Crohn’s Disease Susan Goulet

workshops, and certification expenses. We encourage IYASE members to visit our website and apply.

It’s not too early to start looking for next year’s board slate. Please contact president@iyase.org if you are interested in helping us serve our members or know someone who would be a good fit.

IYASW

As the holiday season dissipated after an unusually cold and rainy winter, our delayed spring in the Southwest finally came. The Iyengar Yoga Association of the Southwest (IYASW) started 2017 with a successful membership drive. New interested members meditated while walking a healing labyrinth. February brought an amazing weekend with senior teacher Nancy Stechert at the Iyengar Yoga center in Scottsdale, Arizona. Nancy shared how to move from the periphery to the core with her gentle yet dynamic teaching. All students who attended came away eager to practice what they had learned. All appreciated her passion for the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar.

Former IYASW Treasurer (2014-2015) Meredith Smith passed away at the end of February. Meredith was an ardent supporter of Iyengar Yoga and a devoted student. He supported the

BY SUSAN GOULET or “spill over” and affect the skin, eyes, and joints.

Symptoms vary from person to person, even within our family. My sister has diarrhea, my brother constipation. Their “spill over” inflammation affects their skin. She has severe psoriasis, and he has eczema. I didn’t suffer diarrhea or constipation. My main symptom was cramping, and the inflammatory “spill over” affected my eyes, lungs, and joints. I was a graphic designer with my own business. For several years before my Crohn’s was finally diagnosed, I had chronic bouts of both iritis (a painful inflammation of the iris) and bronchitis (chronic inflammation of the lining of the bronchial tubes). With Crohn’s disease, the immune system can also attack the musculoskeletal system, leading to spondyloarthritis, a painful condition that affects the spine and joints. It was this severe joint and back pain that finally led me to yoga. growth of Iyengar Yoga in Scottsdale by being the lead donor for the yoga rope wall that was constructed in the fall of 2016 at Scottsdale Community College’s Iyengar Yoga Center. All of us in the Southwest region are saddened by this loss and will always miss him.

In March, we attended the Yoga Festival amid Sedona’s beautiful red rocks. Marivic Wrobel taught an asana class, and Karen Smith lectured on benefits of Iyengar Yoga. IYASW sponsored a booth to promote Iyengar Yoga, sell B.K.S. Iyengar’s books, and share our own passion for this style of yoga. It was an opportunity to spread the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar to yogis who may not have previously experienced Iyengar Yoga.

Our April workshop with Carolyn Belko was a success. The classes were filled with students eager to learn. We are always grateful when Carolyn comes to visit and shares her depth of knowledge and therapeutic modifications.

The yoga community is growing in the Southwest, and we are fortunate to have the support of several senior teachers to

FROM CRIPPLING PAIN TO ASTAVAKRASANA:

HOW ONE YOGI OVERCAME CROHN'S DISEASE

Crohn’s disease runs in our family. My father died in 1960 of Crohn’s complications at the age of 27. My sister,

brother, aunts, and a cousin all have Crohn’s. I was finally diagnosed in 1996 when I was 38 years old. Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease that can affect different areas of the digestive tract. However, with Crohn’s, the immune system not only attacks the gastrointestinal (GI) system, but the inflammation can spread

guide us on this journey. When I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, my ankles were black and blue and so swollen that they were unrecognizable as body parts. They resembled massive eggplants. I could barely go up and down stairs and was wheel-chaired into my hospital room. I was scoped top to bottom. The doctor informed me that he could not find one square inch of normal GI tissue. He explained that one of the problems with Crohn’s disease is that the inflammation spreads deep into the layers of the gastro intestinal tissues so that the more surface area of the GI tract that is affected, the less absorption there is of nutrients, which then leads to malnutrition and severe fatigue.

Supta Virasana with lots of support

to them. He shook his head and recommended that I start wearing high-top tennis shoes “for support.” The swimming words stopped. I had to dress to give presentations to my clients. I happened to like shoes— fashionable shoes. I was so sick that I could barely keep my head up, but somewhere inside I vowed: No eggplant ankles in high-top tennis shoes. There had to be a better way.

Before I left his office, I asked if I needed to change my diet. Were there things I shouldn’t eat? I had spent my entire life helping with my sister’s severe food allergies. I was ready for a long list of forbidden foods. Instead, he said gently, “You will know.”

