Hi Nutmegger,
Welcome to our internet family. My symptoms began the same way as yours — I kept coming up with what I thought was food poisoning. I would be sick for a week or 2, and then I would be fine for a while. This went on for a couple of years, and eventually I was getting sick on an average of about once a month. That's when I began to suspect that it might be something besides food poisoning.
Then one day the diarrhea started and wouldn't stop. A week or 2 of Pepto-Bismol just turned the D into black water, so that's when I finally caved in and went to see a doctor, expecting to receive a diagnosis of colon cancer. My doctor didn't disappoint me with the diagnosis, but fortunately he was wrong, and so was the GI specialist who agreed with the cancer diagnosis.
You've received some excellent responses, so I'll just address your last question:
TheNutmegger wrote:are there any other things I should be doing to prevent any further symptoms?
Most people in that situation, especially after being told by their doctor to "not worry about it", would probably never consider taking additional precautions unless the D actually became a problem. I admire your perceptiveness and your logical thinking. And you are quite correct — the absence of clinical symptoms does not guarantee that antibodies are not being produced, and inflammation is not being promoted. Uncontrolled inflammation sets the stage for the development of all types of chronic disease. Without inflammation, chronic disease cannot develop, so it appears that the best thing we can do to insure our long-term health is to minimize inflammation.
It can be extremely difficult to track down food sensitivities in the absence of clinical symptoms, but sometimes it can be done by avoiding a food for a while, and then reintroducing that food into the diet again. Sometimes this will prompt a clinical response. It doesn't always work, though, depending on the length of time the food is avoided, the residual level of antibodies, and the current status of certain parameters within our immune system . The surest way to track down food sensitivities to which we are asymptomatic is to order a stool test from EnteroLab.
By doing that, I found out that even though I was asymptomatic to casein (dairy), I was producing antibodies to it. Because of that test result, I didn't have to wonder whether I should cut it out of my diet, that decision became a no-brainer. After I did that, my osteoarthritis faded away, so clearly I wasn't totally asymptomatic (initially, I was only considering GI symptoms). The bottom line is that the proper diet changes can sometimes correct health problems that we may not even associate with food sensitivities, and in some cases, the changes may resolve health issues that we may not even be aware of, especially those that might loom in our future if we don't make changes long before that day arrives.
And everyone who mentioned stress is right on target, of course. Stress is not only a primary cause of MC, but an essential part of the development of any autoimmune disease, IMO. Anything we can do to minimize stress in our life will go a long way toward not only preventing relapses of MC, but also the prevention of the development of other AI diseases.
Again, welcome aboard, and please feel free to ask anything.
Tex
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