How we have treated my husband’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Crohn’s, Ulcerative Colitis

My husband started to experience symptoms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease around the age of 13. He was sick all through middle and high school but none of his doctors ever gave him a diagnosis. Sean’s grandma has IBD and Sean’s mom asked the doctor if that could be what was wrong with her son but the doctor said that teenagers didn’t get Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn’s.

At the age of 19, Sean was reaching up on a shelf to get a box of cereal and his intestines ruptured. He was in horrible pain and went to the ER. The ER took hours to determine what was going on, as he suffered. They finally figured out that his intestine was ruptured and peformed the first of many resection surgeries he would endure over the next two decades. At this point he was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.

There was no discussion of diet or food choices other than, if it bothers you, don’t eat it. The problem was that pretty much all food bothered, him so nothing was obviously a culprit of his pain.

J-Pouch Surgery for Ulcerative Colitis

In his early 30’s, Sean went through a series of surgeries to remove his large intestines and colon and build a J-Pouch. The surgeon removed his large intestines and colon and built the J-pouch in one surgery and hooked up an ostomy while the J-pouch healed. Then he had to have additional surgeries to remove the ostomy and hook up the J-pouch.

He was given a list of foods that could irritate the J-pouch and put on steroids. He was told to eat white bread and that he could generally eat anything that didn’t bother him. He was eating a Standard American Diet with a lot of processed foods and not many vegetables because they all bothered him.

When I met Sean, a few years after this surgery, his stomach would growl and gurgle whenever he ate. He was on steroids and other meds that totaled over $1500 a month. Thankfully, he had good insurance that covered most of the costs. The steroids caused him to develop osteopenia and had other significant side effects.

Diet Changes for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

I have always been a relatively healthy eater, buying organic food and eating a lot of vegetables. When Sean and I started dating, I made connections between what he was eating and his symptoms. We began by eliminating foods that trigger gas like onions, dairy, cruciferous vegetables, soy and maltodextrin. We also noticed that he reacted to food colors, especially Red and removed artificial colors from his diet. We pieced together that onion powder ripped him up and caused him a lot of pain. I cooked everything from scratch and was very careful with the ingredients I put in his food. Over the next few months, he was feeling better and his stomach wasn’t making as much of a racket every time he ate. We were encouraged by the improvements we were seeing.

Bladder Fistula Surgery that Almost Killed Him

Over the Summer, Sean began having reoccurring bladder infections. His doctor would put him on an antibiotic and it would clear up only to come back shortly after stopping the antibiotic. After much testing, it was discovered that he had a fistula between his colon and his intestines. His Gastroenterologist told us that the only option was to do surgery and referred us to the surgeon who had done Sean’s J-pouch surgery. As devastating as it was to have another surgery, especially when he was feeling better than he had in years, we were glad that Sean had a surgeon he trusted doing the surgery.

Unfortunately, the surgery went horribly wrong. The surgeon came out to talk to Sean’s dad and I after the surgery and told us that he hadn’t been able to find the fistula. He said that he had taken out Sean’s intestines and gone over them inch by inch and couldn’t find the fistula. He said that he assumed it was very small and that the tract had broken when he removed the intestines and that it would heal on it’s own because it was so small.

Over the next few days, Sean got sicker and sicker. The surgery was done on a Wednesday and by Sunday, Sean was so sick that I was afraid he wasn’t going to make it. I lobbied the nurse to call the gastro on call and he assured her that everything was normal. Sean was so sick I decided that I needed to spend the night with him. I got to the hospital about 9 pm and Sean was a horrible color and hardly acknowledged I was in the room. Around 9:30 he stood up to go to the bathroom and his would from the surgery burst open and stool came flooding out.

It was terrifying. Sean ended up having emergency surgery at 11 pm and was in the hospital for 6 weeks and on TPN nutrition for 6 months. He wasn’t able to eat anything by mouth for weeks and then was only allowed broth. We had to do wet to dry dressings in the open wound for months but it never completely healed, leaving a surgical fistula from his intestines to the surface of his stomach. Then he began to have bladder infections again because the original bladder fistula was still there. After all of the trauma of the surgery, Sean was in a worse place than he was before.

Sean’s doctor told him that he would need to go on permanent disability and would need to be on immune suppressors for the rest of his life.

After 6 months on TPN, we were told he could have a slice of white bread. After 6 months of quiet from his gut, it loudly protested the bread, making the same gurgling noise that he had made pre-surgery.

Sean’s dad has gluten intolerance and my son was diagnosed with Celiac at 18 months, so gluten intolerance or Celiac was on our radar. His stomach’s reaction to the bread seemed like a red flag for gluten. We immediately eliminated all gluten from Sean’s diet, and my own in solidarity, and began to search from something to help Sean.

We Find Dr. Bush and RESTORE for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

After unsatisfactory appointments with the local gastroenterologists and being told that Sean’s only hope was being on an immune suppressor, I began doing my own research on other, more natural, treatment options. This search led me to find Dr. Zach Bush.

Dr. Bush agreed that diet was critical to improving Sean’s health. He put Sean on a strictly organic diet, LDN and the supplement RESTORE/IonBiome (the company changed the product name but it is the exact same product.

The supplement RESTORE has been immensely helpful to my husband for his Inflammatory Bowel Disease. RESTORE helps Inflammatory Bowel Disease in many ways. My husband has been taking Restore 4 Life for about 7 years and it has made a huge improvement in his symptoms. He has also made many lifestyle and dietary changes that have helped him to get his Crohn’s under control.

