lobotomy to treat ulcerative-colitis

Lobotomies were once used to treat this gut disease, part of a shameful medical history
This was pretty recent, 1951!
/www.statnews.com/2018/06/12/lobotomy-ulcerative-colitis-shameful-medical-history/

Yeah, that's scary. I always imagine in 100 or 200 years, people will think a lot of the treatments we use now are totally barbaric. Look at the stuff people go through to fight cancers...

Crikey that is awful, also remember that they used to bleed sick people.

"For thousands of years, physicians relied heavily on a single treatment for hysteria, heart disease and just about every other malady: bloodletting. The theory behind the practice changed often over time, but the practice itself remained much the same -- with doctors often bleeding patients until they were weak, pale and, sometimes, unconscious"

Once they know the cause and cure for UC, I'm sure fmt, enemas, immunosuppressive meds, endoscopy, and surgery would seem as primitive as bloodletting.

Great article, BeatUC.

@joy - "Stress" is such a wishy-washy term. I don't even know how doctors can evaluate stress in humans in today's Western societies where we are, generally, socially isolated, fed constant images of death/danger through media, under constant pressure to perform at work and home etc. etc. etc. You can put a mouse in a cage and poke/prod them etc to create stress but I don't know how you recreate this in humans, at least not legally.

I've never looked into research about stress and U.C. flares in humans but my intuition tells me any study looking into this would be inherently flawed since we all interprate "stressful" situations differently. I can't tell you how many times a doctor has asked me "Are you stressed?" I have no idea how to answer that question.

Hi Uniform Charlie,

That's a good question. I listened to the talk about the study from the person who was in charge of it at a recent symposium held by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. She explained how they incorporated stress into the model. Apparently, mice get stressed out when they are in lighted areas and will frantically try to get to dark places to get out of the light. The researchers used mazes with light to stress the mice. The mice that didn't get the bad bacteria didn't get sick. The mice that did get the bad bacteria got colon flareups.

Post Edited By Moderator (notsosicklygirl) : 6/14/2018 10:58:58 AM (GMT-6)

I may not mind a lobotomy to forget I have this disease.....

I think it's because whenever someone says their stomach hurts and there is no reason that doctors can see they just call it an emotional problem instead of saying they just don't know. They still do that today. It took me three years to get diagnosed because my doctor kept telling me I just had severe IBS and he tried to put me on antidepressants. When I arrived in the ER with 24 BMs per day of blood and mucous they started to take me seriously. I think being told every time "it's all in your head" by my GP really did give me anxiety and depression because I felt like I had no help in the world and I was going to die. Then I really did start dying from the UC and that's when I got the real help.

I fired that GP and got a better one. The old one always said things about my health but did no labs or anything to look for evidence. I said to him that medicine is supposed to be scientific and he can't diagnose me without evidence but he just rolled his eyes. Telling a severe UC patient that they just have IBS and they are being emotional is like how they would diagnose people with hysteria way back when. Lots of people still confuse IBS with IBD. No wonder they gave people lobotomies, they were too lazy or stupid as doctors to do anything else.

Oh well, if your brain is half gone you won't complain about your UC anymore! Cured! hah

Thanks, appreciated! Links to personal blogs are fine. I've yet to find a web page that isn't a work-in-progress ;-)