GF guy worried and with questions.

maestraz · Post by **maestraz** » Sun May 15, 2011 3:38 pm

HI QUINCY,
Welcome to this group, from which I have learned much since my recent diagnosis. I have also stopped Celebrex, and am weaning off Celexa, and I have noted improvement. My doc says that if I feel I need to continue an antidepressant, Wellbutrin would be the other choice. Personally, I am not convinced that gluten is an issue for me, though I continue to eat it rarely. for me, dairy and soy seem to be more problematic. I haven't done the testing that some others have done. Like you, I was a little dumbfounded with my diagnosis. I definitely feel like meds were a factor for me.

quincy · Post by **quincy** » Sun May 15, 2011 4:37 pm

Well I tried Celexa and I had many problems with it. It was a shock to find myself needing the SSRI in the fist place,but I guess my serotonin levels must have been non existent as much of it is produced in the gut, and I found myself in a terrible funk of anxiety and depression the likes of which I had never experienced before. I found Prozac worked really well for me after a doctor advised me to try it. My friends and family literally had to come to my house and watch me take it cause I was so against that drug and all the stigma around it. I am doing some searching now and I see that Prozac is prescribed for people with Crohns and perhaps UC, though I am still reading now.

what was interesting was when I went to my first celiac support group meeting, alot of people were talking about WHICH ssri was working for them, not WHETHER they needed one or not.... this whole thing has been an eye opener. I must say I went through a long period of wellness on that med and I messed it up when I tried to wean myself off and thats when all went haywire...

thanks for the welcoming and support Suze...!

Zizzle · Post by **Zizzle** » Sun May 15, 2011 4:59 pm

Quincy,
There are numerous threads on this forum about SSRIs, some very recent. One member , "Naty", improved considerably after changing meds. Just in case, I'll mention the last class of drugs implicated in MC -- PPIs (Prevacid, Nexium, etc for treatment of GERD).

quincy · Post by **quincy** » Sun May 15, 2011 5:49 pm

oh great, thanks Zizzle. you reminded me that I was taking omeprazole (half doses) when GERD started acting up over the last month or so. wow, everything is interconnected it seems. I will search on this site here about which meds are better than others. I prefer not to use them but until my Vitamin D, B6, and fatty acids improve I am afraid I need the artificial way to increase serotonin for now. The vitamin D levels were down to 11 and my most recent reading was 23, so I still have a little more to go to get to optimum levels of D. and this is after a year on Drizdol (50,000 IU's of D2).

thanks so much.

Q.

Pat · Post by **Pat** » Sun May 15, 2011 7:21 pm

A friend of mine just recently told me that she had been on vit D for quite awhile but her levels had not really come up much.. Her doctor sent her to an endocrinologist and he said that omeprazole intereferes with the absorption of vit D. He told her to take Zantac.

Pat

quincy · Post by **quincy** » Sun May 15, 2011 8:43 pm

thanks for that info. omeprazole interferes with many other meds apparently.I usually take zantac but I had some omep. left over so took half doses from time to time the last few weeks. probably big mistake. it messed up my gut flora most likely then triggered further by other things.

waiting on my most recent Vit D results. I am hoping i am getting close to 32 which is the minimum of the reference range....

Post by **tex** » Sun May 15, 2011 10:28 pm

Rich,

The reason why I doubt that a CT scan can reveal the collagen band thickening caused by CC, is because collagen band thickness is measured in micrometers, (µm), or microns, for short. Normal thickness is less than about 7 µm, so anything over 10 µm is usually considered to be a marker of CC. Typical collagen band thickness for CC is in the 20 to 40 µm range, and rarely twice that. Since one micron is 39.37×10^−6 inches, 25 microns would be approximately a thousandth of an inch.

Note that a normal colon wall never exceeds 3 mm in thickness, so that any measurement that exceeds 3 mm, is evidence of disease. Therefore, a CT scan can be used to detect a diseased colon, but it typically can't discriminate between diseases. Note that the thickness of the collagen layer when CC is present is roughly on the order of 1 or 2 percent of the maximum thickness for a healthy colon wall. Obviously, measurements in that range would be somewhat difficult to accurately assess in a CT scan. Consequently, that suggests that some other physical parameter is probably responsible for the significant change in thickness of the colon walls that we are seeing in the CT scans.

http://radiology.rsna.org/content/145/2/415.full.pdf

http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/176/5/1105

Tex

Linda in BC · Post by **Linda in BC** » Mon May 16, 2011 12:37 am

Hello Quincy, and WELCOME to the board!!

