An outcomes page is normally where a clinic prints a number. This one does not, and the omission is deliberate.
We have no published aggregate outcome data for Crohn's disease with a stated sample size and a stated method. Because we do not have it, we will not put a figure on it. Our own site previously carried a success-rate claim that nobody could substantiate; it has been removed everywhere it appeared. A figure that cannot be checked is not evidence — it is decoration, and in a condition as serious as Crohn's it is worse than saying nothing.
What we can do instead is tell you exactly what we measure, when we look at it, and what a real response is shaped like — closely enough that you can hold us to it, and walk away from us if it does not happen. That is a harder promise to make than a percentage, and an easier one for you to test.
The five markers we actually track
These are the five things recorded at every review. They are chosen because they move in a recognisable order, and because a patient can report them honestly without a laboratory.
1. Stool frequency and urgency. Not just how many times a day, but how much warning you get. Urgency — the loss of the interval between the signal and the need — is often the single most disabling feature of Crohn's, and it is the marker that most reliably tracks with what the bowel lining is actually doing. A patient whose frequency is unchanged but whose urgency has returned to something survivable has changed, and we log that as change.
2. Blood in stool. Present or absent, and if present, how often and how much. This is the most objective symptom a patient can report themselves. It should reduce before pain does. If it is increasing at any point, that is not a plateau and it is not part of a process — it is a reason to contact your gastroenterologist.
3. Abdominal pain — severity and pattern. Pattern matters as much as severity. Pain that used to be constant and is now episodic has changed even if the peak intensity is the same. Pain that is unchanged in pattern but is now tied to specific foods has also changed. Recording only a severity score loses both of those.
4. Fatigue and energy. Fatigue in Crohn's is not laziness and it is not only anaemia. It reflects inflammatory burden, absorption, and sleep. It is one of the earliest things to shift, which is precisely why it is useful — it is an early signal that the system is under less load, well before the bowel itself has repaired.
5. Medication load. The dose and frequency of steroids, biologics and immunomodulators you are taking. This is the marker that matters most in the long run, and the one no symptom diary captures. Two patients can look identical on symptoms while one is holding that position on a steroid course and the other is not. A reduction in medication load, made by your prescribing doctor, is the outcome we are working towards. We do not make that reduction, we do not ask you to make it, and we do not treat a self-made reduction as a result.
What we do not lead on
We do not lead on "feeling normal", and we do not judge the treatment by any single symptom disappearing.
This is the same position our skin hub takes on clear skin, for the same reason. The most visible, most longed-for endpoint is the last thing to move. It sits downstream of every other repair. If you judge month two by whether you feel normal yet, you will conclude that nothing is working at exactly the point where the underlying inflammatory load has started to fall — and you will stop something that was working.
So we make the order explicit in advance. Feeling normal is an outcome. It is not a milestone, and it is not a checkpoint we ask you to measure us against early.
The objective markers your own doctor tracks
Your gastroenterologist tracks things a symptom diary cannot see: faecal calprotectin, CRP, haemoglobin, albumin, and whatever imaging or endoscopy your case calls for.
Our position on these is unambiguous.
- We work alongside those markers. We do not replace them, we do not reinterpret them, and we do not offer a parallel set of measurements to substitute for them.
- We ask every Crohn's patient to stay under gastroenterology monitoring for the entire duration of our protocol, and to keep the scheduled bloods, the scans and the scopes.
- We never ask a patient to stop medication, taper a medication, or skip a review in order to "give the treatment a fair chance". Any change to prescribed treatment is a decision for the doctor who prescribed it.
Calprotectin trending down while symptoms improve is a meaningful signal. Symptoms improving while calprotectin climbs is a warning, and we would rather find that out from your consultant than not find it out at all. Being monitored by someone who is sceptical of us is not a problem for us. It is the point.
When we judge it
The EPOH protocol runs the LIFES sequence: Lowering the Load (Phase L, oral), then Internal Healing (Phase I, oral), with Functional Clearance (Phase F, oral) running largely alongside Phase I, External Care (Phase E, topical, at home) where relevant, and Sustaining Remission (Phase S, tapered oral) at the end. Even in a gut condition, Phase L comes first — mobilising load before the system can clear it makes the condition worse, not better.
Recovery Stage 1 — Internal Shift (weeks 1–4). What should move first is not the disease. It is digestion, sleep and energy. Bloating settles, appetite becomes predictable, sleep deepens, the flat exhaustion lifts a little. Stool frequency may or may not have changed yet. This stage tells us Phase L is doing what it should.
The Partial Improvement Plateau (weeks 3–6). Improvement stalls. Nothing gets worse; nothing gets better. Almost every patient reads this as failure, and it is the most common point at which people quit. It is not failure. It is the signal that Phase L has done its work and Phase I should begin — the load has come down as far as load reduction alone will take it, and the repair phase has not yet had time to show. We tell every patient about this plateau before it happens, so that when it arrives it is a confirmation rather than a collapse.
Recovery Stage 2 — Reduced Frequency (months 2–4). This is the stage where the disease itself should start to change, not just how you feel. Fewer episodes. Fewer bad days per month. Blood, if it was present, becoming intermittent rather than routine. If nothing has moved on the five markers by the end of this window, that is a real finding, and it belongs in an honest conversation about whether to continue — not in a reassurance.
Recovery Stage 3 — Reduced Severity (months 4–8). The episodes that remain are shorter and less severe. Pain shifts from constant to occasional. This is typically the earliest window in which a prescribing gastroenterologist might reasonably begin to look at medication load.
Recovery Stage 4 — Stable Remission (months 8+). Stability is only assessed here, over time, against symptoms and objective markers and medication load together. Nothing before this window is called remission by us, however good the patient feels.
What would change this page
If we ever publish real aggregate outcome data for Crohn's, it will appear here — with its sample size, its method, its follow-up window, and the patients it excluded. Until that exists, we will not put a number on it, and you should treat any clinic that does without those four things as having told you nothing.
Next step
A video or WhatsApp consultation is where the five markers are recorded as a baseline and where your case is assessed honestly. Formulations are couriered to you. There is no procedure, no in-clinic therapy, and no clinic visit at any stage — and you stay under your gastroenterologist throughout.
