I will preface this with when you are down and out you look to the internet for peeps that have things going wrong with them and things that have tried that may help you. Well today my wife and I were talking about
this and it is very true when you are getting better and healing you aren't online looking or updating you are out living life. This is my attempt to give back as I am getting better and living life again. By no means are the things that I've done going to work for everyone but it could be a start.
I'm going to make this a brief as possible as I'm sure everyone here doesn't like to read novels to figure out what the person is trying to say, so here goes.
I've had UC for over 5 years now. Started one day with the 30+ times per day running to the bathroom. I got so sick that I couldn't eat or drink as it would cause me to run. In turn I stopped smoking because I couldn't even get up to go outside to smoke.
Went to Dr. after Dr. to try and figure out what was going on. Nothing, Dr's thought I had a virus of some sort and gave me some drugs to fight it. Nothing kept getting worse.
Found some stuff online that a guy was eating spinach from a can and it was helping to slow the diarrhea down. I thought I love spinach so let's give it a try. Well within a week I was getting some relief and slowly getting back to life a little.
************** Spinach will help slow things down - not take away everything but help **************
So, after about a year one of the Dr's said have you been tested for your thyroid, I said no. They tested and it came back positive hyphothyroidism. So they gave me levothyroxin and my life with a jacked up thyroid with hormon replacement started.
Things got better over time. UC went away for about 3 years but was always bloated...test after test after test. Nothing Dr's say healthy as a horse its all in your head. Zoloft and others. Here is the deal with this, Dr's can't find what is wrong so they blame you and give you drugs to make you not think about it. This is what I know, my body was/is telling my there is something wrong. Bodies usually don't lie :)
So changed Dr's thyroid meds were changed amount/brand. 3 years later UC came back with a vegenance. It was bad...I would literally have a cup of blood come out every time I went to the rest room. Dr's were like that is normal for Extreme UC. I was rated from 1 - 10 scale of UC as an 11! They gave me every drug under the sun. Everything kept making me worse.
I couldn't sleep, eat or drink. I was 215 and went down to 148 and I'm a little taller than 6ft. Does Rail come to mind :)
Anyway, I don't need to go into all the gory details but I was very sick. On my knees daily in prayer. Then one day we heard there were some trials with people that use to smoke and got UC and then started smoking again and things got better.
Drugs taken - Pred 60 -80mgs, all the ant-immfamatory drugs next step was emuran and worse
Here is my testament as to exactly what we did and what worked:
- Started smoking again (couple of cigs per day so my body could get used to again - took a couple of weeks to get over the headaches etc.)
- Started eating 26+ of almonds per day
- Drink lots of water
- Apple juice cut with water in the afternoon
- waffles with peanut butter and a bannana
- 1 multi vitiamn per day
- Isocort for cortisol replacement (this has to do with having thyroid disease)
- cut out all meats
- eat veggies and fruits all day
With in a couple of weeks I went from 20+ bathrooms per day down to about 10 and things were getting more solild.
Long story short:
I can almost eat anything now 5 months later. I'm outside working around the house and actually driving and going places. The last UC flare was 1 year and a couple of months. Thank God her provided me with a job that I can work from home!
So the ticket for me was the smoking. The more I research the more I find that the nicotine helps the coating of the intestinal walls. Now I believe that my 20+ years of smoking probably damaged me anyway, and then you add the thyroid disease then quiting probably amplified the situation drastically.
In this post I don't recommend anyone that hasn't smoked to start, but from this day forward I will never tell a single sole to stop smoking. There has been too many of my friends that have quit and then gotten sick and never recovered.
So ex-smokers it could be a solution for you as it has helped me. As God as my witness and my wife witnessing my recovery(which she was ready to pull the plug if she didn't see signs that I was improving), you should seriously think about trying this.
I know there will be a lot of peeps on here saying bad things like, this guys nuts or oh yeah start smoking cancer etc...but I did it to live again. If you have ever lived with someone and you are watching them slowly die you would try anything that might help. This was it for us.
I'm am currently on: completely off all meds from the Dr. He can't believe how I've recovered. So much for being on those drugs the rest of my life!
Armour for thyroid
Smoking 10 -12 cigs a day
8 isocort pills per day ( I will get off this as my adrenials get better)
lots of fruits and veggies
little to no meats (I have a burger from in/out every once in a while)
lots of water
green tea in the afternoon and at night
kobain greek yogurt - this stuff helps a lot I think
That is pretty much it. I've noticed exercise help too. I know its hard to keep active with this lame disease but if you can get out to walk once or twice a day that will help.
That is pretty much it. I think the biggest thing is consistancy. Like for me the waffles with peanut butter helps and it makes me feel better could be a mental thing though.
I hope I can touch one life with what helped me.
Please be nice to this post as I'm not advocating anyone should do this, just sharing what worked for me.
Will keep praying for all on this forum and wish everyone well and better days.
Thanks,
Scott