I am sorry you had to find us, but you have come to the right place for info and support in your current challenge. I don't have a lot to add, but I am thinking you might be lucky and once you stop the SSRI's and NSAIDs, maybe you will see an improvement. Hopefully you don't have MC.

Best regards,

Linda

hoosier1 · Post by **hoosier1** » Mon May 16, 2011 6:25 pm

Tex,

What other "physical parameters" do you think explain the bowel wall thickening in CT? I just read the two articles. Thanks. Chrons and UC create bowel thickening too. Wonder what joe's CT scans look like. Joe, you out there?

Now wouldnt the biopsies taken to confirm LC also show UC or Chrons if it was occurring too?

I just wonder if this bowel thickening is the primary reason I have PFD type symptoms. I wonder if I am multifactorial.

Ponderous.

Thx

Rich

Post by **tex** » Mon May 16, 2011 8:22 pm

Rich wrote:What other "physical parameters" do you think explain the bowel wall thickening in CT?

Well, we're talking about inflammatory bowel diseases, and one of the symptoms of inflammation is swelling. Right? Inflamed tissues swell, as a direct result of the infiltration into the gut wall, by various types of inflammatory cells, (such as eosinophils, macrophages, lymphocytes, plasma cells, and inflammatory proteins such as cytokines, etc.). This infiltration causes thickening of the bowel wall, which in turn interferes with the digestion of food and absorption of nutrients. I'm pretty sure that this infiltration is the primary cause of the bowel wall thickening that occurs with the IBDs. I note, however, that it apparently never occurred to the CT technician, nor to the GI doc, that the severe thickening of my colon, that was noted in the scans, might be due to an IBD, because they made no mention of any such possible connection in their reports.

Rich wrote:Now wouldnt the biopsies taken to confirm LC also show UC or Chrons if it was occurring too?

Definitely, in fact, the doc doing the exam can usually see the evidence during the exam, because the lesions are macroscopic for Crohn's and UC, (in addition to the microscopic markers).

Tex

quincy · Post by **quincy** » Tue May 17, 2011 2:28 am

My ct scan concluded that the wall thickening was "most consistent with diffuse colitis", which is basically what Tex is saying - inflammation. From all that I have
gathered so far I might have created the perfect storm of drug induced MC by simultaneously taking PPI, NSAID, and SSRI. WOW...... have to say though, one shot of pepto and the loose bowels stopped.

hoosier1 · Post by **hoosier1** » Tue May 17, 2011 4:53 am

Quincy,

That's good news about the Pepto. I never had such luck. Some on this forum have had good luck with continued, high dose Pepto - taken for 8 weeks I believe. Of course, dietary changes are required for long term improvement.

Rich

Linda in BC · Post by **Linda in BC** » Tue May 17, 2011 12:33 pm

Although some doctors used to say that there were reports of people getting rid of colitis wiith pepto, as far as I know, no one here has reported being "cured' by the pepto regime. Just a temporary relief of symptoms, which predictably return when the pepto is stopped. I tried it.. no luck.

Linda

sarkin · Post by **sarkin** » Tue May 17, 2011 12:38 pm

Linda,

I bet the folks who were 'cured' by Pepto had drug-induced inflammation. So the Pepto helped with the disaster brought on my the drug, and if that drug was a temporary prescription, it would have been out of the system by the time the Pepto regime was done. So the real 'cure' was removing the cause (duh!), but Pepto took home the gold medal.

Nothing wrong with symptom relief - definitely helped me in my first couple of weeks. I actually 'tapered' off it over the course of some days, because I was afraid to make any drastic changes. I didn't take it for eight weeks, but did start out with 8/day.

--Sara

Linda in BC · Post by **Linda in BC** » Tue May 17, 2011 12:45 pm

I think that's probably a good guess as to what happened for those who were " cured". And yes, yeah! yeah! for symptom relief. I used pepto a lot over the thirteen or so years I was dealing with this disease on my own, before I found this board and heard of entocort. It saved my sanity!

Linda