I went home, propped up with prednisone, an anti-inflammatory steroid, and sat down to a generous bowl of smooth, creamy frozen custard. I lived in Wisconsin, the dairy state. Even with all the prednisone, the cramping was unmistakable. I tried pasta. Ditto. No dairy. No wheat. No corn. No grains. I had stopped eating meat decades before. It had never agreed with me. My new diet of fish, cooked vegetables, and fruit did not save me. I was still getting sick with Crohn’s flare-ups, bronchitis, and iritis. I went on and off the prednisone and all sorts of maintenance medications. My joint and back pain worsened.

That was 20 years ago, before the internet. Yoga was not popular or mainstream, particularly in the Midwest. When I met my first yoga teacher, Maria, we were both wives at a university department gathering. She taught yoga classes a few blocks from my home. I had only vague notions of Indian mystics in odd positions, yet she assured me that yoga could help my back. I was so clueless and Maria’s South American accent so thick that I didn’t realize until my fourth class that she was NOT saying “Downward Duck!”

I mention all of this because after doing yoga for so long, it’s not always easy to remember just how foreign and odd yoga can appear to a new practitioner, particularly one who is in pain and fearful. Maria was a new teacher, not yet certified. She had just started training with Lois Steinberg who gave her a Crohn’s sequence. I had spent the previous couple of years hunched over, my arms folded and hugging my stomach in a permanent protective grip against the acute abdominal and bronchial pain, and there I was on the floor, spread open and tied up with a bolster under my back— Supta Baddha Konasana.

The second pose was even more foreign— rope Sirsasana. I watched in disbelief as my tiny, lithe, young teacher scrambled up the wall and flipped upside down. Are you kidding? She

hung there, gesturing, “See how this pose stretches out my abdomen. It will make you feel better.” Cold liquid fear flooded my body. I didn’t go upside down. I stood there frozen and terrified and then everything fell away. My only thought: No high-top tennis shoes.

Maria wrapped and tied me up in blankets and pushed me up the wall. I was too weak to pull myself up. During my initial fullblown panic, my hands clenched in fists around the ropes. I waited. The ropes did not snap. Minutes went by. I gingerly let go. Gradually, I could feel my torso lengthening. Suspended, I drifted in and out of this new netherworld and then, the unmistakable sensation of a clump of intestines unknotting.

That was the beginning.

I learned my bolster poses: Supta Baddha Konasana, Supta Swastikasana, Supta Virasana with lots of support and Setu Bandha Sarvangasana— all poses to help me relax AND lengthen my abdomen. When I felt stronger, I did my standing poses at the wall. At home, I did Ardha Chandrasana at the kitchen cabinets, my elbow on the counter, my top hand on my pelvis, rolling it open. For my back, I practiced Ardha Uttanasana with my hands on the counter. Ugh!

Sometimes, the universe works in mysterious ways. Maria taught at a dance studio. It was a mixed-level class, and as a favor to the owner, her yoga classes were free to the dancers, which is how I found myself sandwiched between two eighteen-year-old ballerinas. I was in knee length plaid shorts trying to do Uttansasana, my finger tips only reaching my knee caps, and these flexible little Gumbies folded completely in half, their torsos glued to their legs. They were sprites, reminding me how beautiful the human body could be.

Several classes later: Chaturanga Dandasana. Sometimes not knowing is a gift. However, my senior teacher, John Schumacher, always says yoga puts you face to face with your stuff. Maria demonstrated the pose and then gave us directions. “Lie down on the floor. Place your hands by your waist. Roll your shoulders back, etc., etc. And lift off!”

Nothing lifted off— except my nose. Worse, I was surprised that nothing lifted. I put my head down. Maria rattled off points to get us ready for our next attempt. Tears came to my eyes. Through all of the illnesses, the medications, the doctor’s appointments, I still did not fully, truly comprehend just how sick I had been and how weak I had become. The Gumby ballerinas flanked me. People 10 and 20 years my senior were readying themselves for their next successful attempt. I let the moment sink in. So, this is where I am. This is where I start. I had one more turning point in my early days. Even though I always felt better after my yoga class, after awhile I let my graphic design deadlines have priority. I missed classes and got sick and sicker. I spent the Christmas holidays horizontal on the couch. Finally, while sitting in yet another doctor’s office, waiting for an appointment, I realized, it takes time to be sick. The time I wasted in doctors’ offices, I could have spent in class. I was only kidding myself thinking if I worked harder, the work would get done. There would always be projects piled up. I would never get “done.” So I made up my mind— my first mantra of sorts, even though I didn’t know it at the time. No matter how tired I felt, no matter what aches and pains I had, I told myself I was going to get my ass to class. I did not allow myself to have a choice. All bundled up in the dead of Wisconsin winter, I crunched through the ice and snow, muttering to myself, “Just get your ass to class.”

