My Father's Story of UC: The Struggle and Finally the Success

I was prompted by my parents to share my father's story of ulcerative colitis as a way to help anybody else that struggles with this disease. My father was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis 10 years ago and the cause is still questionable: stress, genetics, who knows why it happened but it did. The first few years the disease did not cause much havoc the occasional inconsistency in bowel movements, blood and mucous in stool, stomach cramps but nothing compared to what we endured later on.

2008 my father's physician labeled the condition as incurable and continued with the same approach of medication with asacol, the iron tablets (Slow-FE), and Prednisone. We continued with this as all the other gastroenterologists consulted said our only viable option left was the surgery that removed the intestine (J Pouch) that would rid my father of the disease. We turned to other options.

The other options were homeopathic medicine and it was a BUST we spent thousands of dollars and of course the critics sneer "well we all know that it isn't a science so why would you bother" but only the ones suffering understand to what extent we were willing to go to..My father was unable to leave the house for fear of accidents, a simple trip to the gas station was timed to make sure he could make it to the restroom in time, and of course there were times he was not able to make it. Imagine pulling on the side of a freeway in middle of the night to use the fields as a "restroom" painful and humiliating as the cars passing by honk their horns while drivers yelled profanities.

At this time I was a student majoring in biological sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz and I would always look for the new updates in the science library for any new treatments available. We tried everything and by everything I mean German alternative medication,Chinese alternative medication, the raw vegetables diet, the lactose intolerant diet, anything I found we tried but none of it worked. The Prednisone and Asacol by this time were both beginning to show their side effects (the puffy face, the discoloration, the lesions, etc)

The only plant that did work albeit not a cure but it did reduce the inflammation and the colonoscopy was better than it had been before was tumeric. My father ate tumeric a spoonful every morning (the taste is horrible but it did help).

August 2009:The last push we had was to try Ayurvedic medicine in India and we went and it did not work at all. My father lost 17 lbs in 3 days, every time he went to the bathroom it was not a bloody stool just blood itself, we had him admitted to the local hospital and I booked the next flight back home to California utterly depressed and the whole family near the breaking point. My father had lost all his color, his weight was horribly low, and it was difficult for him to walk and at this time he was even considering just giving up and going through with the surgery. But by the grace of God we luckily had another option.

March 2009: I was a senior graduating from university and while waiting for my last final of the day, I was at the Science and Engineering library and while the use of probiotics to treat UC was still in the testing stages, I found certifiable lab reports, studies, and success rates in the library and through the online university databases (PUBMED, JSTOR, LEXIS) I researched the strains of bacterium throughly before deciding to tell my father. I did not want to raise his hopes again as we had gone through so much before with scams, homepathic, but I did tell him and we decided to give it a shot because why NOT?

The doctors were of no hope, continuing with the same approach, seriously I cannot understand how these people are still licensed they look at their patients like ATMs. When we asked about the probiotics the response was "Oh it won't work stick with the prednisone thats all there is or Remicade or theres the surgery but this stuff no it won't work don't bother." Well we bothered and it did what 9.5 years of 'the same approach' didn't it gave my dad his life back. My dad slowly took himself off asacol and prednisone to give himself a 'fresh start' so to speak and after we had a completely clean system we began the probiotic.

We used ALIGN a probiotic that has Bifidobacterium infantis along with other smaller strains of bacteria (the good stuff that lines the intestine that has pretty much been eroded by the disease) . I am not pimping out this stuff nor do I need to hear from people that state "Oh it didn't work for me blah blah" I am only doing this as my dad wants others to know his story. And for those that are skeptical feel free to drive down to UCSC go to the science and engineering library and research to your heart's content or if you have access to university medical databases type it in and studies from Dartmouth, Brown, University of California will pop up and show the studies with the success rates.

Align has changed my dad for the better: he is at his healthy weight again, no running to the bathroom ever, instead of going to the bathroom 9-12x a day its now 1-2x, no bloody stool, no mucous, and best of all NO FEAR. The colonoscopy came back clean, the blood tests, everything is normal and now his doctors want me to fax them these studies so they can 'review' this information.

My dad is now happy and healthy a capsule of Align once a day and along with a glass full of Lifehouse Kefir (another wonderful probiotic that has 4 strains of helpful bacterium for UC) everything is good. I thank God every day for giving me my dad back and hope that anybody that has this horrible disease is as lucky as we are with Align and Kefir.

So glad to read of the success. Funnily enough, my GI dr does not push probiotics but his nurse mentioned them and they've made a big difference for me.

I have heard Align mentioned - is it an OTC probiotic or prescription?

Thanks for taking your time to post your dad's story.

