Lymphocytic colitis and body ache
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Lymphocytic colitis and body ache
I have had severe body ache that comes and goes for the last 2 yrs. Been to dr over and over and they couldnt find anything. About 3 months ago i started having very bad watery diarreah 2 weeks later lower abdomen cramps on both sides above my hip bones. Went to gas dr and had stool sample, blood sample, ct scan and colon ostomy. Diagnosed with lymphocitic colitis. Today i am having the body aches and i cant handle pain well it gets me mad cause it interferres with things i want to do. Is there a chance the 2 are related r could it be something else causeing the 2. Thanks
Hi Trey,
Welcome to the board. Yes, the aches and pains are a side effect of this disease, even though many doctors do not realize that there is a connection, because of the original medical description of the disease. The aches and pains are due to the leaky gut syndrome, (LGS), which often develops along with this disease. Normally, the tight junctions, (the junctions between cells in the lining of the intestine, known as the epithelia), remain closed, and open only wide enough to allow selected nutrients, (individual amino acids), to pass through, into the bloodstream, to be distributed where they can be utilized by the various cells of the body. With LGS, though, peptides, (partially-digested amino acid chains of intermediate length), are allowed to pass into the bloodstream, and when these are deposited into various organs and joints in the body, they cause inflammation, (since they shouldn't be there), resulting in the aches and pains that you are experiencing.
The peptides which normally cause the problems for those of us with MC, (CC, or LC), are typically found in gluten, casein, (the primary protein in all dairy products), and for about half of us, soy. Some have other food sensitivities which can cause similar problems. Our solution is to eliminate the offending foods from our diet, 100%, and as our gut heals, the symptoms will slowly go away, along with the diarrhea.
Certain anti-inflammatory drugs can also be used to help reduce the symptoms, but they do not prevent the inflammation from occurring in the first place, they just reduce it after it occurs, meaning that without the proper diet changes, such a medication must be taken indefinitely, in order to maintain remission. Many of us use both a medication and diet changes, in order to get our life back.
Again, welcome aboard, and please feel free to ask anything.
Tex (Wayne)
Welcome to the board. Yes, the aches and pains are a side effect of this disease, even though many doctors do not realize that there is a connection, because of the original medical description of the disease. The aches and pains are due to the leaky gut syndrome, (LGS), which often develops along with this disease. Normally, the tight junctions, (the junctions between cells in the lining of the intestine, known as the epithelia), remain closed, and open only wide enough to allow selected nutrients, (individual amino acids), to pass through, into the bloodstream, to be distributed where they can be utilized by the various cells of the body. With LGS, though, peptides, (partially-digested amino acid chains of intermediate length), are allowed to pass into the bloodstream, and when these are deposited into various organs and joints in the body, they cause inflammation, (since they shouldn't be there), resulting in the aches and pains that you are experiencing.
The peptides which normally cause the problems for those of us with MC, (CC, or LC), are typically found in gluten, casein, (the primary protein in all dairy products), and for about half of us, soy. Some have other food sensitivities which can cause similar problems. Our solution is to eliminate the offending foods from our diet, 100%, and as our gut heals, the symptoms will slowly go away, along with the diarrhea.
Certain anti-inflammatory drugs can also be used to help reduce the symptoms, but they do not prevent the inflammation from occurring in the first place, they just reduce it after it occurs, meaning that without the proper diet changes, such a medication must be taken indefinitely, in order to maintain remission. Many of us use both a medication and diet changes, in order to get our life back.
Again, welcome aboard, and please feel free to ask anything.
Tex (Wayne)
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.
Probably. Sometimes MC presents as constipation, rather than diarrhea, and sometimes it involves alternating D and C, (it did in my case). Some people even have no significant digestive system symptoms at all, (asymptomatic), and yet biopsies will show the characteristic lymphocytic infiltration which is a marker of LC. If you had no digestive symptoms at all, that would be rather uncommon, but the connection would still be a possibility, because some people with gluten-sensitivity develop neurological symptoms years before their digestive issues ever show up. Therefore it's likely that other systemic symptoms could begin before digestive system issues appear. In fact, there are a few people who are known to have severe neurological symptoms due to gluten-sensitivity, and yet they never seem to develop digestive system symptoms.
When my symptoms initially started, for a year or two, I thought that I was either having relapses of a severe case of the flu, or I was regularly having food poisoning problems, because I would be sick as a dog, and then I would be OK for a few weeks or so, before going through the cycle again. I would have severe aches and pains that would diminish when the diarrhea stopped, but some of them were almost always present. For example, my neck was almost always stiff and sore, and I developed a type of arthritis that caused my knees to be so inflamed that I had to use a cane to walk. Some of my finger joints became extremely inflamed, and those fingers began to grow crooked and twisted, and one elbow was so inflamed for half a year or so that I had to wear a pad on it, because if I accidentally bumped it while working, the pain would bring me to my knees. That all happened about a year or so before the diarrhea started one day, and wouldn't stop.
Tex
When my symptoms initially started, for a year or two, I thought that I was either having relapses of a severe case of the flu, or I was regularly having food poisoning problems, because I would be sick as a dog, and then I would be OK for a few weeks or so, before going through the cycle again. I would have severe aches and pains that would diminish when the diarrhea stopped, but some of them were almost always present. For example, my neck was almost always stiff and sore, and I developed a type of arthritis that caused my knees to be so inflamed that I had to use a cane to walk. Some of my finger joints became extremely inflamed, and those fingers began to grow crooked and twisted, and one elbow was so inflamed for half a year or so that I had to wear a pad on it, because if I accidentally bumped it while working, the pain would bring me to my knees. That all happened about a year or so before the diarrhea started one day, and wouldn't stop.
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.