Has anyone experienced complete remission after Antibiotic treatment?

My son has had UC for almost 2 years that we know of and in that time he has been on Asacol, prednisone and currently Lialda. He has also had 2 rounds of Cipro/Flagyl during the past 2 years. The only time he has even been somewhat in remission is when he was on the antibiotics. Within 2 to 3 days of going off of the antibiotics, symptoms will start creeping up again starting with the very foul smelling gas. The gas is a very definite marker for him that a flare is just around the corner. He just did a stool sample and it came back negative for C-diff and parasites, but I just don't buy it. The fact that he feels almost normal when on antibiotics tells me that there is some sort of bacteria that needs to be treated. I don't want him to be on antibiotics long term, but I just find it strange that a lot of UC/Crohn's patients get diarrhea from antibiotics but it clears things up for my son.

Any thoughts on this? Anyone had a similar experience?

There are some folks here who have had luck with a triple antibiotics therapy that is somewhat experimental but uses very common antibiotics. There is more info on this treatemnt in the resources thread on the top of the UC forum main page. As for Cipro/Flagyl combo, I have heard of others having success and many who need to use it longterm to maintain. I think a lot of people with Crohn's use flagyl regularly. I took a course of Cipro/Flagyl last time I was flaring and my GI tract felt better while I was on them but I was also on prednisone which may have accounted for the positive changes in my symptoms.

My son was on vancomycin twice last year and it seemed to help control bad flares. He was on pred also but as soon as he started taking vanco he improved mch quicker. A few weeks after finishing the course of vanco and while weaning off pred his symptoms would return. Maybe it is some sort of bacteria/infection that have spores. The antibiotics kill the bacteria that are active only for the spores to hatch later on and re-infect. The triple antibiotic treatment is quite a long treatment. Either way I believe you have to replace the good bacteria that has been killed off by the antibiotic. This will hopefully restore the proper gut bacteria balance. For me the only way to do this effectively is by fecal transplant.

We have been doing FT since December 2011. It has been a roller coaster ride but for the most part we have seen good improvements. It has been a very long process and that's the way we decided to approach this treatment. Some people get relief after only a few transplants while others need a much longer treatment. There is no set procedure for doing this and no-one really knows how many transplants are needed or for how long. I believe in the infection theory for my son (but likely not for all UC cases) and that the infection takes a very long time to get rid of (like MAP and TB). Fecal transplant not only repopuates the gut flora but also has it's own antibiotic effect on pathogens. Right now my son is having very few symptoms and has been med free for 19 weeks. We hope and pray that when we stop FT that he will be able to hold his own.

Post Edited (Edbar) : 7/11/2012 8:16:55 PM (GMT-6)

When we were first investigating FT we couldn't find a doctor or clinic that would do FT for UC yet alone for a 8 year old child. So we have been doing them at home after I the donor) was tested. We had the support of my son's GI but it was only in case he didn't respond. The GI had no involvement with the treatment other than checking his bloodwork every 4 months. There are now doctors and clinics doing FT for UC.

This may be a bit irrelevant but I was put on antibiotics by my GP for sinustitis last summer. The antibiotic was called geninax, but a few days after I started taking it I had a lot of blood come out each time I had a BM. I asked my GI doc about the med and he told me that it's a very strong antibiotic that can mess with my colon, but the strange thing was that after I got off of this antibiotic I was in total remission and had hard stools only like once a day and no urgency, either, so I was thinking that this antibiotic may have something to do with it, and I just saw your post today, and just decided to comment.

Here is a link describing how triple antibiotic therapy has helped some members here:
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=38&m=2088679

Antibiotics have not CURED me of my IBD. I still have to monitor my diet and regularly take supplements, especially if I eat something bad. But antibiotics did jump start me out of a severe flare.

I do not recommend regularly taking antibiotics forever. While watching my diet was not enough to escape a full-blown flare, once the antibiotics put me into remission then diet and supplements are sufficient to keep me there.

BabeintheWoods said...
During my last flare I was one sick puppy. Drenching night sweats, skin lesions on my arms and legs, eye inflammation, bloody diarrhea 20 times a day. I lost 5 pounds a week for 50 lbs. Crippling arthritis where I could barely climb stairs or make a fist. To cap it off I developed an abscess.

The doctor prescribed a 3 week course of Flagyl for the abscess and that jump-started me into remission. Immediately my diarrhea ended, skin lesions disappeared, my eyes went back to normal and all my arthritis disappeared. So I have no trouble believing that your combo antibiotic treatment is effective.

While I was on the Flagyl I took a probiotic yeast called saccharomyces boulardii which is immune to antibiotics. I did not want to leave any room in my gut for the bad guys like C Diff or anything else to take over again as the bacteria were dying off. When the Flagyl ended I took a diverse set of probiotics including VSL#3DS every day to maintain my remission.

Monitoring my diet and supplements like psyllium seed with probiotics seems to work for maintaining remission but I don’t know if I could have escaped my flare so quickly without taking the antibiotics.

penny471,
I think your comment is very relevant and the antibiotics may have had something to do with your change in bm's. I truly believe that there is a very strong bacteria imbalance with UC and the antibiotics clear up the bacteria problem. However, they also disturb the friendly flora and therefore long term use may cause rebound effects. I also believe that supplementation with probiotics will help minimize those effects. Its just a matter of trial and error in order to figure out what works and at what dosage. Diet is also critical, but I can't get my 19 year old to understand that. As soon as he starts feeling better he just eats whatever he wants. I've explained to him how the sugar and processed foods feed the "bad" bacteria, but he still eats it. I'm hoping that i can get him to join this forum so that HE can read posts from other UCer's and realize that diet is a HUGE part of this disease. I know there are some UCer's that can eat whatever they want, but I don't think he fits into that category.

Well my son's doctor agreed to give him some Cipro/Flagyl. However he wants him to have a sigmoidoscopy done in 3 weeks. Does this sound reasonable? He just had a full colonoscopy in March.

Well its been 2 days on antibiotics and no improvement so far, but I am still hopeful. The last time he was on them it took about 4 days for some improvement. Now he is having stomach pain as soon after a taking the first bite of food. I don't know if this could be pancreatitis again or his erosive gastritis acting up.

I had totally forgot that he was diagnosed with erosive gastritis until I was researching symptoms of "stomach pain after eating". He hasn't been given anything for the gastritis and it was over a year ago that they diagnosed him with that. Wow, that's why I have to stay on top of things because the doctors just let too much slip through the cracks!

No he isn't on anything. I guess everyone was so concerned for the UC but neglected to address the erosive gastritis! I looked back through his records and the Endoscopy results said"Erosive gastritis". Can I get him something like Prilosec until I can talk to his doctor?

To answer your question, yes, antibiotics put me in complete and lasting remission. I did the amoxicillan/tetracycline/flagyl combo. I don't know if there any controlled studies that show that cipro/flagyl helps UC, but there is good work out of Japan that shows amoxicillin/tetracycline/flagyl helps about half of the people who take it. I think cipro/flagyl is more often used for Crohns.

see:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20216533



for Cipro/flagyl use in Crohn's see here:


www.crohns.org/treatment/borody.htm

I would go on something right away, herbgarden, Just make sure you read the instructions regarding time to take in conjunction with the antibiotics.

q