Thank you for sharing. Bifidobacterium infantis is found in Align and is also one of the 8 strains of bacteria found in VSL#3. Probiotics have an excellent reputation for effectiveness here and VSL3 is one of the most popular brands. It is pricey but if you search this site you may find a way to have your medical insurance offset its cost. VSL#3 contains almost 1/2 trillion units while more commercial brands such as Align and Culturelle can contain less, but if they work then they work. What we all learn from this site is that a silver bullet for one may not be effective for another. But we all learn when everyone shares their experiences. The following was posted last July about Align:

FYI. An independent consumer lab tested two of the more popular brands of probiotics and found some deficiencies. Vitamins and supplements are not regulated by the FDA so these kinds of problems can occur. To get around this you could check out the independent lab results or find a major manufacturer that cannot afford to get the reputation for sloppiness that will ruin sales. Caveat Emptor.

"# Align claimed to contain 1 billion live bacteria when manufactured “and an effective level until as least the “best by” date. ConsumerLab.com testing revealed that only 530 million bacteria were viable. However, a clinical study of the bacteria (Bifidobacterium infantis 35624) in Align showed that it could reduce symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) at a dose of just 100 million. ConsumerLab.com found that the product exceeded this amount, so the product’s claim to provide an effective dose is correct. Whether or not a higher dose might offer greater efficacy is not known.

"# Culturelle claimed to provide 10 billion cells in a daily capsule through the “best used by” date; ConsumerLab.com found only 5.8 billion viable cells. It is not clear whether this is a sufficient dose. Most clinical studies with Lactobacillus GG have used 10 to 20 billion viable cells per day. A dosing study (Saxelin 1991) using the bacteria in Culturelle (Lactobacillus GG) found that a daily dose of 1.5 billion cells was not able to colonize the gut, but a dose of 15 billion was. The amount found falls between these two dosages."

Post Edited (BabeintheWoods) : 10/17/2010 10:12:25 PM (GMT-6)

Fecal transplantation is even better than probiotics, but yes probiotics are great too. Make sure to take your probiotics every day.

simplyS

thanks for coming here to tell your Dad's success story. It will give some people hope. You are a loving child to stand by him through all this, some people have no one in their life to lean on.

Several (many?) people here have spoken well of Align probiotics, I myself use VSL#3 successfully. But probiotics by itself didn't get me out of the big hole UC had me in. Sure glad it worked for your dad.

It's great to hear a happy ending. Thanks for visiting. Come back every now and then and say it again since the members change from time to time. Best wishes.

Probiotics can be beneficial but are not a cure-all. I have been taking probiotics since I was a teenager, diagnosed with UC 15 years later, and took them all through my years of UC. One more on the list of therapies that will help some UCers but not others. I'm glad your dad has found remission!

Sue

@simplystrawberry

Please don't spam this forum

@ mudua
I have no idea what you are talking about..I only wrote this upon my parents' insistence and this is exactly why I didn't want to write anything I do NOT work for Align, or Lifeway Kefir. I am a med student at the University of California, Davis. Whether this worked for you or not is not my problem but that does not give you the right to point to my post as spam.

SPAM is ALOE-ELITE or something similar to that I never posted any links or touted Align as a cure-all so please do not bother me over such asinine nonsense. PEACE.

We also had a member recently pushing align constantly and quoting IBS studies as a basis, so that made it a little more suspicious. Just a coincidence I guess.

i remember asking my GI about taking probiotics/acidophilis and he said not while i'm flaring. well... i'm still flaring! (on and off since march) and now wondering if i should just go ahead and take it? i dont know anything about any of the ones everyone was talking about (align, vsl, etc) are they considered a drug? herbal? or is it like a vitamin?

on another note, i'm really frustrated with most western doctors when they always disreagard any type of alternative method than what they prescribe! ugh... just wanted to vent that out... haha

I cry everytime I read a story like this and a man that get recovery from this UC. Congrats to your father. I have identical history of the disease, don't want to go out and all you said about your father. But still did not find a way to solve it. I look for it each day, but lately have few few hopes. Often I think my colitis is worse than every other colitis, than I read those stories and change idea a bit. Hope I'll be able to tell my success story before or after.

simplystrawberry said...
@ mudua
I have no idea what you are talking about..I only wrote this upon my parents' insistence and this is exactly why I didn't want to write anything I do NOT work for Align, or Lifeway Kefir. I am a med student at the University of California, Davis. Whether this worked for you or not is not my problem but that does not give you the right to point to my post as spam.

SPAM is ALOE-ELITE or something similar to that I never posted any links or touted Align as a cure-all so please do not bother me over such asinine nonsense. PEACE.

 

 

Please stop spamming.

I, too, have gotten a lot of benefit from Align along with other treatments - mostly rectal meds. The very first sample I got from first GI doctor was Align. I take it every day - about 2 years now. I KNOW it stopped my diarrhea at first although I continued to have blood streaked stool - no diarrhea for months except when sick or IBS acting up. When I take antibiotics I take 2 a day - otherwise the one!
ElaineNY