The last time i had antibiotics was in my teenage years for strep throat, and i first had UC symptoms at 31 years old. Some have had food poisoning prior to uc, as well. But this is where genetic deficiency comes into play and it could make it a symptom not a cause. If we have a genetic deficiency where our bodies are less capable of bouncing back from gut bacterium mass-killings (antibiotics), or over-runs (like in c diff or salmonella infections) then a genetic deficiency is the cause of our troubles, measuring our wacky bacteria makeup, we'd find a symptom. A trigger would be a single or repeated systematic shock(s) to our gut bacterium. And in all actuality there could be multiple possible triggers, or multiple disease all under one umbrella that's defined only by symptoms without knowing the actual mechanisms.
The whole MAP thing is interesting, IBD could be just a tuberculosis-like infection similar to Johne's Disease in cattle (even spread from cattle to us through dairy, meat, and groundwater). I know near 100 percent of chrons patients have been found to have MAP bacteria presence and really Crohn's does more follow the patterns of an infection (patchy, appears in lots of
locations in GI tract, deep damage into tissue, etc). In UC, MAP hasn't been studied nearly to that depth, but UC has a pattern less suggestive of an infection (distal, inflammation starting at a point and appearing continuously is much more suggestive of autoimmune). Could we have both a MAP infection and UC? Sure. I know there are a few pharmacuetical companies working on MAP vaccines to test that out, Qu Biologics us one that comes to mind.
www.quibd.com/ssi-intro/ssi-clinical-history/. And the more you read about
MAP the more you realize what a smart little bug it is: immune-resistent, antibiotic-resistent, and therefore super hard to kill. But then you get into: why does map only infect a small amount of the population? And that's where a genetic deficiency pops up again. Cuz we have people around us with the same food and environmental exposures who don't have UC but have different genetics.
There's lots of great theories that make us pause and say: that makes a lot of sense and I bet it's that. Well try matching it to explain everyone's UC or treat it and then you always end up treating 60 percent of UC patients at most for a good treatment, which makes it clear that we don't fully understand at all what's going on. We just endup pounding a square peg into a round hole with a big enough hammer and big enough effort and then proclaim we've got the solution with boast haha. In the end we understand so little about
underlying cause, mechanisms of action, a cure etc. We're not much better off than bloodletting with leaches to cure most ailments, in my mind (as they did in the dark ages).