“I Wondered If How I Felt Had Anything to Do With Food”
The day before Larry Geyer met dietitian Susan Linke, his doctor told him he needed surgery to remove 16 inches of his colon. Geyer, then in his mid-60s, had been in treatment for Crohn’s disease for a decade. But it was only when the threat of surgery loomed that he sought out new opinions about how he might manage his IBD with fewer drugs and no scalpels. At the time, Geyer was taking multiple prescriptions for Crohn’s and Type 2 Diabetes.
“I wondered if how I felt had anything to do with food. I noticed when I ate certain things, I got sicker,” says Geyer. He googled “dietitian and Crohn’s” and called five registered dietitians that morning. Susan Linke was the only one to pick up the phone. It was a Saturday.
Unlike other healthcare providers Geyer had up until this point, Linke, who is a registered dietitian, embraces a holistic approach to treatment. “The medical field is divided in two, with traditional medicine that focuses on a pill for every ill on one side, and those that take a more integrative approach on the other,” says Linke. She is firmly on the integrative side of the divide.
“During that first conversation, she asked me if I felt well enough to go to the grocery store to buy salmon and potatoes,” remembers Geyer. He did, and the effects were almost immediate. “I started feeling better within 24 hours,” he says.
"I started feeling better within 24 hours."
Linke remembers using that first call to teach Geyer some of the basics of eating to quell inflammation—a driver of Crohn’s symptoms. “I suggested he avoid processed foods, dairy, and red meat, and focus on nutrient-rich whole foods like fish and vegetables,” she says. But, Linke stresses, there is no one-size-fits-all anti-inflammatory diet.
“Some people react to turmeric, even though it’s the number one anti-inflammatory food out there,” she says. For this reason, Linke recommends a blood test that pinpoints food sensitivities for her clients.
On her advice, Geyer underwent Mediator Release Testing (MRT), which measures an individual’s inflammation response to 170 foods and food chemicals. “From that test, I got a chart that told me what to eat and what to avoid,” says Geyer. “Turns out a lot of things I had been told to eat for my diabetes weren’t so good for me after all.” Bananas, dairy products, tilapia, squash, and lettuce were all flagged as triggers by the MRT. Before getting his results, these foods had been staples of his diet.
While anecdotal evidence for the effectiveness of the MRT isn’t hard to find, there have been no peer-reviewed studies validating it. Insurance typically doesn’t cover it, and most doctors won’t mention it to patients. Some doctors and dietitians warn that the results can cause unnecessary food phobias and insist the test won’t tell you anything you can’t learn with a detailed food and symptom diary.
Linke also referred Geyer to a new gastroenterologist, a doctor whose approach was more in line with her own. Treatment that focused on food was exactly what Geyer wanted from his care team. “Do I miss chocolate milk and ice cream? Yes. But I don’t miss what they were doing to me,” says Geyer. He focuses on the foods he can enjoy that help him feel his best. Salmon has replaced tilapia as his fish of choice. “I’m from the Pacific Northwest. Salmon is in my blood.”
Geyer cooks much more now than he ever did before. “My wife is Mexican, and she used to do all the cooking, but now we’re in the kitchen together a lot,” says Geyer. They make fish tacos these days instead of beef or pork. “I don’t eat a lot of meat anymore.”
Between the results of MRT and his own experience with how specific foods make him feel, Geyer has learned well what to eat and what to avoid. “One brand of bread can cause a problem, while another is OK. Potato bread and rolls are great for me,” he says.
This nutrition-first approach has been so successful for him, he doesn’t find it hard to stay on track. He also splurges a little sometimes, especially if his grandchildren are around. “We make chocolate chip cookies together, and I can have one,” he says. “Once in a while, it’s OK.”
Like many people with IBD, Geyer went decades without a diagnosis, not knowing what it was like to not be in pain. Now, all that has changed. He knows he still has Crohn’s disease, but he says he’s never felt better. “I owe it to Susan. I think she saved my life,” he says.
Originally Appeared on Epicurious
