Anybody have/had success with managing UC using alternative treatments?

Keep in mind some of the drugs actually can make your problems worse, but doctors will not usually admit that.

potato said...

I feel hesitant though in suggesting that this disease is related to or would even imply that any of us are doing anything improperly, or to think that if we aren't able to acheive remission, it's because we are somehow lacking, whether it be from our diets or how we handle stress or couldn't figure out which medications would help the most.

Yes. This is true. Some people have colitis due to genetics. They are predisposed to getting flares. A little bit of stress, a little bit of cold weather, a little bit of antibiotics, a little bit of ?, and they flare. There isn't much they can do to help ease the inflammation.

It's like that for me with acne. I'm predisposed to getting acne. I'm 48, and I still have acne. However, this doesn't mean I should give up on alternative solutions, even when it comes to acne. For example, I had no idea that I was supposed to wash my pillow case frequently until I was about 40. None of the dermatologists I went to told me that I needed to wash my pillow case frequently; so I didn't. All those years, I was sleeping in the bacteria night after night. Perhaps, I wouldn't have gotten that horrible skin inflammation on my face between the ages of 30 and 25 if I had been changing my pillow case frequently.

I tried ALOE pills (Aloe Elite) for 3 months, did nothing I could discern. I was practicing basic YOGA when I got my first flare up. I had a series of acupuncture treatments which felt good, but did not relieve my flare up. I also tried daily doses of pomegranate juice to no avail.

I do think one has to distinguish between what practices help one maintain health and what practices get one out of a flare situation.

subdued said...

tryingtoheal said...
I tried ALOE pills (Aloe Elite) for 3 months, did nothing I could discern. I was practicing basic YOGA when I got my first flare up.

If you are still practicing yoga, then remember to breathe with the poses. Otherwise, you could still be tensing your abdomen, and yoga won't help your UC much if at all. To open energy blocks, you need to breathe into the area. Here are some breathing tips:

Exhale on forward bends
Inhale on backward bends.
Exhale/inhale on side bends.
Exhale when folding or compacting.
Inhale after folding or compacting when holding, relaxing, or aligning.
Inhale when rising.
Inhale when expanding the chest.
Exhale after expanding when holding, relaxing, or aligning.
Exhale on internal twists (twisting in toward the body).
Inhale on external twists (twisting away from the body).

I practice the Desikarchar method of breathing for yoga poses. Desikarchar basically recommends belly breathing: breathing first into the chest, then the belly, then out of the belly. The breath should be deep and long with a very short pause between inhales and exhales as well as exhales and inhales.

If you remain in a pose for awhile, then continue to breathe deep and long.

Thank you for the good suggestions. I just want to make it clear that I was not suggesting the Yoga had anything to do with my flare-up. I had been doing Yoga for months before the flare began.

I love this forum as it really helps to connect with what is going on. I tried the sunflower seed & spinach which helped for a while but inevitably the flares come and go. I still eat the sunflower paste I make often mmmm... delicious.

I have been seeing a homeopath who has worked wonders over the last 6 months, he gave me some thing called a bowel node which hugely helped the urgency and made my life joyful again. I keep in close communication with him and I am flaring at the moment, yet he has given me a treatment that I am feeling near instant relief. When I say flaring it is nothing in comparrison to what I experienced in the past.

I also have a book on its way to me called Food Governs Your Destiny: The Teachings of Namboku Mizuno which was recommended by somebody my friend met who swears by it in Germany to keep their flare ups away - so that will be my new year diet.

Qi Gong has also been highly recomended and when I was in hospital going 20+ times a day my friend came and made me stand in a pose and harness the energy and it halved my BM's to under 10 instantly. I recently found a teacher who I think I will go on a course with in the new year.

Kineseology is also something I often use via a friend of mine who is an amazing practitioner and works on many different levels with it. That has helped me deal with many issues that I wasn't nessesarily aware of clearing my system for healing.

Also I would highly reccomend 'family constellation' work created by an amazing man called Bert Hellinger.

I believe that once I got my energy back which the homeopathy truley helped with, my enthusiasm for living came back.

