Eight Key Steps to Heal Ulcerative Colitis Using Natural Remedies

What Is Ulcerative Colitis*

Colitis is a bowel disease (an inflammation of the inner lining of the colon), resulting in pain, loose bowel movements or diarrhea, loss of bowel control, and intestinal bleeding (blood in the stool). There are over ten types of colitis, with the most common being ulcerative colitis, ischemic colitis, microscopic colitis, and infectious colitis. Causes of colitis include bowel disease, infections, poor blood supply, and autoimmune reactions.

After healing myself of serious gastrointestinal disease, consulting with people with all types of colon and bowel conditions for over ten years, and answering thousands of questions on my online forum, I have become internationally recognized as an expert on natural remedies for colitis. Even if you have tried every colitis treatment available without success, dont give up hope my natural remedies for colitis have helped tens of thousands of people worldwide, and my books are sold in over 40 countries.

L.R., California, USA

I have had Crohn's Disease for four years now and the prescription drugs have done nothing to help the up and down cycles of the disease. Jini's book 'Listen to Your Gut' helped me a great deal...

"I have had Crohn's Disease for four years now and the prescription drugs have done nothing to help the up and down cycles of the disease. Jini's book 'Listen to Your Gut' helped me a great deal and through that I learned of the IBD Remission Diet which lead me to the Absorb Shakes. Having been on the Shakes for 4 weeks now, I have put on weight and feel better than I have in years. This better feeling is also a cleaner one because I am weaning myself off the drugs as I continue on the shake diet. There has been a sea change in my stomach since four weeks ago when I was on the verge of another flare. The taste is outstanding and when mixing up the day with broth and jello, there is a slight reluctance to return to regular food. What I am most grateful for is knowing that there is another avenue to maintain health and stem flares rather than steroids. This is a product I will continue to use for life."

PLEASE NOTE: This is the short version of these treatments, to get more details, dosages, etc. please sign up for my free COLITIS QUICK-START GUIDE in the pink box at the top left side of this page.You'll receive Chapter One of Listen To Your Gut, my in-depth Probiotics Teleseminar, top reader questions - and my answers, and a list of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) resources.

In 1989, I was skeletally thin, weak and wracked with pain - unable to eat almost anything without suffering colonic bleeding and cramping. Despite their best efforts, the medical profession was unable to help me. Feeling tortured and determined to heal myself, I began a seven-year mission, researching and experimenting with alternative and indigenous (native) healing therapies.Natural Colitis Treatment

Years of research and experimentation led me to discover eight key steps that nearly everyone with a bowel syndrome needs to take in order to heal their gastrointestinal disease quickly:

1.Provide bowel rest using a special elemental (pre-digested) liquid diet

2.Kill off the bad bacteria and fungus in the gut (disease-causing organisms)

3.Re-populate the gastrointestinal tract with good bacteria

4.Heal intestinal inflammation and ulceration

5.Resolve nutritional deficiencies

6.Detox your living environment

7.Heal the contributing emotional factors

8.Balance your hormones

By the time people find their way to my colitis treatment protocols (treatment plans), their bacterial flora is usually unbalanced throughout their gastrointestinal tract. The repeated use of antibiotics (often since childhood) and the invasive medical diagnostic tests alone have destroyed much of the good protective bacteria in their small and large intestines. When the good, protective bacteria are depleted, then disease-causing organisms like yeast (Candida albicans), viruses, parasites, and bad bacteria flourish.

This excess of disease-causing organisms causes inflammation and damage to the mucosal lining, resulting in leaky gut syndrome - a condition where undigested food particles and bacteria seep into the bloodstream, triggering allergic reactions and infection in other places in the body (the joints, skin, eyes, etc).

Lets look at each of these eight key steps to heal colitis in more detail. Or you can watch this video as I walk you through each step:

1. Resting the Bowel

In extreme cases, the best and fastest way to heal colitis is to go on an elemental liquid diet (as outlined in my book, The IBD Remission Diet) in order to rest the bowel, eliminate any foods that trigger inflammation, and heal the underlying infection and inflammation in the digestive system. An elemental liquid diet is also a good idea if you are very malnourished or underweight, or if you have ongoing intestinal bleeding, intestinal obstruction, stricture in the colon (narrowing), or blockages.

In 2002, I formulated a liquid diet supplement shake especially for those with colon and bowel disorders, Absorb Plus. Absorb Plus is a delicious elemental (pre-digested) nutrition and protein shake made of the highest quality natural ingredients. Absorb Plus requires very little digestion and is absorbed quickly by the body, nourishing even those who have difficulty eating and/or digesting solid food.

If you don't require anything as drastic as an elemental liquid diet, then just follow the appropriate Healing Diet (in Chapter 3 of my first book,Listen To Your Gut) for your symptom profile, while following the other steps below. If you do start with an elemental liquid diet, then begin the rest of the protocols below at the same time. If you can tolerate it, the multi-pronged healing approach is the quickest natural treatment for ulcerative colitis.

