Boswellia killed my flare?

I made a topic last week about how I might be off Asacol for a few days since I needed to get a prescription here in Germany and didn't know how long that would take. Well a number of factors (including me being lazy, I admit) led me to be off of Asacol for a week.

I'd read some good things about Boswellia so, before I ran out of Asacol, I went down to the herbalist and got some Boswellia powder. I don't know anything about the extract quality and neither did the lady working there, and I don't have a scale to weigh it, but I did my best on short notice :)

So when I ran out of Asacol I started taking .25 teaspoons of Boswellia 3 times a day with meals (.25 teaspoons should be about .5 grams according to the internet, so 1.5 grams per day of Boswellia). Well, within two days, my symptoms started returning. Abdominal cramping and tenderness, lots of gas, and mucus in stool. This was pretty disappointing because I eat SCD, Spinach and Sunflower seeds, and I had the Boswellia! The next day I felt even worse. So I doubled up on the Boswellia and took 1 gram three times daily. The next day, I felt fine, and even though I pressed pretty hard I could find no abdominal tenderness. And no more mucus. Yay! Felt fine since. It's about 3 days now since doubling the dosage and the pharmacy is going to have Pentasa for me tomorrow so I'm going back to mesalamine.

So Boswellia gets an A+ from me, however, 3 grams a day is a fairly high dosage and there aren't long term trials done with Boswellia so use at your own risk!

I've been a lurker for awhile. And the road I've been on has its ups and downs. I was diagnose with UC last summer. I have had two flares since then. I've been managing it without prescription meds so far. With herbs, gluten free diet and yoga. I pray that I can keep doing this holistically. First flare I fasted for about a week and it went into remission. Then the second flare so I used chamomile, cinnamon and licorice root.

I'm in middle of my third flare right now which started about last week. Last week I was constipated so I fasted and eventually everything that was backed up came out. I started with 900mg Boswellia. There was some but little relief. I felt terrible yesterday. So I upped it to 1800mg. Today I feel the flare has gone down. However, I still have some multiple D, gas and bloating. But I feel much better. I'm going to double my dose up to 2700mg a day. And see how that goes. I've been drinking shakes w/coconut milk and eating some dried fruit here and there. May introduce psyllium husks if things feel better tomorrow.

I'm considering going SCD now after this flare. I will report back tomorrow or next few days about any improvement with my upped dosage of Boswellia.

There have been studies on Crohn's showing no benefit for boswellia and others showing it with similar efficacy as mesalamines.

I've taken it and turmeric since diagnosis as supplements. I take 307 mg of boswellia per day. Three grams a day is a lot!

Pathogen: Does the Boswellia work in conjunction with the Curcumin somehow? Also, which Boswellia is everyone taking?

Gonk said...
PathogenKiller,

I am taking 1600mg of boswellia/day but no curcumin. How much curcumin should I be taking and how much can I reduce the boswellia as a result?

The original poster was taking 3 grams.. So they could cut it in half and add equal amounts cur cumin. You'd could try reducing to 1000mg and supplementing equal cur cumin.
Studies with beneficial results for inflammatory conditions are as little as 500 mg of each.
The one caveat with cur cumin is that it can thin blood.

Thanks PathogenKiller.

Okay so I gave up on taking high doses of Boswellia and Curcumin. They didin't seem to do much for my inflammation. Curcumin seemed to help me with digestion and focus. Also Curcumin helped me sleep better and gave me wicked dreams. I just received my bottle of CCHerbal, I'm going to give that a shot instead.