That winter, after another round of prednisone, I started going to four classes a week. I was determined. No high-top tennis shoes. No more horizontal holidays. As my practice gained momentum in class, my mantra also gained ground. “Get your ass to class” became, “Get on the mat. Every day. No matter what.” I started a home practice, of sorts. In the beginning, it was only a few poses. After a year of my new class regimen and my burgeoning home practice, I told my doctor I wanted to get off the maintenance drugs. They had so many side effects, I had to go in every two months to get my liver checked. He didn’t advise it, but I never looked back.

I went with Maria to my first workshop with Manouso in Chicago. I had never seen so many people doing yoga. We did standing poses for hours. My thigh muscles turned to molten lava. During the Q&A, she asked him about yoga and Crohn’s. He said, “Parsva Pindasana.” She told him I didn’t do Padmasana. He said, there’s no time to lose. In the car, on the way home, Maria told me how I could use sand bags on my

Managing Symptoms People with Crohn’s disease all have different symptoms and will need their own sequence, depending on how they feel in any given moment. Are they just achy or in a full-blown flare-up— with or without cramping, diarrhea, or constipation? Often with Crohn’s, there is a lot of fatigue because the body is not absorbing nutrients. In the beginning, I did everything supported, and then later, whenever I was having an off day, I went right back to my supported poses.

For cramping: Bolster poses such as Supta Baddha Konasana, Supta Virasana, hanging Sirsasana and Setu Bandha over bolsters. Hold each pose for seven to 10 minutes. With cramping, I wanted to create space in the abdomen. Forward bends never felt comfortable for me, even supported ones.

For constipation: Absolutely no twists and do all poses supported. Hanging Adho Mukha Svanasana, Prasarita Padottanasana, Ardha Chandrasana at the counter or trestle with the upper hand opening the pelvis, rope Sirsasana, bolster poses to extend the abdomen (Supta Baddha Konasana, Supta Virasana, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana), chair Sarvangasana, Ardha Halasana with feet to a chair so the abdomen has space, and Viparita Karani.

For diarrhea: Bolster poses (Supta Baddha Konasana, Supta Virasana, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana), Viparita Karani and Savasana over a boslter. Absolutely no twists.

I had to learn what poses to do depending on how I felt that day: what energy level I had, my joint pain, my abdominal pain. The “bolster poses” were my go-to poses when I was sick. Later, when there was no flare-up or discomfort, I did supported standing poses and beginning twists to start strengthening the GI tissues. I did the Sarvangasana cycle with longer stays in Parsva Halasana. Still later, beginning abdominal poses helped strengthen my abdomen.

Iyengar Yoga gave me the tools to relieve my pain, unknot my intestines, and strengthen my immune and GI systems. every joint is in pain, it’s hard to move into more pain.

thighs in Supta Baddha Konasana. I had seen her do it at the studio so I went straight home and made them out of zip lock bags and garden sand.

After two years of classes, Maria and her husband relocated to gave me faith in Iyengar Yoga.

the east coast and the dance studio moved to the west coast. Her other yoga students asked me what I was going to do about the situation. I knew all of them because I had been taking all of her classes. Six months later in October 2000, I opened the Milwaukee Yoga Center (MYC). Within a year, we had outgrown the space. I opened the larger MYC with two studios in 2002. All the while, I trained with Chris Saudek and Lois Steinberg and John Schumacher. After paying off the studio expenses, I transitioned from graphic design to teaching yoga full time.

For 20 years, I’ve been medication-free and symptom-free. Susan Goulet (Intermediate Senior I) runs the Milwaukee Yoga

Over the years, I’ve talked to dozens and dozens of people with Crohn’s disease— people who say they want to get well, but they don’t pick up a yoga practice, they don’t change their diet. now I think I do. Unlike taking pills, a yoga practice takes time and effort— months, maybe years, before there is real, major healing. And let’s face it, a yoga practice is not pain free. When

Maybe I was actually lucky that my medication was not helping. The specter of living my life with eggplant ankles in high-top tennis shoes and the reality of my father’s death lit a fire inside me. Others may be managing symptoms enough with their medication that they don’t want to let go of what they know— pain, medication, doctors— and reach for what they don’t know. There was no guarantee that a yoga practice was going to work for me, but hanging there in that first scary, shaky rope Sirsasana, suspended in that netherworld of not knowing, it was the palpable sensation of a clump of intestines unknotting that

They don’t change. For a while, I could not understand why, but Center as well as the vegan, grain-free, gluten-free, cane-sugarfree, peanut-free, whole-plant, no-added-oil Blooming Lotus Bakery in Milwaukee, WI.