Should I start smoking?

Hello everyone -

I want to give a little bit of background about myself before posing the question. I am 18 years old, I have been a "lurker" on these forums since June of 2010 when I was initially diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. They started me on Lialda twice a day and Align probiotic and within 2 days I was fine, I thought the disease was a joke. Oh boy do I miss those days. Around late August of 2010 I had another flare, they started me on Court Enemas and again 2 days later i'm in the wind. In November of 2010 I started bleeding again, started the enemas and no improvement. It continued and continued for a month+ and started spiraling out of control. I was placed in the hospital on January 1st 2011 and did leave the door until January 28th. I had what my doctor referred to as one of the most severe cases he had ever seen. I was in the bathroom with puddles of blood 20+ times a day. I was started on remicade while in the hospital which allowed it to improve enough for me to continue treatment at home. I missed my senior year of high school from December on. I had an allergic reaction to the remicade in March and was upped again on the prednisone to 60mg and started on 6mp/allopurinal. Around June I was in remission. The side effects of the prednisone never fully waned until around November and that is about when I felt I had my life back, I am attending college with a 4.0 GPA.


UC begins to rear it's head again.. In January I had blood again, spoke with my doctors started on enemas etc;. It didn't improve. I had a colonoscopy about a week ago which showed moderate UC. I was started on Prednisone and upped my VSL3 to 3x packets a day from 1x. I have seen very little improvement which has made me scared, I know what the prednisone will do to me longterm and I hated those side effects as I am sure you all can understand.

I have done an abundance of research and from what I have seen Smoking = No UC in nearly all cases. I have spoken with my doctor who said "Smoking and nicotine do show promise, but we don't treat with it." No doctor will say "brian, go smoke.". Which is understandable but to me the health concerns of smoking are far outweighed by the concerns of taking cocktails of drugs everyday combined with the UC itself. What would you all recommend? Anyone have experience with smoking/nicotine?

Thank you all,
Brian.


Medicines on:
VSL3 DS. 3X packets a day.
6MP 25Mg
Allpurional 50Mg
Prednisone 40mg
Court Enema 1x a day
Melasamine Enema 1x a day
Canasa Suppository 1x a day
Multivitamin
Fish Oil
Ativan as needed
Ambien 5mg nightly.

sobroken said...
I don't see the point of smoking if you've never smoked before. You would have to quit sometime which would put you in a bad flair not to mention all the new problems smoking might start.

I'm sorry to hear you're doing so poorly. Perhaps it's time to discuss more permanent options with your doctor.

paula

I guess I should have added this:

My goal is to push this back until after this semester so that I could explore having surgery over the summer. At my age I believe I have a good chance of it ending up well and being done with this disease but I can't go from now until late May as sick as I presently am. Nearly my entire extended family are smokers and the only uncle who is not has UC.

Dsm4life said...
Your body is already fighting one issue so why would you want to complicate that by introducing another?

A ton of research shows that Smoking and Nicotine are huge assets in treating UC.

In my opinion in one word....NO! (I'm an ex smoker...don't do it)

i don't think it's a good idea to treat a bad disease with a bad habit. you want to heal your body, not hurt it. smoking is one of those things that might cover up the issues, but it'll destroy your body in the process.

with that said, my dad has UC, smokes, and has been in remission for 23 years. no diet modification, drinks a good amount of alcohol, and doesn't exercise. he feels fine.

bananagirl said...
i don't think it's a good idea to treat a bad disease with a bad habit. you want to heal your body, not hurt it. smoking is one of those things that might cover up the issues, but it'll destroy your body in the process.

with that said, my dad has UC, smokes, and has been in remission for 23 years. no diet modification, drinks a good amount of alcohol, and doesn't exercise. he feels fine.

I understand it would mask it. I know it's not the greatest of options but like your father I have heard so many stories that my thought process is "yeah I may have lung cancer in 30 years, but I have blood in my stool now. I have cramping now." is that the best way to look at it? Not really, but it seems reasonable to me. My father is 58 and has smoked since 14, he has no smoking related ailments. I know that is not the norm but that surely gives me more hope than does chocking down another 40mg of prednisone.

Brian Legacy said...

Dsm4life said...
Your body is already fighting one issue so why would you want to complicate that by introducing another?

A ton of research shows that Smoking and Nicotine are huge assets in treating UC.

Seriously? Please cite relevant scientific research, not from some website..

As I sit here with reactive airway disease (asthma) caused by God knows what part of my immune system, I'd say no.

So I started smoking (never smoked before) to help my mild colitis. Lots of research saying how smoking and nicotine directly benefit colitis. It helped, and I was happy to light up. But I developed reallly bad gastritis from it (which I've never had before) and had emergency gallbladder surgery after being in hospital for 2 weeks. I picked up smoking again but it just hurt my gastritis wayy to much.

