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3 comments from my GI

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 1/30/2008 1:26 PM (GMT 0)
My GI made 3 interesting comments to me today. Any comments on these from esteemed residents of this forum would be great!

"A flare is not caused by a genetic process. All the gene does is give you the potential to have a flare. The onset of a flare is due to some other external factor".

"Even in remission your immune system still attacks your colon but it is controlled enough by the anti-inflammatory process of the body to be deemed medically to be not active and not in a flare."

"For some unknown reason the immune system burns itself out and a small number of my patients have never seen another episode of UC again. This is one possible "cure" for UC. Find out how the immune system goes into "burn out" and reproduce this. It's very rare though."

Posted 1/30/2008 1:36 PM (GMT 0)
Makes sense to me.
Posted 1/30/2008 2:51 PM (GMT 0)
Makes a lot of sense to me too.
Posted 1/30/2008 3:31 PM (GMT 0)

damo123 said...
My GI made 3 interesting comments to me today. Any comments on these from esteemed residents of this forum would be great!

"A flare is not caused by a genetic process. All the gene does is give you the potential to have a flare. The onset of a flare is due to some other external factor".

"Even in remission your immune system still attacks your colon but it is controlled enough by the anti-inflammatory process of the body to be deemed medically to be not active and not in a flare."

"For some unknown reason the immune system burns itself out and a small number of my patients have never seen another episode of UC again. This is one possible "cure" for UC. Find out how the immune system goes into "burn out" and reproduce this. It's very rare though."

Off the cuff, I'd say I agree with the first statement, disagree with the second and third. I think it's possible to attain a state of good health and remission where your immune system is no longer attacking your colon. Forcing your immune system into "burn out" mode instinctively sounds like a bad idea. I'd think this would put you in a weakened state where you'd be unable to fight off any pathogens or infections that might come along.
Posted 1/30/2008 3:56 PM (GMT 0)
Statement one OK.

Statement 2 and 3 BS.

People have been put into remission with the anti fungus approach.
That leads me to believe some UC'rs have a internal yeast infection or
bacteria imbalance. Not self attack of immune system.

Also, if your immune system "burnt out" that would be the begining

of your worst living nightmare.

Posted 1/30/2008 5:27 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks for the interesting comments. I should qualify that the statement "burnt out" really meant "immune system died down and went back to functioning in a normal (cooler) state". This was my fault for not qualifying the statement.
Posted 1/30/2008 6:41 PM (GMT 0)
I agree with statement 1, but 2 & 3 seem to contradict each other. What is the difference between the immune system being "burnt out" and no longer attacking their colon and remission? Maybe for those who fit in category 3, they are permanent cured or long term remission?
Posted 1/30/2008 6:56 PM (GMT 0)
But if you accept statement 1 then aren't you also forced to accept statement 2. If a gene giving you the potential to have UC gets switched on then shouldn't it always be on and therefore always attack the colon.

If the gene theory is correct shouldn't statement 2 be implied by statement 1.

Thanks for your replies.

D
Posted 1/30/2008 9:46 PM (GMT 0)
hey damian - I am not sure about statements 1 and 2, but in defense of #3, I will say that my GI has said the same thing, in a different way. He didn't give an explanation, but he did tell me that for some reason, there are occasionally people with both UC and CD whose illness only manifests one time and never again. They don't know why (shock, since they understand everything else about these diseases so well...... ). he also told me that ocasionally there are people whose disease retracts over time and becomes less severe over the years, so pancolitis retracting to just the rectum, for example.

as for what triggers a flare (#1), my instinct is to disagree and agree. I disagree in the sense that I think drs WANT to believe there is a clear cause/effect relationship, so they same something like this so that they believe the question is not why do we flare but rather what has changed to cause this flare, which seems like a more answerable question from a research perspective. at the same time, likely something changes since flares ebb and flow, right?

as for #2, it is kind-of true, I guess, from the perspective that the immune system would continue to be active in our colons when we are in remission. otherwise, we would get other stomach problems all the time. the immune system IS constantly active, that is how we all stay alive....
Posted 1/30/2008 11:22 PM (GMT 0)

see I think #3 is right-on, as I've also heard that UC tends to lessen with age. By that I mean, people who were diagnosed early in life, have had UC for years, then it seems to taper off on it's own. It also makes sense because as we age, our immune systems age right along with us, they don't work as well or as quickly, therefore one would think that the immune system itself would "burn out", so to speak. I've never heard of someone having just one bad flare & then no more though.

#1- no clue if that's correct or not... I guess it could be, it sounds good!

#2- I believe this too, because if you look into probiotics, the makers of those say the same thing- that the immune system constantly is attacking our digestive tract, trying to get rid of the bad bacteria. So if anything funky is going on with your immune system, it very well may not know when to quit & just keep attacking.

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