What are some lifestyle changes that almost everyone with Crohn’s can benefit from?
David Poppers, MD, PhD:的生活方式的改变,我想很多of what helps patients with Crohn’s and related conditions really rings true for a number of different medical issues. Maintaining a balanced diet, having good soluble fiber, eating from the different food groups, you know, lean protein - nutritionist guided if needed. I think getting adequate sleep is crucial. We do not sleep enough, especially in the United States. Getting not only the requisite number of hours, but a good quality sleep. Good sleep, hygiene. Exercise is really important both for cardiovascular benefits, but also for maintaining lower levels of stress anxiety. It improves the motility or how well the gastrointestinal tract actually moves or contracts. It’s also sometimes, you know, if the joints are hurting, you know, low impact or, you know, or non impact exercises, especially cycling and and swimming, if you have access to those activities, can be really restorative. So very, very helpful. I think a combination of diet, exercise, especially aerobic exercise, and good quality, adequate sleep are probably the mainstays from a from a lifestyle aspect of managing this long term condition.
What are some lifestyle changes you’ve made that had an impact on your life with Crohn’s?
Tina Aswani Omprakash:A lifestyle change that I’ve made that’s really impacted my Crohn’s; I started talking a little bit about integrative health. When I talk about integrative health, I also mean looking at your entire lifestyle. And for me, that means exercise. A lot of times as patients we think that we can’t exercise. I have so much joint pain, so much bowel pain, so many bowel leaks trying to exercise. But, what I learned in the process, and I’m not a runner by any means or an athlete at all, believe me, but I think what really helped to change sort of the way that I think about Crohn’s and IBD in general is physical therapy. I started going for physical therapy after surgeries and I would ask my doctor for a prescription. It was very, very important to me because I felt like my mobility and range of mobility were limited. And they would encourage me to walk, but, I wanted more. I wanted to start stretching, and I wanted to start doing yoga and Pilates. They put me in things like pelvic floor physical therapy because I had so much perianal disease and chronic pain and chronic scarring. That pelvic floor physical therapy really helped. Even after this last surgery that I had in November to clear out bowel obstructions, I started pelvic floor physical therapy under the guidance of my doctor a month after surgery, or about five weeks after surgery, and it’s been six months since I started PT. And that PT has given me so much more mobility. I’m using the elliptical. I’m walking six to 10,000 steps a day now, doing stretches on my own, and I have to say, the mind body connection is real here. With exercising, my mental health improves, my body image improves, and with exercising, I just feel like I have control over something because my body is doing so much that’s out of my control that I can actually give myself something that my body can do. Even though it’s not like running ten miles or anything. I can do something that makes me feel good about myself, that gives me clear mental health, also makes me feel physically fit and strong again. And the added bonus of that is a lot of my chronic pain goes down. If I keep moving, I feel like I am not going to lose that range of motion anymore. It’s like that saying, if you don’t use it, you lose it. So I keep using it so that I don’t lose it.
