Do you know how you got MC?

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lando
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Post by lando »

Nope, don't know how I got it at all. It surprised me.
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Post by mzh »

I had the worst case of flu ever back in Feb 2002; it was so bad I asked God to take me "right now." He said "No, not yet."

It took a month for me to get out of bed and stay up a while. The D started during that flu bout but my MC started in a bad way 6/6/02. I don't generally remember dates well but I do this one!
Also have sleep apnea
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kayare
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Post by kayare »

I had all of the classic symptoms of gluten sensitivity from childhood through young adulthood. I don't really remember when the C turned to D, cramping, bloating, and shear misery. It was some time in my mid 40s that I started taking Imodium every day.

What I do know is that in early 2009, I also had the worst flu of my life. My daughter wanted to go to the flea market in the morning. After an hour, I told I didn't feel well and was ready to go home. I came home and did housework for 30 minutes. I laid down and didn't leave my room for the next eight days. (I have never missed more than two days of work in a row in more than 30 years for illness.) The only thing I was able to keep down were sips of apple juice. I sent my children to stay with relatives. My daughter peeked in once, crying, and asked if I was going to die. I told her no, but thought that anyone who was very young, elderly, or sick wouldn't survive. I absolutely know that I have not been the same since.

My level of denial was high. It wasn't the daily D, the arthritis, or the balance issues that sent me for a colonoscopy at 50 years old. I got to the point that I had D with bleeding, and I had to abruptly leave my class unattended three days in a row that finally got my attention.

So, I think my MC was a combination of many factors including diet, stress, and illness.
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hoosier1
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Post by hoosier1 »

I have always had GI issues. Way back in my college days, I recall having some problems, but nothing like now. My heralding event was back in 2007 I think. My wife and I both ate some rotisserie chicken from a local supermarket. And that very evening, we both grew very ill. 3 days later, my immunocompromised wife got better, while I ended up in the hospital for a week - on bowel rest. I really though I was going to lose my colon that week (sadly, I feel more that way now). I often wonder why my wife responded better than I did after eating the tainted chicken. And I think that as a result of her bone marrow transplant several years prior, her donor's "immune system" must have something to do with it. It successfully eliminated the lymphoma from her body that her own immune system let grow uncontrolled. Perhaps it also presented a higher level of resistance to the effects of the spoiled chicken? Not sure, but by all accounts, she should have been just as ill as me, if not more so. Interesting...
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Post by healthydesire »

gluten wrote:Hi Healthydesire, Did your friend ever tell you what his ailment was? Jon
No, Jon, I didn't. He was my rebound after my divorce. When it became mutually agreed we weren't meant for each other, we just parted ways. We kept in touch on facebook for a while but that is it. I think he fully recovered from being sick. What got him didn't stay with him.
close your eyes...make a wish~**
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Post by healthydesire »

My heart breaks for you both, Kayare and hooseir1 as well as many others who have shared their stories.

Thinking back to the time I got sick, I was also going through a divorce, shortly after being sick, I lost my job and totaled my car. I was so stressed my hair started falling out. I think now that perhaps the illness along with the chronic stress that was in my life probably got me stuck in an autoimmune situation.

Like many said here, I think I genetically was probably predispositioned to this.

Tex, I like your answer on the gut. makes sense. I'm in school for the medical field right now and find everything I'm learning fascinating and frustrating. Why do our bodies one day decide to attack ourselves?
There are so many autoimmune diseases out there. Diabetes Type 1, psoriasis, allergies, arthritis.

If someone found the cure for correcting our bodies cells from attacking ourselves they'd be zillionaires.
close your eyes...make a wish~**
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tex
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Post by tex »

Well, if you've read chapter 16 of my book, you should know that I believe that the reason why our immune system attacks our own body is already known. And while there's no cure, there's certainly a way to prevent autoimmune-type diseases from ever being triggered in the first place (IMO). And while this method might not be 100 % effective (nothing is ever 100 % effective), it should be close enough, for all practical purposes.

The key is to avoid gluten (and any other food sensitivities that cause our bodies to produce antibodies), keep serum vitamin D3 levels well up in the sufficient range (to keep the immune system healthy), and avoid (or at least minimize) chronic stress situations. That's all it takes. There's nothing magical about it — it's just common sense, and simple, eloquent, common sense solutions almost always beat complex and convoluted solutions. But this plan has to be followed before the genes that predispose to those diseases are triggered. Once a disease is triggered, the best we can do is try to control the symptoms.

As I point out in chapter 16, what doctors refer to as autoimmune diseases are not actually autoimmune diseases (that is, they are not self-perpetuating, in and of themselves). That observation is easily demonstrated by the fact that withdrawing gluten from the diet not only stops the production of antibodies against gluten (gliadin), but it also stops the production of the anti-tissue transglutaminase antibodies that are the diagnostic markers for an autoimmune disease. Clearly, if the withdrawal of an exogenous antigen from the diet can terminate the production of anti-tissue transglutaminase antibodies, then the reaction is not against "self" after all — the reaction is against the exogenous antigen.

Ergo, these diseases are not true autoimmune diseases after all, because they cannot remain active without the presence of the exogenous antigen that caused them to develop in the first place. Note that all of the so-called autoimmune diseases that you listed are closely associated with gluten sensitivity and/or other food sensitivities, vitamin D deficiency, and chronic stress.

Best of luck with your studies. I hope that you will be able to enjoy a long and productive career in the medical field.

Tex
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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.
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