The great news is that a number of my readers have tested using raw milk (unpasteurized milk from pasture-fed cows, goats or camels) instead of Absorb Plus for their elemental diet, and if they can tolerate it, they show great improvement. Others have used a combination of Absorb Plus and raw cow or raw goats milk. However, people in extreme disease states can usually only tolerate an elemental shake product, like Absorb Plus - which has both the casein and lactose removed from the whey protein version.

Vegan Elemental Shakes - Your other option, if you cannot tolerate whey protein isolate, is to use a vegan elemental shake. We have put together these Vegan Elemental Diet Kits specifically for that purpose.

Food-based Shakes - Alternatively, if you cannot afford any kind of specialized shake or supplements, then check out my article on how to Use Common Foods To Heal IBD.

2. Killing Off The Bad Bugs

To get rid of disease-causing bacteria, viruses, yeast, mycobacteria (MAP - a bacteria/fungal hybrid) and parasites in your gut, use Jinis Wild Oregano Oil Protocol (see Chapter 2 of Listen To Your Gut). If you have a mycobacterial infection, you will need to cycle on and off the colitis treatment protocol for 2 to 3 years to get rid of all the mycobacteria as they have an inactive/active lifecycle.

People generally start with Jinis Wild Oregano Oil Protocol and then after completing the first round of treatment, move to high dose, therapeutic probiotic (good bacteria) supplementation. Remember, they have already begun probiotic supplementation with my Wild Oregano Oil Protocol, so their system doesnt usually have much difficulty making the change to high dose probiotics.

3. Re-Populating The Gut Flora

Probiotics for colitis treatment must be taken in a powerful bioavailable (able to be absorbed and used by the body); the bacteria must be capable of colonizing (multiplying in and sticking to) the gastrointestinal tract, and they must be taken in high enough amounts to have a therapeutic effect. Based on clinical trials, you need to take a minimum of 7 to 10 billion CFU (colony-forming units) of each species, per day. Learn how to choose a potent probiotic for therapeutic use, so that your probiotic will actually be capable of shifting your bioterrain (or gut flora) - sign up for my Probiotics Teleseminar in the pink box on the left hand side of this page.

However, if your inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is in a very active state, or you are highly sensitive to probiotics, then start out with small amounts and very gradually build the dose up. In these cases, it is often best to start with an infant species of bacteria called B. infantis and then gradually work your way up to the adult species like L. acidophilus, B. bifidus and L. bulgaricus.

Note: If you are having more than 3 bowel movements per day, then dont take anything in capsule form (probiotics or supplements) as when you have very loose bowel movements the travel time through the gut is too fast for them to be properly absorbed and used. In that case, you need to take powder or liquid supplements, or open the capsules and dissolve them in liquid.

Once you can tolerate high, therapeutic levels of probiotics (and many can right away) then the best colitis treatment results are seen from probiotic layering. This means you take both the powders and the capsules to maximize the beneficial effects of each, and then perform Jinis Probiotic Retention Enema where a probiotic enema is held in your colon until all the liquid is absorbed, so the probiotics can immediately begin to colonize the large bowel, without having to go through the digestive tract.

4. Healing Intestinal Inflammation and Ulceration

While the steps above greatly contribute to the healing of intestinal inflammation and ulceration, targeted herbal supplementation is also a highly beneficial natural ulcerative colitis treatment for more rapid healing.

If you have ongoing bleeding from the colon, then use Jinis Healing Implant Enema, MucosaHeal and Georges Aloe Vera Juice, along with an elemental liquid diet. If bleeding is mild or sporadic, take MucosaHeal along with Georges Aloe Vera Juice and L-glutamine. Probiotics are also very helpful, along with the appropriate Healing Diet for colitis (from my book Listen To Your Gut).

5. Resolving Nutritional Deficiencies

Here are the nutritional supplements that I believe pretty much everyone with colitis disease needs to take, because of increased loss of nutrients through loose bowel movements, diarrhea and/or lack of absorption of nutrients:

Each of these supplements (see the SUGGESTIONS column on the left) is vital for healing the various symptoms of colitis, and they also work synergistically (better together) to accelerate healing. These are the exact products that I recommend for natural colitis treatment (which have been tested for tolerance by thousands of my readers with colon and bowel disease). If you don't want to order online, copy down the names and get your local health store to order them in.

Note: If you are having more than 3 bowel movements per day, take powder or liquid supplements only, or open the capsules and dissolve them in liquid.

When, after using the various Healing Diets, therapies and supplements in Listen To Your Gut, your digestive tract is healed to the point where you can properly digest and absorb the nutrients from your food, then you continue onto my Maintenance Diet for ongoing bowel and colon health. Many people follow the Maintenance Diet guidelines for their entire family as a common-sense way to eliminate toxins and damaging additives from your food.

6. Detoxing Your Living Environment of Causes of Colitis

A major part of healing colitis involves reducing and eliminating (as much as possible) the toxins in your life that you sense are harmful to you. You need to become aware of all the elements of so-called normal life that are actually toxic ulcerative colitis causes, and create an environment that supports healing not one that works against your efforts.