Ulcerative Colitis is a disease which resides in the colon - the colon is the sub concious according to many sources, it is also meant to be about boundaries or has been for me.

Acceptance is a must, don't ask me how I am still trying. Yet the journey I am on is one I would have never envisaged yet cannot deny is poignant and meaningful, making me more  empathetic, understanding and focussed than I have ever been.

I take 100g Azathioprine daily but hope to get off those one day, I also take painkillers for my poor sore bum with its collection of skintags/piles.

The one thing that gets me through is - Everything changes, nothing stays the same, so I WILL be free from pain, time heals all.

I wish you all hope and healing and a restful Christmas, lets be gentle on ourselves so we can heal.

Hi Helenymelany,

Thank you very much for your detailed post regarding your experience with various alt. treatments. Can you please name the Qi Gong pose that helped you? In addition, do you know what homeopathic medicines make up bowel node or if you can give the doctor or institute's name, that would be great. Thanks.

I think for sure exploring alternatives to medicine is incredibly important. Especially for those of us who do not respond in a timely fashion or when side effects come on when least expected.

I found diet was key to keeping me OFF drugs and symptom free.
I made a website that should be able to help you understand it in detail, but before you check that out, please realize that I was diagnosed with severe UC, and getting lined up for surgery after 10 months of drugs did not work(prednisone, asacol, colazal, sulfasalazine, remicade infusions, humira, rawasa)

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I am really interested to learn about some other forms of alternative treatments for UC. I am wondering if anyone has tried visiting a hyperbaric chamber to help getting more O2 into your blood to combat UC. I guess a pretty expensive possibility, and not sure if anyone has ever tried it?

Post Edited By Moderator (Lonie) : 12/20/2009 8:45:47 PM (GMT-7)

I haven't been on the forum for a while but when I got back on, I saw how many people responded to this thread and it made me very happy. To be honest, i was getting discouraged reading so much about pharmaceuticals and surgery that I decided to lay off the forum. I understand it is my own issue and not everyone's because everybody seeks help and support on this forum in whatever form which I think is great.

I spent a week at Dr Lad's Ayurvedic Institute in New Mexico last week and admitted myself to their Panchakarma clinic. It's more or less a guided cleanse consisting of a mono-diet of kitchari (mung beans and rice with herbs) and a series of treatments all to help treat a disorder that also depends on your ayurvedic constitution. I went in there hoping to find answers about my UC, which is now in remission, but I came out with so much more understanding about who I am and the habits that I have created that do make me ill. It was a week of total seclusion, contemplation, yoga, and support from all these practitioners and healers. I feel very different, like a foggy cloud was cleared and I see more clearly. Anybody who might have a chance to do Panchakarma, should. I am a lot more peaceful about the whole UC thing even when a flare-up may come back around, my state of mind is at a point where I can learn to accept and then work from there.

I know it sounds so airy fairy and I know it works for me but maybe not for the whole. All I guess I'm trying and we're trying to do is spread knowledge and awareness about what we've found. There's a whole science to this alternative stuff and of course, it takes a lot longer for it kick in because we are trying to restructure who we think we've been our whole lives. It took us this long to get out balance, it'll take us some time to correct it. I'm sorry for all those who suffer so much with this and reach points of frustration that seem unbearable. I was there, too, and I hope that I won't be there again because it is so debilitating. But it is nice to realize that others share the same perspective and hearing about yoga postures, diet, and people's positive experiences with alt medicine gives me more hope that this disease is beatable without drugs or surgery.

PS--I'm still on the drugs, too, and have come to the conclusion that they are just as important in keeping UC in control as all my alt med stuff. I've talked to my GI and have decided to stay on them for a few years despite the possible complications they might entail. I, like everyone else, do not want to go through another flare-up if I can avoid it. But whatever might happen, I'll deal with it then. I'm at peace with that...

Absolutly agree with what you say about causation and lifestyles, also though because today we are nutritionally bankrupt with junk food with very low value this I beleive contributes to the diseases we are suffering I have recently been using a product called Isogenix that you mix up as a shake for breakfast, I have been in remission for six weeks now (over christmas with all that brings) let me know if you are interested and I can send info to try.

