Does exercise cause flares of UC?

No, excercise should not cause you to flareup. Flares are ypur immune system attacking your large intestine, a process that doesn't start/stop based on whether you are in the gym or not.

Your UC isn't well managed with an appropriate treatment plan. In a remission, ypu shouldn't have limits on what you can do.

The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America did a study through its IBD partners program that showed exercise reduces recurrence of flares. That said, "exercise" can be such a broad term. I think weightlifting is great. Maybe consider dialing it back 15%...leave a little in the tank when you are finished so you are not running yourself into the ground. You may just have some mild inflammation going on and your exercise is simply moving things around and irritating your colon. As long as you are not getting lasting flares from it then I would keep going.

gregster said...
I've not heard of some of the meds you are on, so maybe I should try those, or maybe they aren't available in the UK?

Is 6MP the only UC medication you are on? I ask as there's seldom a single medication that is our 100% solution. Rather, a combination of medications is often the best approach and the cumulative affect of them all might give you 100%. Considering adding back a form of oral and/or rectal-route mesalamine (asacol, pentasa, lialda/mezavant, canasa suppositories, etc.).

Have you had any reason blood work like CRP, or stool tests like FCP to check your current inflammation levels? If so what were the results?

Not sure if you're taking a lot of protein or other bulking supplements before, during, or after your gym visit (many guys and gals do). If you are, then it is possible that the artificial junk in those powders are aggravating your bowels through a food-sensitivity or food allergy. Better off to supplement nutrients through actual food: spaghetti, eggs, meats, when possible rather than processed crap from GNC.

An hour of stress during a gym workout does not cause UC flares.

Longterm stress might cause a cascade of things that leads to a flare. Talking continuous stress over a series of months due to a death in the family, stressful relationship/work/etc where you do not sleep right, do not eat right, are constantly anxious/depressed. As Long term stress causes hormonal changes within the body, as well, that could affect your UC.

When I was flaring, certain activities were just uncomfortable. Mostly those that put pressure on the lower abdomen: squats, sit-ups, laying on my right side, etc. Something like jogging would be uncomfortable and might increase the odds that you have to poop. Again, I was already flaring, and many things made me worse not just exercise.

The only way I see exercise affecting you and causing inflammation and leaky-gut, is of you are one of those endurance athletes pushing your body to extremes (and there's scientific research backing up that assertion): running for 24 hours straight, bicycle touring for a week, etc. If you're just spinning at the gym or lifting iron for an hour then that's entirely different and not going to aggravate things lol :-p

Not buying the morning hormones bit. Cortisol levels are highest in the morning, have an anti-inflammatory affect, and are the same chemical as prednisone is.

Mornings are bad for us predominately because poop touching inflamed/raw/bleeding/ulcered tissue is extremely uncomfortable and forces us to evacuate with great urgency. Much like touching broken, cut, raw, and/or swollen areas of our skin is uncomfortable, it is the same with poop applying pressure against and touching intestinal tissue that is inflamed. Out intestinal walls are collapsed when empty, much like a sock laying flat on the floor, opposing walls touch each other (which is why they pump ait into us during endoscopy, to see further ahead). Poop expands the tissue as it passes through. So, a few poop-nuggets reaching the inflamed area can cause urgency. When more arrives at that same inflamed patch later, then repeat. That can cause us nocturnal wakeups when we're really, really badly inflamed.

Inflammation makes our intestinal walls thicker which affects our motility (that is muscle movement). So the normally gentle, rhythmical motion that moves poop along the large intestine becomes much more broken/irregular and spasmatic. That brakedown of muscle movement causes things to either be too fast (diarrhea) or too slow (constipation).

Add them together and you have much of what we experience.

Post Edited (iPoop) : 6/21/2018 10:48:06 AM (GMT-6)

Sounds like exercise is protective against disease activity. And is safe for IBD patients. I'm not one who likes anecdotal statements. So, lets jump to the scientific journals and what studies have shown.

"There is considerable interest in the impact of exercise on individuals with IBD. Our study is the largest prospective analysis of exercise in patients with IBD to date with 1,857 participants included, 1,308 with CD and 549 with UC/IC. We found that increased levels of exercise may decrease the risk active disease at 6 months by 32% in individuals with CD and by 24% in individuals with UC/IC. This decrease in risk persisted when exercise status was adjusted for age, education, steroids, gender, BMI, current smoking status and disease duration. Studies have demonstrated that patients who exercise more are at decreased risk to develop CD2, 3 however there is a paucity of published data about the effects of exercise in patients with established IBD. Much of what is published about the effects of exercise on the gastrointestinal system is incongruent and has to be extrapolated to patients with IBD."