In Chapter 4 of Listen To Your Gut, I take you through every room in your house and show you how to create a safe and supportive healing environment in your home. What pans are you cooking with? How much electromagnetic radiation is in your house? What elements of your home are giving off harmful chemicals while you sleep? The Workbook (on the CD-Rom) provides a step-by-step checklist, to make this process easy.

7. Identifying and Healing Emotional Causes of Colitis

Over 60% of your bodys neurotransmitters are not in your brain, but in your gut! (see Dr. Michael Gershons book, The Second Brain to learn more about this). There is now an entire field dedicated to this emerging knowledge about the interrelation of the mind, emotions and the digestive system, called neurogastroenterology.

This is not airy-fairy stuff - this is hard science. Consider blushing a purely emotional event that instantly produces a marked physical reaction. That's just one example of how the mind/emotions and body are inextricably linked. If you dont heal the psychological and emotional causes of colitis, then you will never have long-term health. Its really that simple.

In my experience, the most effective mind/body therapies to treat colitis and other colon and bowel disorders are EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), hypnotherapy and craniosacral therapy (at Level II or higher). You need to work with a skilled therapist, at least initially, to really see good results. And its best if you can use a therapist who is experienced with chronic illness like ulcerative colitis; which is more complex than regular illness.

8. Balancing Your Hormones

If you have had colitis symptoms for longer than eight months, or if you have taken any kind of steroid or immune suppressant drug, then it is highly likely your thyroid gland is not functioning properly, and quite likely your adrenal glands arent either.

Ideally, you should see a doctor who specializes in hormone balancing and have your endocrine system (glands that produce hormones) tested properly. You should then follow a natural hormone supplement program tailored to your specific needs. However, since we have seen that many people either cannot afford to do this, or just cant seem to find the time or energy to do it, I'll give you a shortcut that is likely to help in most cases.

Endocrine specialist, Jonathan V. Wright MD, has developed a holistic endocrine supplement called Thyroplex. He reasons that you should never just treat one gland in isolation since they are all linked like dominoes. Therefore, you need to support the entire endocrine system to return to balance. Many of my readers with ulcerative colitis see very good results from taking Thyroplex (there is one for males and one for females). Women with colitis usually also benefit from taking natural progesterone cream (1/4 teaspoon rubbed into the soles of the feet once a day).

This is a shortcut endocrine treatment that usually benefits most people with symptoms of colitis and other bowel and colon disease. But again, it is definitely recommended that you see a doctor who specializes in hormones to have your individual situation assessed properly.

Do All 8 Steps Together

And there you have it! If you implement each of these eight steps, you will benefit from the fastest, most thorough natural ulcerative colitis treatment available today. The key is to do all eight steps preferably all at once without skipping over any of them. Step-by-step guidelines including targeted Healing Diets, self-assessment tests, symptom guides, and more are given in my book on using natural treatments for disease of the bowel, Listen To Your Gut.

Despite being diagnosed with a serious gastrointestinal disease in 1984, I have not taken drugs or surgery for over 20 years, but have successfully healed myself using the natural methods I developed. You may heal colitis more quickly and get faster relief from adding these other additional supplements as needed:

FissureHeal relieves anal/rectal fissures; HemorrHeal helps heal internal or external hemorrhoids; wild oregano oil treats fistulas (inflamed tunnel between the anal canal and the skin); L-glutamine, bentonite clay, and psyllium seed treat diarrhea (MetaCleanse), and Intestinal StrictureHeal or hot castor oil packs relieve pain or intestinal obstruction.

In order to be truly freed from the oppression of colitis, you need to take the time to address and heal ALL of the contributing factors and underlying ulcerative colitis causes. Read these examples of people's Healing Journeys for personal evidence of how well my natural colitis treatment has worked for other colitis sufferers.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a very short version of these treatments, to get the more details, dosages, etc. please sign up for my free COLITIS QUICK-START GUIDE in the pink box at the top left side of this page.You'll receive Chapter One of Listen To Your Gut, my in-depth Probiotics Teleseminar, top reader questions - and my answers, and a list of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) resources.

*LEGAL DISCLAIMER - This website (including any/all site pages, blog posts, blog comments, forum, videos, audio recordings, etc.) is not intended to replace the services of a physician, nor does it constitute a doctor-patient relationship. Information is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should not use the information on this website for diagnosing or treating a medical or health condition. If you have or suspect you have an urgent medical problem, promptly contact your professional healthcare provider. Any application of the recommendations in this website is at the reader's discretion.Jini Patel Thompson and Listen To Your Gut Enterprises Inc.are not liable for any direct or indirect claim, loss or damage resulting from use of this website and/or any web site(s) linked to/from it. Readers should consult their own physicians concerning the recommendations in this website.

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Eight Key Steps to Heal Ulcerative Colitis Using Natural Remedies