I had an occasional flare but did really well eliminating gluten, soy & dairy. My last flare was terrible & my potassium went down to 2.3 & I was hospitalized. I was started on budesonide taper & just feel horrible. The nausea is rough & the diarrhea has not improved. I'm now 73 & still work full time (remote since Covid) & just want to sleep & watch Grey's Anatomy. Should I taper faster...lol!!!??? I never found any drugs to be helpful & I'm a mostly noncompliant nurse practitioner...Love & light, Rita/BabciHelp & Hi!!!
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Help & Hi!!!
I was diagnosed in 2005 & Tex & Polly & many more saved my life! I had an occasional flare but did really well eliminating gluten, soy & dairy. My last flare was terrible & my potassium went down to 2.3 & I was hospitalized. I was started on budesonide taper & just feel horrible. The nausea is rough & the diarrhea has not improved. I'm now 73 & still work full time (remote since Covid) & just want to sleep & watch Grey's Anatomy. Should I taper faster...lol!!!??? I never found any drugs to be helpful & I'm a mostly noncompliant nurse practitioner...Love & light, Rita/Babci
I had an occasional flare but did really well eliminating gluten, soy & dairy. My last flare was terrible & my potassium went down to 2.3 & I was hospitalized. I was started on budesonide taper & just feel horrible. The nausea is rough & the diarrhea has not improved. I'm now 73 & still work full time (remote since Covid) & just want to sleep & watch Grey's Anatomy. Should I taper faster...lol!!!??? I never found any drugs to be helpful & I'm a mostly noncompliant nurse practitioner...Love & light, Rita/BabciGluten, Dairy, Eggs, Soy & borderline yeast
Re: Help & Hi!!!
Hi Babci,
Long time no see. I'm sorry to hear about your flare. I had the same type of reactions, With severe nausea and potassium deficiency, way back before I figured out that my diet was the problem, and like you, I ended up in the emergency department. I didn't realize that MC depletes magnesium. It took me more than a few years to figure it out, and my doctors were no help on this, but I eventually figured out that I had a chronic magnesium deficiency. I was taking a magnesium supplement, but it was the wrong type, and insufficient. Once I increased my magnesium supplement, and switched to magnesium glycinate (which is much easier to absorb), my nausea (and other) symptoms promptly disappeared. I now take 300 mg of magnesium glycinate every day, divided up as a 100 mg tablet after each meal.
However, I doubt that the magnesium is going to resolve the diarrhea. Something else is apparently going on there. If you can't get the diarrhea to settle down by making absolutely sure that your diet doesn't have any possibility of being cross-contaminated with traces of gluten, you may have developed bile acid malabsorption (BAM). We've discovered that in most cases where the diarrhea does not resolve with the appropriate diet changes, BAM is the problem. Polly discovered a research paper that showed that 40% of all cases of diarrhea that don't respond to conventional treatments are due to Bam.
If BAM is your problem, then experimenting until you find the proper dose of cholestyramine should resolve the diarrhea. Most of us have the best luck, by far, with the Sandoz brand of cholestyramine. But for MC patients who have just started a recovery diet, the diet must be followed long enough to resolve the inflammation from their food sensitivities, before the cholestyramine will work. Most people who try cholestyramine, try to use it too early in their recovery, and when it doesn't work, they give up on it. It has to be used after all of the food sensitivity issues have been resolved.
I hope your symptoms will resolve soon.
All my best,
Tex
Long time no see. I'm sorry to hear about your flare. I had the same type of reactions, With severe nausea and potassium deficiency, way back before I figured out that my diet was the problem, and like you, I ended up in the emergency department. I didn't realize that MC depletes magnesium. It took me more than a few years to figure it out, and my doctors were no help on this, but I eventually figured out that I had a chronic magnesium deficiency. I was taking a magnesium supplement, but it was the wrong type, and insufficient. Once I increased my magnesium supplement, and switched to magnesium glycinate (which is much easier to absorb), my nausea (and other) symptoms promptly disappeared. I now take 300 mg of magnesium glycinate every day, divided up as a 100 mg tablet after each meal.
However, I doubt that the magnesium is going to resolve the diarrhea. Something else is apparently going on there. If you can't get the diarrhea to settle down by making absolutely sure that your diet doesn't have any possibility of being cross-contaminated with traces of gluten, you may have developed bile acid malabsorption (BAM). We've discovered that in most cases where the diarrhea does not resolve with the appropriate diet changes, BAM is the problem. Polly discovered a research paper that showed that 40% of all cases of diarrhea that don't respond to conventional treatments are due to Bam.
If BAM is your problem, then experimenting until you find the proper dose of cholestyramine should resolve the diarrhea. Most of us have the best luck, by far, with the Sandoz brand of cholestyramine. But for MC patients who have just started a recovery diet, the diet must be followed long enough to resolve the inflammation from their food sensitivities, before the cholestyramine will work. Most people who try cholestyramine, try to use it too early in their recovery, and when it doesn't work, they give up on it. It has to be used after all of the food sensitivity issues have been resolved.
I hope your symptoms will resolve soon.
All my best,
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.
Re: Help & Hi!!!
Hi Tex, As always, you are the man!!! While you were sleeping, lol, I was catching up!!! Being 17y older than when I was DX sure doesn't help!!! It was cool to read my old posts...I am thinking I should start by getting tested again & am intrigued by the addition of MG. I'm still mainly eating vegan & now am having issues with beans....Must say it was wicked cool to get on here & find old friends...Love & light, Rita
Gluten, Dairy, Eggs, Soy & borderline yeast