/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4402239/

"INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE
A limited number of studies have investigated the preventive effect of physical activity on Crohn's disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC). Sonnenberg38 was the first to show a beneficial effect of physical activity by comparing incidence rates of inflammatory bowel disease among several occupations in 12 014 individuals. Sedentary and physically less demanding occupations were associated with a higher risk of inflammatory bowel disease than physically demanding occupations. As in other occupational cross sectional studies, this study may have been hampered by limitations, for instance, less demanding occupations may have attracted the chronically ill and previous occupations were not recorded. Persson and colleagues39confirmed this association in a case control study in patients with CD, but not with UC. They found RR values of 0.6 and 0.5 for weekly and daily exercise, respectively. Since then, inconsistent results have been obtained: one case control study40showed a reduced risk, both for physically active CD and UC patients, while another study in CD patients did not.41 Postulated underlying mechanisms were the stress reducing effects of physical activity as well as changes in local neuro-immuno-endocrine effects.42

While the preventive effect of physical activity remains inconclusive, it has become clear that physical activity is not harmful for patients with inflammatory bowel disease,42despite acute exercise related responses, such as increased serum malondialdehyde levels and activated neutrophils.43

Nevertheless, physical activity should be promoted as these patients have muscle weakness and are at risk of osteoporosis.44 This risk is especially high with glucocorticoid medication, which causes muscle atrophy and weakness, osteoporosis, and osteopenia.42 In addition, physical activity may reduce disease activity and improve physical health, general well being, perceived stress, and quality of life.42"

gut.bmj.com/content/48/3/435

The endurance/ultra stuff can cause gut-permeability (mucosa wall being permeated by harmful bacteria, and an immune attack). I've read studies on it before, but cannot find them quickly.

quincy said...
I actually disagreeregarding hard workout and flaring. The body decides when it's had enough, and if one continues to push....it will react in its weakest area.

Stress is stress, there are always limits subjectively.

q

I agree, in a general sense stress is a large contributor to the disease. I also think that there is a connection between lactic acid and IBD. As you know, lactic acid is released from muscles and tissues when you exercise. Here's a study from a quick google search. There's more info out there though.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7781463

suttie said...
Hey Sara - don't despair. There are professional and Olympic athletes with UC and Crohns. I like to think if they can manage, we can too!"

Naive to put others on a pedestal as ideal and believe others as a lower status and can do just as well. Comparative statements as such are neither helpful nor encouraging.

iPoop said...
The endurance/ultra stuff can cause gut-permeability (mucosa wall being permeated by harmful bacteria, and an immune attack). I've read studies on it before, but cannot find them quickly.

I'll have to search for this later. Interesting.

suttie said...

quincy said...

suttie said...
Hey Sara - don't despair. There are professional and Olympic athletes with UC and Crohns. I like to think if they can manage, we can too!"

Naive to put others on a pedestal as ideal and believe others as a lower status and can do just as well. Comparative statements as such are neither helpful nor encouraging.

Sorry! I didn't mean it as a comparison. I just meant that UC might not necessarily preclude us from engaging in the activities of our choice. I know everyone's experience with this disease is different and we can't measure ourselves against anyone else. But it is also helpful (for me at least) to pay attention to those who have a achieved a level of remission that I have not (yet). For a long time I just assumed that my symptoms were the best I could hope for, but I've been learning that maybe I can strive for better.

But I will be more cognizant and careful in the future!!!

I found it helpful.

U.C.Me? said...
A friend of mine was an Olympic Gold Medalist in the mid-nineties, and ended up with Crohn's Disease. He said he was drinking tons of coffee and taking frequent doses of aspirin. He attributes his Crohn's to stress (!) and poor diet/overwork. I think aspirin/painkillers probably contributed also, since even a lose dose of aspirin is linked to intestinal bleeding. I took aspirin regularly for years because of chronic headaches.

He was a pretty extreme case, however. A few studies I've read found that sedentary people who began to exercise regularly had/may have lowered levels of C-Reactive Protein, an inflammatory marker. I have personally found that when I exercise moderately, I do just fine. It's when I start doing my Beachbody Insanity workout or P90X that I notice issues, for me. I have noticed a lot of people with U.C. tend to be type A/intense/driven personalities who usually push themselves too hard.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21085036
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12192226

I took quite a bit of Aleve for many years for headaches before getting UC and before my most recent flare I took Aleve every day for about 2 weeks for headaches.