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The Pathology of the gut can show the following important diagnostic features:
Grossly, the bowel wall becomes thickened, whitish, inelastic, and dilated. Microscopically, the mucosa in the bowel appears atrophic and lymphocytes and plasma cells infiltrate the bowel wall layer with deposition of mucopolysacchrides into the stroma
Myxedema ascites is a rare condition, caused by hypothyroidism, and treating the hypothyroidism usually resolves the myxedema problem.
Lymphocytes in the intestinal lining is not an unusual situation - they are always there. When their numbers increase, inflammation develops, (such as with MC, coeliac disease, or any other IBD). An elevated lymphocyte count is a sign of inflammation, (not necessarily myxedema).
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.
Thanks for the reply. So they don't think the lymphocytes have any significance then? I,m so new to this that whenever I read anything like that it still surprises me
I saw my gastro doc this week. He claims that my symptoms are due to IBS as steroids didn't clear them up. He also admitted that 'we' don't know much about MC...no surprise there. And he says that I couldn't be coeliac as my blood test was negative...even though my mum was also tested negative. It only showed up on her gastroscopy.
Slightly disheartened really, but thank you for the clarification
Yes, the lymphocytes matter, because they cause inflammation. There are many different types of lymphocytes, though, and the types correspond to various diseases or conditions. With microscopic colitis, (and with celiac disease), we have an elevated level of T-cell lymphocytes, for example. The T-cells cause the villus atrophy in the small intestine of people who have coeliac disease.
If you have an elevated lymphocyte count, you almost surely either have microscopic colitis, or coeliac disease, or both.
The steroids didn't clear up your symptoms because you were still eating the foods that cause you to generate the T-cells, and so they continued to generate inflammation faster than the steroids could suppress it. If your mother has coeliac disease, then there is a very good chance that you do, also, and not treating it all these years, has caused you to develop microscopic colitis, at least that's my best guess.
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.
Visit the Microscopic Colitis Foundation Website
