you know if you are there?
Thank you again,
Denitsa. -
- Hi Denitsa, thank you for your excellent question. This is really a question of semantics, since Ulcerative Colitis is a biomedical name for a Pitta Kapha flare up, or Damp Heat in the Large Intestine pattern in Chinese Medicine. Dosha always has the tendency to increase, so someone with a history of Pitta Kapha increase always has to pay attention to stress management and diet, just as we all do.
Getting rid of the disease for the rest of your life is possible, yes, but that does not mean that you can suddenly go back to eating fast food and not managing stress.
If you define cure as lack of symptoms, definitely possible. But even those people can back slide.
The way you will know you are disease free is that you will be able to go back to a normal healthy diet, as opposed to a more restricted medicinal diet, without any symptoms. You will have normal elimination without pain.
But it often remain the area in your body where disharmony manifests. I just recently had someone come in who I have not seen for 10 years. He was cured 10 years ago, and now has too much stress and was slacking on his diet, and he started to feel just the tiniest discomfort, so he came in for acupuncture treatment.
He had 6 acupuncture treatments and got back on track with his diet, and all is again well. The same scenario really holds true for lots of diseases from asthma to migraine even to back pain. You gotta have the healthy lifestyle that treats the disease and keeps it gone. Hope this helps! -
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Anonymous said...
- Could you advise if fasting is something you would recommend for someone who has just recently been experiencing inflammatory symptoms of the colon/intestine/rectum? If so, what kind of fast and for how long? Many thanks
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Eyton J. Shalom, M.S., L.Ac. said...
- First it depends on the specific symptoms, and dosha in Ayurveda. Kapha types can take the strongest fasting (see the
article on fasting). Pitta next, and Vatta has trouble with fasting. So check your dosha always.
Fasting does not cure IBD, but certainly one can rest the system with fasting tailored to your dosha. Almost anyone can one do a monodiet fast of kitcharee for 2-3 days or even a week, which I often recommend at the start of treatment, adapted to your dosha. I also like to use the burdock vegetable cleanse i have written about.
After that, its important to not that inflammation tends to be Pitta imbalance. So I recommend you eliminate all Pitta aggravating foods, such as hot-spicy and sour. I would recommend fasting from all refined flour and sugar, of course that is a general health guideline. Second, fasting from wheat and even gluten can be helpful in some cases. No fried food or fast food of course. Be very strict for a while with that, and, if you are a meat eater, restrict meat to bone broth and very overcooked meat in soups.
Copyright Eyton J. Shalom, M.S., L.Ac. San Diego, CA All Rights Reserved, Use With Permission Ayurveda, Acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine in San Diego http://www.bodymindwellnesscenter.com
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