How Does RESTORE/IonBiome work?

Restore helps Inflammatory Bowel Disease by sealing the tight junctions in the gut, reducing the immune system from being triggered. Much of our food is contaminated with glyphosate. Glyphosate causes leaky gut and leads to many gut-related health issues. RESTORE is a soil-derived supplement that promotes an optimal gut environment and protects the tight junctions in your gut from damage caused by glyphosate.

Restore is a carbon-rich, alkaline liquid, comprised of Terrahydrite™, a proprietary formulation of Aqueous Humic Substances and trace mineral amino acid complexes. RESTORE strengthens the protective wall in the gut lining to ensure that damaging toxins do not leak through and harm the immune system. It basically zips the tight junctions between the cells in your gut lining back together.

If you would like to read more on the results of a study Dr. Bush and his team did, click on this link to read the White Paper: The Effects of Restore Dietary Supplement on Markers of Intestinal Permeability and Immune System Function in Healthy Subjects;A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.

RESTORE has been shown in lab testing to strengthen the tight junctions proteins in the gut lining preventing toxins from going through the junctions, impacting the immune system, as much of the body’s immune system is in the gut lining. A stronger gut lining keeps undigested food and environmental elements, such as herbicides and antibiotics from leaking into the bloodstream from the intestines, so the immune system does not have to defend against these foreign “invaders.”

RESTORE was so new when Dr. Bush gave my husband the first bottle to try that our bottle didn’t even have a printed label on it. Dr. Bush wrote dosing directions on the bottle with a magic marker! We were early adopters and we are grateful that we have had the benefit of RESTORE for so many years now.

What RESTORE did for my husband’s IBD

My husband noticed an improvement in his Crohn’s symptoms very quickly after starting RESTORE. RESTORE helped him with his urgency, gut pain, and digestion. We were able to wean him off of the steroids he had been on since his last surgery.

One time, my dad met my husband to drop off our son with him. I got a call from my dad that he was worried about Sean. Sean’s color was bad and he was obviously sick. By the time Sean got home, he was so sick we were getting ready to take him to the ER. In desperation to help him feel better and avoid a hospital stay, I poured about 1/4 cup of RESTORE into a cup and gave it to Sean to drink down while I started to prepare for a trip to the ER. Within minutes my husband started to feel better. His color improved, he tends to turn a reddish/purple color when he is very sick, his pain improved and we put our trip to the ER on hold. Within an hour, he was feeling like his old self and we were sitting down to dinner instead of sitting in the hospital.

How We Use RESTORE for Crohn’s/IBD/UC

My husband has been taking 1 tsp of Restore 2-3X a day. There have been days when he hasn’t been feeling well and he ups his dose to 1 TBS multiple times a day. For the most part, with his change in diet, low dose naltrexone, the probiotic Visbiome (Amazon Link) and RESTORE, we have been able to keep my husband’s IBD under control with this regiment for the past 7 years. We have been able to keep him out of the hospital and avoiding surgery for much longer periods of time than he ever did prior to us starting this regiment.

At one point we were running low on RESTORE and were waiting on our next monthly subscription shipment. (You save 20% when you subscribe and have it shipped at 30, 45 or 60–day intervals) My son also takes RESTORE and my husband was worried about my son not getting his RESTORE so my husband decided to not take it for a few days to make sure my son had enough. Over the next couple of days, my husband went downhill. When I started to question him on what was going on, we realized that he wasn’t taking his RESTORE. We quickly ordered another bottle and got him back on it ASAP and he was doing better again almost immediately.

My husband’s gut will never be normal because of the surgical damage that was done to him and because he doesn’t have large intestines or colon. Bowel movements will never be normal because a J-pouch does not act like a colon. Frequent, liquid stools are just part of what he will have to deal with for the rest of his life. We wish that his doctors had helped him to find the triggers of his gut inflammation instead of just cutting out his intestines. But, we are very lucky that we have found a regiment that includes RESTORE to keep his symptoms under control for the most part.

My husband now owns his own transmission shop and works 50-60 hours a week. He is tired most of the time, but who wouldn’t be? Especially since the J-pouch causes him to not get the benefit of the nutrients of his food and the interrupted sleep from having to get up multiple times a night to use the bathroom, but he’s accomplishing things his surgeon never thought he could.

If you would like to read my son’s story and how RESTORE has helped him with his chronic constipation and helped to heal the damage that Miralax caused him, please read my article RESTORE for Constipation and Healing the Gut in Children.

Where to Buy RESTORE/IonBiome

If you are interested in trying RESTORE for your Crohn’s, Ulcerative Colitis or Inflammatory Bowel Disease, click this link to be taken to the Restore website, Restore4life.com. My family subscribes to Restore. When you subscribe you get 20% off each order and it is shipped directly to your house so you never run out.

Tracking your bowel movements can help you to develop a regiment that helps you to find the natural remedy for your constipation.  To get a free bowel movement tracker please click Here.

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*DISCLAIMER, I AM NOT A DOCTOR OR MEDICAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. ALL IDEAS DISCUSSED AND DESCRIBED IN THIS POST ARE MY OWN AND ARE NOT MEANT TO TREAT OR DIAGNOSE. IF YOU HAVE A MEDICAL CONDITION PLEASE SPEAK WITH YOUR DOCTOR.