Quick tips for a Crohn’s disease flare up

No matter what we try and do with diet, there will always be times when you will still have a flare up due to stress or other events outside your control

Many people will have different advice from all angles of life when dealing with a flare up, but here are mine…

I immediately switch to my safe only diet, removing any foods that I know are a risk, even if they were okay a few weeks ago. If things are particularly bad then I’ll consider moving to a liquid only diet with something like Huel.

Take time off work. Quite often a flare up can be caused from work stress, and it’s super easy to disregard this with “I can’t take time off”, “people need me”, “I have a deadline “ etc etc. Trust me, your employer/clients/colleagues are going to much prefer you to take a few days now rather than weeks or months if you don’t get on top of it now.

Reconsider social events. Don’t necessarily skip them and miss out, but reconsider eating out, having alcoholic drinks etc. Still go to them if you can as what it may do for you mentally can have positive benefits.

And on a related note, you need to be resting but there’s a balance to also keeping as active as you can. I find that staying in and doing nothing can make everything worse. I still make sure I go for walks and then even some yoga or a light run if I’m able which I find real helps keep everything healing.

Some easy home remedies:

• Green tea
• Keep drinking water (especially to replace lost vitamins and minerals)
• Hot water bottle
• Soak in a warm bath
• Avoid NSAID painkillers like ibuprofen