Crohn's/Colitis *not* auto-immune!!??

Somedude its native tissue that's being attacked. We know that for a fact. If there is something that shouldn't be there it would have already been found. Unless it matter from parallel universes or something cool like that :p.

aguywithuc said...

Sibby said...
...That person uses wiki as a source of information. One thing I learned in college - never trust information from that website.

Never trust information from any ONE site. Always corroborate with multiple sources.

Precisely.

Judy2 said: "This guy is selling a book. Making money off other's misery. There's always one or two around waiting to exploit us."

Given that you have not read the book, I'm disappointed that you would make what appears to be an extremely judgmental and cynical comment.
In the book, comments offered by other doctors support this man's research and findings. He, too, suffered from UC.

IMO the idea that UC is an autoimmune disease because it appears to respond to immuno suppressants is not a valid argument.
These drugs do not cure the disease, merely suppress symptoms. The drugs themselves often cause serious damage.

I find it astounding that the medical establishment is "satisfied" with a situation where the cause(s) and cure of a disease is unknown.
IMO, the idea promoted by many that surgery is the only way to "cure" these diseases is unbelievable. Talk about making $ off someone else's misery!

Hey now, lets respect each others opinions and lets not get nasty.

I feel the same as Gary....I don't care who's wrong or right, just as long as someone can find a cure. We can speculate until we're blue in face but if the scientific community can't even find the cause, how can we??

I still feel as if its auto immune. But not the IS attacking the colon but rather what's in our colon. It can be anything but our IS is confused and is viewing benign things in our colon as an invader. If I remember right, not too long ago they found a defective gene in CD'ers, a gene that triggers an AI response. So maybe we also have that faulty gene as well.

I agree with Judy. He sells a book for personal gain, not to mention you can probably buy the supplements directly from him. Why doesn't he just put the information on the website, free to anyone who needs the info? He's trying to entice people for his own financial gain, not any differently than someone with a website selling a magical cure. The book is a magcial cure for a disease with no known cure, as long as you fork over the money. The content of the book is unimportant because all of these things, magical herbs, books, etc. are designed to be believeable, otherwise what would be the point of marketing something that didn't make a good arguement? If I had the time I could write a book declaring that anchovie pizzas cured UC, include studies, testimonials from patients and doctors, and I could convince a bunch of gullible people sick with chronic disease who weren't getting help from traditonal medicine, that it was indeed the cure for UC. Not only don't I have the time but I'm not that much of a scumbag to do it.

I agree with the type1 and type2 statement. I am a freak of nature (LOL) Medications react backwards
in my system. Prednisone raises my white count incredibly... Pain medication hypes me up and I cant sleep... CO (poison) helps me stay in remission...

When I was young before UC, I had severe ear problems and was on antibiodics of all kinds for many many years. In my 20's I was chemical poisoned in a plant nursery. It is not genetic in my case, no one in my family has or has had it.

I guess my point is, there is no single one cause, no single one cure, and there is no continuity of
understanding it in the medical community. What works/or is cause for one, is not for another-

Carlie

Twiggs: You are right in the fact that there is a reason for everything, sometimes medical science just doesn't know what the reason is yet. You are wrong when you say that any time medical science doesn't know the why they just label it an autoimmune disease. There are many autoimmune diseases and they actually have scientific evidence for them that our immune systems begin attacking parts of the body that they shouldn't be. They have theories as to why but no hard proof. With this evidence they determined that weakening our immune systems with meds should help with the autoimmune disease and they were right because it does and there is proof of that. If it wasn't an autoimmune disease then weakening the immune system would probably not work. This could mean that in some UC cases and other "autoimmune diseases" where weakening the immune system did not work, it is possible that the disease is not autoimmune - like maybe our colitis is actually C-Diff instead and was misdiagnosed.

My first autoimmune disease was ITP. ITP is a disease where somehow your body has been tricked into forming antibodies to our blood platelets instead of to a virus. There is actually proof that these antibodies attach to the person's platelets, signaling the body's immune systems to attack and kill the platelets, causing seriously and extremely dangerous low platelet counts. They don't know why this happens, only theories, but they do have proof that this is what is happening. One of the leading theories is that you get a virus, and part of the virus's DNA closely matches part of the DNA of your platelets and your immune system gets confused and kills off both the virus and the platelets. When the virus has been killed off your body continues to fight the platelets in a never ending battle (sometimes the virus is never killed off). Your body makes thousands of new platelets every day but it does not make them at the same rate that your immune system is killing them off.

Now with actual UC cases they know that something similar is going on, but again don't know the why. There are several theories. I'll give you my thought process for my particular case. There may be different reasons for each person's individual case but I believe in my case that high dose antibiotics caused a virus or bacteria in my colon to create a biofilm to hide behind on my intestinal walls in order to avoid my immune system's attack. There is scientific evidence that this happens and that biofilms are very good at shielding the virus or bacteria from that attack. But, my immune system knows that the virus or bacteria is there and continually attacks the biofilm (unsuccessfully) in order to get to the virus or bacteria. Unfortunately for me that attack inflames my intestinal wall, causing my UC. One of the questions is which virus or bacteria is my immune system trying to kill? Is it one that if killed successfully, would my UC finally be over? And, if I ever get that same virus or bacteria again, will I get UC all over again? Or, is it a virus or bacteria that is always in my colon anyway (maybe even a "good" bacteria that is always present) and I have no chance of ever completely killing it off?

Mackster has a very good point about mutated viruses and bacteria.

Our immune system isn't necessarily over or under active, it's malfunctioned and this is what causes it to specifically attack our GI system....a perfect example is, if you were to get a GI system transplant, your immune system would end up attacking the new GI tract as well, because it's not the GI tract itself but instead the immune system attacking it specifically.

The reason meds work for some and not all is because our immune systems are unique to each of us and very complex. This is also why some have only mild cases of IBD while others are moderate or severe. Even people that grow up in the same household have different immune systems from one another because no 2 people are always eating the same foods/beverages or necessarily living the exact same lifestyle either.

It's individual but the common factor we all have is it's our immune systems being malfunctioned that specifically targets our GI system, that's the nature of the beast of IBD.

And now I'll go and read the thread 'cos I feel a little guilty for not doing so now... <_<

There might well be many autoimmune diseases but Crohn's has never been proven to be an autoimmune disease. I dunno about UC; I suspect that's not an autoimmune disease either, but I don't think UC folks have been proven to have an innate immune deficiency the way Crohn's folks have.

There was one study that concluded that there once was an invader that is long since gone. The defect for UCers is that it cannot forget. I recently saw some proof of this. It will not let go and when the immune system gets rev'd up it returns to the gut seeking something that is no longer there. In the study they showed how it could be encouraged to do that.

I have also been told UC is a catchall for everything they cannot figure out that messes with the gut lining size large. There are more bacteria in there than cells in the body so we are nowhere close to identifying them all.

There are very like many root causes, perhaps related but distinct root causes which explains the various pathways people find to remission.

I think everyone is going to have their own opinion about the cause of IBD which is formed from their own personal experiences. As a result, it'll probably be very hard to convince them otherwise until medical science catches up and proves/disproves their belief.

As pointed out, each case is so individual with likely different reasons. Saying that the disease is due to just one cause is far too simplistic.