update on jojo

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jojogurl
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Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:38 am

update on jojo

Post by jojogurl »

hello everybody, i've missed you. i have been trying to get off the expensive meds and avoiding acidic foods. seems to work if i stick to it, and taking bismuth tablets and fiber chewables works pretty good too. just can't get past the swelling stomach but still figuring out what food i can and can't eat. thanx to "mikey" i am learning to keep track of reactions to foods. i'm definitely sensitive to anything with tomato in it. among other things. i hope this info helps others.


"Gotta Poop" :roll:

Jojo
starfire
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Post by starfire »

Hi jojo,

Glad you came back to post again.

Did you ever try anything besides the Asacol (like Entocort)?... or are you trying to get off the Asacol?

Do you still have the nausea?

I hope you will visit us again and let us know how you are doing and what is helping, etc.

Shirley
When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber"
-- Winston Churchill
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tex
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Post by tex »

Hi Jojo,

If you're regularly having gas/bloating problems, the odds are pretty high that the problem might be gluten or dairy products, (or possibly both). At least that's what many of us have found.

While it's usually safe for short-term use, be careful with long-term use of bismuth, as it can/will accumulate in your system, and eventually cause toxic effects.

As Shirley mentioned, please keep us informed on how your treatment program is working - that's how we learn what works, and what doesn't work, by reading about each other's experiences.

Tex
:cowboy:

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.
jojogurl
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:38 am

Post by jojogurl »

hi shirley and tex, thanx for the info about the bismuth, i didn't know that it has a toxic effect.there is very little gas, in fact i only have gas when i'm starting my period. i was on asacol but it was not dissolving,(coming out whole) i actually used a q-tip to see if they were just shells but they were actually the whole pills, so the dr. put me on colazal which works great but they are way too expensive for me. he also had me on entecort for 2 weeks but that didn't make a diff. so now i'm stuck. also had an ultrasound, and a mri, which found a cyst on my kidney and one on my cervix but dr. said that they aren't causing my problems. so i read all i can in this site for info and try different things, the gluten is very difficult to cut out, guess i'll have to try harder. jojo :???:
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tex
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Post by tex »

Jojo,

A few months back, I wrote up a description of how the enteric coatings on various meds used for IBDs work. You can find it quoted as the fifth post in this thread:

http://www.perskyfarms.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=46285

For the Asacol capsules to make the complete journey completely unscathed, the pH of your entire digestive tract had to be lower than 7, which is somewhat common for people with IBDs. IOW, the coating used on Asacol is a rather poor choice, IMO. It works fine for normal people, but it doesn't work worth a hoot for people with IBDs, (which seems kind of ridiculous, since it was developed to treat IBDs, and normal people have no use for it). I've heard it said that it is only the empty capsule that you are seeing in the bowl, but I believe that in most cases, just as you verified, it is the complete "pill", in it's original form, unaffected by the digestive process.

Anyway, that implies that your pancreas was not releasing enough bicarbonate into your small intestine, in order to neutralize the acid level of the contents of your stomach, as they entered your small intestine. MC seems to affect the pancreas in many patients, but medical science has apparently not discovered this connection, so far. In fact, some of our members have been told by their doctors, that their pancreas has a serious problem which needs to be addressed, but the problem always goes away, as the MC goes into remission.

Anyway, that's why the Asacol didn't work for you, and the Colazal does work.

Entocort often takes longer than two weeks to work, so your doc may not have given it enough time to work.

You're right, of course, in saying that gluten is very tough to completely avoid. If you do all your own cooking, it's not particularly difficult, and we have a "world-class" collection of mouth-watering GF recipes, in the Dee's Kitchen forum, located here:

http://www.perskyfarms.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=7

If you eat out very often, though, maintaining a GF diet can be very tough to do, and it requires a lot of diligence.
:cowboy:

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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