You're better off treating it with diet and lifestyle. I had to cut out all food coloring, sticked to a whole food rice based diet. Made raw apple and cabbage juice daily (lots of research on apple polyphenols and vitamin U from raw cabbage in mucousal healing), and cut out my B vitamins and switched to only B12 (cause I recently learned that B6 is detrimental to colitis, its not on google, its in the medical books) and yeah, I feel a ton better doing that stuff now. Tried the 7 mg patch but that honestly made me wayyy to jittery... Did not like it at all.

So try smoking, its a lousy gamble to try and improve ones health, and hella addicting. I still crave smokes and I only went through 10 packs, 3 -4 cigs a day. Not mention, now I'll spend a whole life time craving a cig... I only plan to have a light at special occasions as a treat but definitly not worth it for me.

Now Brain, make sure you exhaust your natural treatments and diet adjustments before you resort to surgery. Smoking helped a little, kept my appetite down and reduced pain and frequency. Didn't pull me out of a flare for the time I smoked.

Try juicing cabbage, apples, kale, what ever cheap greens you got. Get on vitamin D, kick all wheat and ALL junk food. Make rice or potatos your staple. Not even a small taste of the junk. Try taking melatonin for a month and get your sleep schedule from 10pm to 7am... These are the biggest benifits to colitis with real scientific research, not old wives tales. I don't know if you're aware but colon surgery, or any surgery for that matter is miserable. And pretty darn risky for colitis colon surgery.

Melatonin will help a ton more then ambien, 5 or 6 mg nightly works like magic. And I'd get off the multivitamin, the iron and B6 will aggravate your guts more than it will help.

Hope this scientific backed up advice helps bro. If you aren't convinced than go to pubmed and search each suggestion I gave with colitis in the search.

Brian,
Believe me, I understand the temptation. I am an ex-smoker who has struggled with flaring when I am not smoking and I HATE being on prednisone. However, I wouldn't recommend smoking, even in the short term, because it is incredibly addictive (not to mention the medical ramifications). I don't consider myself as having an "addictive" personality, but quitting smoking is one of the hardest things I have ever done. What if it doesn't have a positive effect on your UC and all you get is a terribly unhealthy new habit that is going to be very difficult to break? Also, smoking doesn't work to bring people out of flares (it is more "preventative"), so using it as a treatment while in a flare may not be effective. I didn't flare while I was smoking; however, smoking alone never brought me out of a flare (the only thing that does that for me is prednisone)

I am currently using nicotine patches as part of my treatment plan. It is difficult to say whether they have contributed to my remission (I am also on Humira and prednisone), but I think they might be helping. Here is an abstract of an article that summarizes some of the research on UC and patches: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15495126. You could always give them a shot. It would be easier to wean off patches than quit smoking (in my opinion).

Also, I read the following article that postulates that drugs like Humira and Remicade do not work as well for smokers or even ex-smokers than they do with non-smokers (this in reference to people using this drugs for arthritis, however): http://www.arthritistoday.org/news/smoking-drug-benefits.php. I see that Remicade is off the table for you, but you might want to try Humira (or some soon-to-be developed biologic)at a later date; it would suck if cigarrettes ruined that for you.
I completely understand how desperate you feel. I had a horrible flare when I was finishing my dissertation and I probably would have tried anything to make sure I didn't get derailed. That being said, I think it will just compound your issues in the long run.
I wish you the best of luck! Keep us posted on what you decide.
B

@ ColitisMastery,

All suggestions you have given to the OP are good and correct. IMO, all he should do for a week is go through as many posts as he can through UC and Crohns sub forum, make his notes and helps himself with a plan. (I did that and it helped me GREATLY)

But melatonin, NO, No. OP is just a kid, how old is he, 18? The guy has a long life ahead of him, why get him melatonin so quickly? Once his flare is under control, he won't even be thinking of it. In Jan, I was going through a bad flare and I was SERIOUSLY considering surgery, even posted here about it. Now that I am not in the flare (but still on Pred with a BIG moonface), I am not thinking of surgery anymore.
I would put melatonin for my rainy days when I am 40+ or very occasional use (begin with lowest doses, don't begin with 5mg dose). I could explain more if it needs but for time being, thats my message.

@Deltaforce

Melatonin is not addictive and does not alter ones natural production of melatonin due to the fact that oral supplements of it are rapidly metabolized in the liver. He's on another sleeping pill which I think, most sleeping pills make you dependent? Theres no long term effect of melatonin either... I dont take it anymore (and im perfectly fine after using it for a few weeks) unless Im wide awake at 10pm and regret listening to adreniling music too late :P