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I'm having a relapse- not a big nasty one but back to D a couple/three times a day with some bloating and slight cramping. I have been eating the same foods as before with 99% of them whole foods- cross contamination is possible in my kitchen however with gluten.
Last week though I was prescribed an estrogen vaginal cream and four days later the flare started. The reason I am trying the cream is that the hormonal effect is supposed to remain fairly localized although the initial dose is daily to be tapered after a week. Do you think it's likely that the cream could have caused the flare or should I suspect I've been "glutened" somehow?
I'm sure it just happened because I have been off the board for a month and missed you guys
Sorry to hear that you're having a flare. If there is any wheat flour in the house, then cross-contamination is a definite risk. I had the same problem myself, a couple of years ago. The flour dust drifts and settles everywhere, whether we can see it or not.
The most likely cause of your current flare, though, is the estrogen treatment. Several members here have been unable to achieve remission until they discontinued their HRT. Even transdermal patches caused the problem, and made achieving remission impossible. And as you are probably aware, pregnancy never has a neutral effect on MC symptoms. It either makes the symptoms much worse, or brings temporary remission. Therefore, we can only conclude that MC is very sensitive to hormonal influences, and the effects are often unpredictable.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Interesting. I use a low dose estrogen "ring" that I think is very similar to what you are using Nettie..... I can't say I noticed a difference in symptoms when I started it though......hmmmmmmm.
Thanks for weighing in guys. Yeah either is possible, my husband bakes a lot with wheat flour and makes a big mess that I usually end up cleaning up after. I guess my next recourse is to stop the estrogen cream and get the flare under control. Once I get that done then I am going to reintroduce the estrogen and see if it happens again. I'll report back after my little experiment for any of the other ladies on the forum can benefit. Interestingly enough Tex, when I had psoriasis badly back when I was 25 and got pregnant with my only child- it went into complete remission for the entire 9 months and I was blissful. Five months after my son was born I was hit with the full blown psoriatic arthritis. Definitely some kind of hormone link there.
Nettierud wrote:Interestingly enough Tex, when I had psoriasis badly back when I was 25 and got pregnant with my only child- it went into complete remission for the entire 9 months and I was blissful. Five months after my son was born I was hit with the full blown psoriatic arthritis. Definitely some kind of hormone link there.
I totally agree. Thanks for the insight into that experience.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Hi Nettierud,
I can't do HRT and I'm convinced it was at least "part" of what caused my CC...or at the very least made it worse. However, I do use a vaginal cream and I have not noticed having any issues with it. I have been also been told it stays local. I am very careful to not get the cream elsewhere on my body. Hope you're feeling better!
ladyathome wrote:Hi Nettierud,
I can't do HRT and I'm convinced it was at least "part" of what caused my CC...or at the very least made it worse. However, I do use a vaginal cream and I have not noticed having any issues with it. I have been also been told it stays local. I am very careful to not get the cream elsewhere on my body. Hope you're feeling better!
Well that's promising about the cream, hopefully it will not be the cause. Thanks for the well wishes, I'm having a tough day unfortunately...tried soup for lunch but now I am cramping and a bloated so I think I'll just skip supper.
This one was mushroom with a carrot juice base and I tolerated it okay this spring but I forgot and put cannellini beans in it so I suspect that caused the upset. It's so black and white with remission and flare isn't it? Last week I was eating nothing but greens and beans and fruit and now I suppose it all is off limits again.
Today is WD so I'll have to get seriously diligent. I'm supposed to go on a bus trip to a ball game on Saturday afternoon and it's going to be tough if I can't slow this down.
I don't know how Pepto-Bismol works for you, but when this has happened to me a couple of times, I go back on the protocol. I have been lucky that it has helped from the first time I read about it on here. I have been on it again for about five days now. I think my issues were from some cheesy popcorn I ate from a gas station stop on a trip last week. It must have had gluten or soy...I was trying to make it to my destination before eating. I was hungry so I opted for popcorn, but I didn't read the stinking label! I'm starting to get back to normal today. I don't know if it's the antibiotic effect Tex talks about or what, but so far, it seems to calm things down for me.
It's been two and a half months since my last flare...I had to do another course of Pepto for 4 weeks to get things back into remission and so I was reluctant to do the experiment with the Estrace cream again for awhile. But I have been back on a daily dose for the past week and no signs of the D recurring, I'm going to taper the dosage back now and stay on it and see how it goes.
Hopefully the problem in August was just a gluten cross contamination issue like it appears.
I was thrown into a flare switching from Prempro to biodenticals. Three days of Claritin ready tabs kicked me out of the flare and I'm still on bioidenticals.
Sorry, I somehow missed your update post the first time around. In view of your experiences, my guess is that you might have been exposed to trace amounts of gluten back when you first tried this in August, and while the small amount of gluten may not have been enough to trigger a reaction, it managed to provide enough background inflammation to cause your immune system to be much more sensitive than normal. Consequently, when you introduced the Estrogen-based cream, it was enough to tip the balance, and trigger a reaction. If you hadn't already been pre-sensitized by traces of gluten, the cream might not have triggered a reaction. IOW, the combination may have been the problem, rather than the cream by itself.
I'm glad that you finally have things going your way. Thanks for the update.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Nettierud wrote:It's been two and a half months since my last flare...I had to do another course of Pepto for 4 weeks to get things back into remission and so I was reluctant to do the experiment with the Estrace cream again for awhile. But I have been back on a daily dose for the past week and no signs of the D recurring, I'm going to taper the dosage back now and stay on it and see how it goes.
Hopefully the problem in August was just a gluten cross contamination issue like it appears.
Hi Nettie,
Thanks for the update and I'm glad that you're doing better!
