MICROSCOPIC COLITIS SUPPORT

Hello everyone,
I was diagnosed w/MC last July and while trying to recover, I got Covid and it landed in my abdomen. Baaaaad news. Things got a lot worse and the D was out of control. Insomnia was severe and I went down to 85 lbs. I honestly thought I was going to die. It was a nightmare.

My GP had put me on Mirtazapine which helped very slightly and Lorazepam which helped me sleep and in December, I FINALLY got to see a psychiatrist. He's the one who confirmed my suspicions.....I was suffering from PTSD. He emphasized that I needed an extra antidepressant for PTSD and we tried different "cocktails" until we found the right fit.....5 mg Lexapro added to my 30mg Mirtazapine. It's taken my body over 3 months to get use to the combination but mentally and emotionally I am fine now.

My gut was doing really well but trying desperately to gain more weight (I was able to get up to 98 lbs) I made dark chocolate GF muffins sweetened with raw, unfiltered honey and added kumbucha to my morning shake (which had non dairy yogurt, ½ cup homemade kefir). I think I over did it because I went into a flare up soon afterwards....my body rebelling against all this at once. My gut is recovering right now but I'm nervous about our already paid for 2 month trip to Europe at the end of next month. I weaned myself off the Lorazepam a couple of months ago and will start weaning myself off of the antidepressants veeeeeeery slowly in September after our trip.

My functional medicine doctor and GI had me on a lot of good, natural supplements before this last flare up and I read on here that you need to cut out all supplements except Vitamin D3 & magnesium (glycinate) during a flare up. It really helped!

My functional medicine doc also tested my micronutrients in March and added a couple of supplements because I was deficient in B's and other nutrients. These are the supplements I was taking before this last flare up: Calcium, ThyroMedica Plus, Homocysteine Supreme, L-Glutamine, 12 in 1 cell salts, Trace Minerals X 935, Akkermansia, Visbiome, Brain MD Happy Saffron Plus, Ashwagandha KSM 66, Glycine, BioResearch Pro Multi Plus, Balanced B8, Sourghum Flour, Chia Seeds. I would appreciate any input on these supplements and anything else you can recommend.

I thank the Divine for directing me to this forum; I don't feel like such a sore thumb being here. Have a great day, everyone!

Hello Pichulita,

I looked up Lexapro and Mirtazapine. Mirtazapine is not an SSRI but Lexapro is. SSRIs are one of the drugs that can cause MC, I probably caused my MC with aspirin (NSAID) and aspartame (the artificial sweetener found in Diet Coke) as well as gluten. A doctor that might be helpful for your depression situation is Dr Georgia Ede - she has done a lot of research into depression and diet. She has a lot of videos on Youtube.

Pichulita, you are ingesting so many different foods and supplements that it will be hard to tell what is causing your flares. Please simplify your diet so you can do the detective work needed to find the offending foods/supplements. We've all been brainwashed into thinking that variety in our diet is vital for health - it isn't. If variety was crucial, I would probably be dead by now (or close to it).

Enterolabs is a lab (formerly in Texas, now in Greece) that, with a stool sample, can discover which foods that you are producing antibodies to. If you can afford it, it really streamlines the process of finding what foods to eliminate.

I myself eat only lamb, sometimes pork and sometimes turkey (without injected preservatives), roughly half a sweet potato every day, and water (I avoid tap water though). I eat very little carbohydrates because with MC the intestines (mainly your colon) can't digest carbs very well - they just end up in the toilet.

My opinion is that your functional doctor is doing you a disservice. Adding all these supplements is detrimental to you recovering from MC, and you are probably not absorbing these supplements very well anyway. Besides, whole foods is the best way to get your required vitamins and minerals (except magnesium and D3). Eliminate, don't add.

One thing I wish I had done early on in my MC ordeal is to take my bathroom scale and bury it in the backyard. It would have saved me a lot of unnecessary stress and from making mistakes in my diet that made me lose even more weight. The first priority with MC is to stop the diarrhea and get into remission. Weight gain can come later.

I have oversimplified the story of MC in these paragraphs - you will find lots of in-depth information on this site and from the book "Microscopic Colitis", written by Wayne Persky (Tex) who is one of the founders of this site.

Hope you have a speedy recovery/remission,

John R.

Hello John,
Thank you for your response. Please know that I take what you say to heart, however, my first MC flare up was last May and I wasn't put on Lexapro until January.

I was also put on Zenpep, and later, Creon (prescribed digestive enzymes) in August and am still taking them. My GI ordered another fecal elastase test and I started to try and wean myself off of the Creon, but it resulted in a mushy stool, so I need to get my stools healthy for a while so I can have my enzymes tested and hopefully get off of them.

I was so disillusioned because I finally got up to my original weight and then this last flare up reared it's ugly head. I should bury my scale in the yard too!

I will look up Dr. Georgia Ede on Youtube and see what she has to say. If you have any more words of wisdom I would really appreciate it.

Blessings,
Gracia

Hello Gracia,
Unfortunately, even if the ssri was not the original cause of your MC it will still (likely) keep you from reaching remission - perhaps it is the cause of your current flare? There are people who have drug-induced MC which resolves when they top taking the medication(s) that create the gut inflammation. In my opinion they are the lucky ones because the rest of us have to restrict our diets as well, sometimes severely.

I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but I have gotten very frustrated with the current pharmaceutical situation in this country. I have family members that take pills for symptoms of a malady and won't consider the cause of the symptoms. A lot of people (and their doctors) think they need to take something to treat the symptoms of their problem and don't think about eliminating the cause of the problem. Drives me crazy - which doesn't help with my MC.

Another person that may be helpful to look into is Mikhaila Peterson. She had severe arthritis and clinical depression since childhood and treated it with a meat-only diet. By her account it worked.

Best,
John R.