Dr. Pardi (power point)

[JLH]

http://www.acg.gi.org/acgmeetings/pdfs/ ... PG1008.PDF

[Polly]

Hi Joan,

It's sad to see still no major attention paid to food intolerances. Sigh.

Love,

Polly

[JLH]

It sure is.

I promised DD#1 no more sending her info about Zoloft. I was finished trying to get through to her. She said, "Nothing could be worse than not being able to get out of bed." I said, "Oh, yes, it could, not being able to get out of bed and having D."

[ant]

Dear Polly

Especially as it almost got there with "with consider sprue.... if no response to MC medication".

As we know, while there can be a "response to medication", this is usually only short term if diet to deal with food intolerances is not introduced.

WHY CAN'T THEY GO THE EXTRA MILE WITH THIS THINKING!!

After all "consider sprue" means "consider gluten intolerance"

All best, Ant

[Gloria]

Thanks for the link, Joan.

It looks to me like they discussed the causes, but not the solutions for diarrhea. Several points were interesting. One was the third slide on page 4 which covered drug-induced Microscopic Colitis. I have LC and was interested in the inclusion of statins and biophosphonates, but not NSAID as possible drug causes. The same slide includes NSAID as a possible cause of Collagenous Colitis. I don't believe I've ever seen a distinction between the causes of LC and CC.

An interesting statistic is shown on page 9, slide 1. Of 809 patients presenting with chronic diarrhea, 10% had MC and only 3% had Crohn's, meaning that the incidence of MC in this study was over three times that of Crohn's, yet Crohn's is much more familiar among GIs than MC. When are we going to get our due recognition?

BTW, I've stopped taking Alendronate. I had only taken it for 9-10 months. If I ever do need brain surgery, I don't want to also have to worry about my skull healing - though the slow-down in rebuilding bone density has probably already occurred. I'll have to talk to my PCP about my statin. My cholesterol is at 132 - pretty low, probably due to diet and the statin.

Gloria

[Gabes-Apg]

I agree. One of my work colleagues, his wife is a dietician. when i mentioned my diagnosis he asked if the specialist suggested visiting a dietician and i laughed, "replying you mean the medical profession taking a wholistic look at health yeah right!"
after 3 lots of surgery for bowel contusions (during teen years and early 20's) and now the MC diagnosis this at no stage has any doctor or specialist even mentioned other disciplines such as dietitian etc. Majority of the doctors and specialists i have had contact with over the past 13 years frown and scoff that i utilise acupuncture and naturopathic advice more so than a doctor. NB only recently have i found a GP that does accept the wholistic approach of acupuncture and naturopathy in conjunction with the medical.

I have been using the internet for the past 13 years or more. I cant help but wonder how i would have coped this past month without this forum and its 'invaluable' information. What did people do 15 years ago? were doctors 'better' then compared to now?
I wonder if doctors and specialists think that because there is so much information available on the internet, people can be their own health managers and they only have to provide the minimum, and generally that is the things that are supported by a scientific fact.
i am pretty sure that 15 years ago only medical professionals could access medical publications and journals and full transcripts of tests and studies, where as now we as individuals can read these (and even better we have the likes of Tex and Ant that read them and highlight the good stuff for us!!)

I have my first follow up with Gastro Specialist tomorrow - it has been 4.5 weeks since the 15 min appointment (that was 1 hour after the booked time) where he gave me the MC diagnosis, a bunch of scripts for the meds, and wished me luck that i was diarrhea free for christmas.
I have my list of questions ready - i figure if the appointment gets shortened again then i need to be totally ready, I pay enough for it, I want my monies worth.
it will be interesting if he thinks the meds alone have given me reasonable D control - considering that i have stopped taking one of them as its most common side effects are headaches and watery diarrhea!!! I was struggling with waking up every day with headaches!

[tex]

An interesting statistic is shown on page 9, slide 1. Of 809 patients presenting with chronic diarrhea, 10% had MC and only 3% had Crohn's, meaning that the incidence of MC in this study was over three times that of Crohn's, yet Crohn's is much more familiar among GIs than MC.

I've been suspecting that might be the case, but this is the first valid evidence I've seen, that verifies it. That implies that the GI docs discount it, simply because they don't understand it, which suggests that they're probably "intimidated" by it, so that may be why so many of them seem to try to "sweep it under the rug", and hope that no one notices, (after all, it's only a nuisance, doncha know).

Based on the current prevalence of Crohn's disease in this country, (about 1 per 544 in the general population), that implies that the approximate prevalence of MC is about 1 per 163 in the general population. (Of course, the Crohn's statistics are also compiled by the same group of "experts", who so brilliantly figured out the prevalence of MC, so keep that in mind). As far as I am aware, the medical statisticians have never revised the old statistics which show the prevalence of MC to be about 6 per 100,000 in the general population. That means that the disease is actually over a hundred times more common than the old statistics suggest. In terms of percentages, that implies that MC is 10,000 % more common than the medical community believes it is. It's difficult to comprehend how anyone could possibly be off by that much, especially a group that is supposed to be composed of scientists. Well duh! and

Eventually, the truth always comes out, doesn't it.

Tex

[MaggieRedwings]

When will they get the whole CC/MC/LC thing? Discount diet as a healing method. Guess as Tex says, just easier to understand the Chron's thing since it gets all the publicity.

Love, Maggie