Very interesting story. One question: you said that the prognosis is “many rounds of heavy-duty antibiotics to hopefully induce periods of remission,” but my understanding was that UC was autoimmune, and that the standard treatment was steroids or other immune system modulators? That’s certainly what the Mayo Clinic says. Did the specialist mention any of these kinds of medications to you?
Oh, yeah. I should probably amend that. It’s basically steroids, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories (whichever flavor you can handle) and a strong recommendation that you increase your fiber intake. I mentioned having been given each of these in roughly equal portions, but then failed to include it as a part of the prognosis.
My experience with corticosteroids was hit-or-miss, and I had severe, acute depression as a side-effect (I have never experienced anything like depression before or after, so it was pretty blatant). In any case, I don’t really see steroids as being much better, since AFAIK, pretty much everyone relapses w/ steroids as well, and then they have to be adjusted.
EDIT: I’m not specifically trying to be overly pessimistic/fatalist here, it’s just that I’ve had a very bad time w/ traditional approaches to treatment for IBD. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, obviously. I think that people should do whatever they can to feel better.
I’ll update the post, and thank-you for the reply.
Very interesting story. One question: you said that the prognosis is “many rounds of heavy-duty antibiotics to hopefully induce periods of remission,” but my understanding was that UC was autoimmune, and that the standard treatment was steroids or other immune system modulators? That’s certainly what the Mayo Clinic says. Did the specialist mention any of these kinds of medications to you?
Oh, yeah. I should probably amend that. It’s basically steroids, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories (whichever flavor you can handle) and a strong recommendation that you increase your fiber intake. I mentioned having been given each of these in roughly equal portions, but then failed to include it as a part of the prognosis.
My experience with corticosteroids was hit-or-miss, and I had severe, acute depression as a side-effect (I have never experienced anything like depression before or after, so it was pretty blatant). In any case, I don’t really see steroids as being much better, since AFAIK, pretty much everyone relapses w/ steroids as well, and then they have to be adjusted.
EDIT: I’m not specifically trying to be overly pessimistic/fatalist here, it’s just that I’ve had a very bad time w/ traditional approaches to treatment for IBD. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, obviously. I think that people should do whatever they can to feel better.
I’ll update the post, and thank-you for the reply.