Visit the Microscopic Colitis Foundation Website
LC (living in the UK)
Am I the only person who gets No relief from the restricted diet?
Everyone is reporting fantastic results but I’m experiencing it.
For the past 18months I’ve used a diet approach for my LC , initially using low FODMap and then switching over to the microscopic colitis diet but the effect is:--
- Severe weight loss
- Nails deteriorating further and held together with nail strengthener, where I have any left
- My liver and kidney function levels continue to fall
- My GP and consultant are going nuts at me for restricting my diet.
- plus I now have gout! What!
- I’m buying yet another diet book, the new microscopic colitis book.
The only thing I can’t do is take any form of vitamin, even drops take my nausea to an unmanageable level, Though I soak my feet every night in magnesium salts and take regular epsom salt baths.
I’m still heavily reliant on drugs to stop the D but still have severe cramps, with no warning, tiredness, joint & muscle pain, nausea and brain fog.
Holding onto work and social life is extremely challenging and I was really hoping the answer was diet plus I don’t want to move onto a biological drug but I’m desperate to be off Budesonide.
In addition to NO positive results I’m not enjoying homemade broths and a very bland, unsociable, restrictive duet, it just adds to the misery.
Surely it can’t just be me seeing no benefit
No relief from restricted diet
Moderators: Rosie, Stanz, Jean, CAMary, moremuscle, JFR, Dee, xet, Peggy, Matthew, Gabes-Apg, grannyh, Gloria, Mars, starfire, Polly, Joefnh
Re: No relief from restricted diet
Hi Catherine,
No, it's not just you. More than a few of us have that problem. Approximately two thirds of MC patients have concurrent bile acid malabsorption (BAM). Unused bile acids are normally reabsorbed in the terminal ileum. But the terminal ileum is often the most highly inflamed section of the intestines for MC patients. That significantly (and sometimes, severely) compromises the ability of the body to reabsorb unused bile acids, resulting in enough bile acids leaking into the colon to cause diarrhea.
By suppressing the inflammation, budesonide helps with bile acid reabsorption, but sometimes it's not adequate because the malabsorption problem is too serious. When that happens, the only practical solution is to take a bile acid sequestrant, such as cholestyramine, colesevelam, or colestipol. Please refer to the newsletter (published by the Microscopic Colitis Foundation) at the following link:
https://www.microscopiccolitisfoundatio ... r_2025.pdf
You can either read or downloaded the newsletter in order to learn how to experiment with the dose to find the optimum dosage that will control the diarrhea.
Incidentally, the description of your symptoms suggest that you may be severely low on magnesium, despite your attempts to absorb magnesium transdermally. Your doctors are at their wits end because doctors almost never recognize the symptomss of magnesium deficiency. Nausea, brittle nails, liver and kidney function deterioration, are all symptoms of a chronic magnesium deficiency (been there, done that). Magnesium deficiencyis also associated with the development of gout. Transdermal magnesium absorption is relatively inefficient, so I'm going to guess that the budesonide is probably continuing to deplete your magnesium, despite your attempts to absorb magnesium. This situation will have to be corrected or your vital liver and kidney functions will continue to deteriorate.
Assuming that you are taking the budesonide first thing in the morning, I suggest that you try taking a single magnesium glycinate capsule (preferably at bedtime) daily. If you are able to tolerate that, then in a few weeks you may be able to increase the dose, and eventually resolve your magnesium deficiency problem (along with all the other symptoms). If you are not taking budesonide first thing in the morning, you are taking it incorrectly, and that may be at least part of the reason why it is not effective.
I hope this helps,
Tex
No, it's not just you. More than a few of us have that problem. Approximately two thirds of MC patients have concurrent bile acid malabsorption (BAM). Unused bile acids are normally reabsorbed in the terminal ileum. But the terminal ileum is often the most highly inflamed section of the intestines for MC patients. That significantly (and sometimes, severely) compromises the ability of the body to reabsorb unused bile acids, resulting in enough bile acids leaking into the colon to cause diarrhea.
By suppressing the inflammation, budesonide helps with bile acid reabsorption, but sometimes it's not adequate because the malabsorption problem is too serious. When that happens, the only practical solution is to take a bile acid sequestrant, such as cholestyramine, colesevelam, or colestipol. Please refer to the newsletter (published by the Microscopic Colitis Foundation) at the following link:
https://www.microscopiccolitisfoundatio ... r_2025.pdf
You can either read or downloaded the newsletter in order to learn how to experiment with the dose to find the optimum dosage that will control the diarrhea.
Incidentally, the description of your symptoms suggest that you may be severely low on magnesium, despite your attempts to absorb magnesium transdermally. Your doctors are at their wits end because doctors almost never recognize the symptomss of magnesium deficiency. Nausea, brittle nails, liver and kidney function deterioration, are all symptoms of a chronic magnesium deficiency (been there, done that). Magnesium deficiencyis also associated with the development of gout. Transdermal magnesium absorption is relatively inefficient, so I'm going to guess that the budesonide is probably continuing to deplete your magnesium, despite your attempts to absorb magnesium. This situation will have to be corrected or your vital liver and kidney functions will continue to deteriorate.
Assuming that you are taking the budesonide first thing in the morning, I suggest that you try taking a single magnesium glycinate capsule (preferably at bedtime) daily. If you are able to tolerate that, then in a few weeks you may be able to increase the dose, and eventually resolve your magnesium deficiency problem (along with all the other symptoms). If you are not taking budesonide first thing in the morning, you are taking it incorrectly, and that may be at least part of the reason why it is not effective.
I hope this helps,
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.