I'm just extremely happy to be in remission without taking more drugs than I am. I look at it as if pharmaceutical companies are making heaps of money of the meds everyone is taking. Especially, remicade. $4000 a shot? I've had three of them in the past and it didn't put me in remission. So the "expensive therapy session" is a drop in the bucket compared to all that and it is a lot healthier in the long run because it teaches me how to live a normal lifestyle without having to take pills for every side-effect I might feel.

My GI supports ayurvedic and chinese medicine. these are practices that have been around for thousands of years. hard to deny that they're not effective. He just mentioned not to ignore him and make him part of the healing team. So I am, gladly. and with minimal drugs and incorporating what I've learned at the institute, I'm confident that the UC won't come back. that's just me...

I do hope you find remission soon, in whatever modality works for you.

Ringo1- Isagenix is wonderful stuff. My acupuncturist is a big fan of it. I was gonna try it after I finish the rest of my other "shake" concoctions...

Actually the World Health Organization recognizes acupunture as an effective treatment for a long list of conditions including arthritis (which of course can be related to IBD). Also, you might find this interesting, not directly related to UC but an example of how researchers are increasingly realizing that "traditional" remedies have something going for them after all. And, in fact, many medicines are based on active incredients found in plants. FYI, when my daughter was diagnosed with UC, we were advised to give her pomegranate juice, which some claim keeps them in remission. We haven't been that lucky but I don't discount that there's something to it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/27/pomegranate-can-combat-mrsa-superbugs

I woke up very ill this morning and maybe should not get on here when in that mood. I am better now. I tried lots of "alternative" medicines during my many years with UC and had an open mind for all of them. Each time I read the literature, do my own research, discuss it with my doctor and other folks, sometimes mail in for more information if it's one company, seek out the specialists, and go in with an open mind and lots of money believing that the GI's (the old school medical doctors) didn't understand how to treat diseases in an holistic approach. I believe my first fix was to buy a juicer. I added SCD, the this, then that. Each time, every approach failed. I read most all the links folks put on here in hopes there's something I'm missing. I would love to not take prednisone, Imuran, Remicade...and instead just use garlic, turmeric, aloe vera, fish oil, fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, yoga, etc. Nothing worked for me and I get on here, usually when in a bad mood and slam the alternative approaches because it's the only time I have the courage to warn people not to put too much hope into these things for their UC treatment. If you knew all the frustration I've had throughout my UC years (since age 18 and I'm 43) then you might understand why I believe I've been there and have experience to offer.

I then end up getting attacked by lots of others that believe in these and I then wish I would have not said anything at all.

But I'll keep speaking up because just as some want to encourage others to try this or that I wish to encourage others not to so they don't get their hopes up and waste time and money.

I also know that the drugs we use are derived from natural plants; that's no mystery for me. It's always true that if you eat just part of a plant versus the whole thing you get an entirely different effect. Pomegranate juice may not be beneficial for UC but a drug derived from that plant may help. That's one thing research in bad pharmaceutical companies do. They separate out those beneficial chemicals. peace

Burli said...
I tried lots of "alternative" medicines during my many years with UC and had an open mind for all of them. Each time I read the literature, do my own research, discuss it with my doctor and other folks, sometimes mail in for more information if it's one company, seek out the specialists, and go in with an open mind and lots of money believing that the GI's (the old school medical doctors) didn't understand how to treat diseases in an holistic approach. I believe my first fix was to buy a juicer. I added SCD, the this, then that. Each time, every approach failed.

Look into alternative treatments that make sense for you. A juicer and SCD would also not work for me. I am fructose intolerant and I have no issues with fiber, which is good for promoting colon health. Keeping to an anti-inflammatory diet, taking probiotics, and fecal transplantation make sense for my condition. An anti-inflammatory diet calms the inflammation. Probiotics and fecal transplantation put the bacterial back into my colon that has been lost from taking antibiotics.