Bacterial infections, stress and colitis.

Hello to all HW members. I've been suffering from UC since 2006, and after many years of exhaustive personal research, I am closing on the cause of my colitis. Without entering into heavy detail or citing all the research I've read, I believe my colitis was caused by a two fold combination of an initial bacterial invasion (traveler's diarrhea), followed a few months later by a period of extreme stress that dropped my immune system's ability to keep what is evidently a persistent infection in check.

What I would like to know from all members reading this post who have UC (UC specifically, not Crohn's), is how many of you experienced a case of infectious diarrhea (i.e. you ate something bad, like sushi) before you came down with UC symptoms, and whether the onset of symptoms followed a period of significant stress.

Understanding the cause of our disease, though it is likely different for everyone, is the first critical step in treating in effectively. I look forward to hearing from you all.

Hey InSoFla I seem to run into you a lot on these forums haha! Thanks for adding your info to this one.

Chalk up another one to stress. Did you ever have any food poisoning before UC? Or any infections of the sort?

Got diagnosed with UC-pancolitis
After:
4 months - had a really bad chicken salad food poisoning(lost 10lb in a week, couldn't eat anything but water).
3 Months - after the end of lawsuit related court trials(was going on for almost a year omg so stressful).

I'm sure these events eventually led to UC along with other factors(diet) and I believe that maybe I was prone to developing IBD genetically although no one has it in my family(I'm asian)

CollegeStudent your story sounds a lot like mine. Check out some reading I did:

"Researchers in Denmark have discovered a link between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and an initial bacterial infection with either salmonella or campylobacter gastroenteritis, an important step in understanding the development of IBD that may help explain the increasing incidence of IBD over the past decade.

Denmark’s system of tracking its citizens with individual identification numbers allowed researchers to examine patient interaction with the health-care system over a 15 year period. Investigators examined how many patients in a control group would develop IBD and compared them with those who have been exposed to bacteria in the past. They found that over 15 years, three times as many patients who had been exposed to bacteria later developed IBD as those who had not been exposed.

“This is the first time we are able to make such a clear association with an initial exposure to bacteria and subsequent development of IBD in the long term,” said Nielsen Henrik, MD, professor of infectious diseases at Aalborg Hospital in Denmark. “Our research has important implications for food safety and disease prevention. If we can reduce and prevent the spread of food bacteria and infections, we may reduce or even largely eliminate IBD in the long term.”

Dr. Nielsen is hopeful that further research will go beyond the association between bacteria exposure and IBD established in his study and attempt to prove causality by studying in detail the biology of individual patients."

Bam! How's that for food for thought?? Previous bacterial infection + stress = onset of UC?? It appears so.

At least for some Bananagirl, I've never heard a story quite like yours! That's really inexplicable. How are your symptoms now that you've been cooking your veggies again?

badslinke said...
CollegeStudent your story sounds a lot like mine. Check out some reading I did:

"Researchers in Denmark have discovered a link between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and an initial bacterial infection with either salmonella or campylobacter gastroenteritis, an important step in understanding the development of IBD that may help explain the increasing incidence of IBD over the past decade.

Denmark’s system of tracking its citizens with individual identification numbers allowed researchers to examine patient interaction with the health-care system over a 15 year period. Investigators examined how many patients in a control group would develop IBD and compared them with those who have been exposed to bacteria in the past. They found that over 15 years, three times as many patients who had been exposed to bacteria later developed IBD as those who had not been exposed.

“This is the first time we are able to make such a clear association with an initial exposure to bacteria and subsequent development of IBD in the long term,” said Nielsen Henrik, MD, professor of infectious diseases at Aalborg Hospital in Denmark. “Our research has important implications for food safety and disease prevention. If we can reduce and prevent the spread of food bacteria and infections, we may reduce or even largely eliminate IBD in the long term.”

Dr. Nielsen is hopeful that further research will go beyond the association between bacteria exposure and IBD established in his study and attempt to prove causality by studying in detail the biology of individual patients."

Bam! How's that for food for thought?? Previous bacterial infection + stress = onset of UC?? It appears so.

At least for some Bananagirl, I've never heard a story quite like yours! That's really inexplicable. How are your symptoms now that you've been cooking your veggies again?

The article is very intriguing. I used to be vastly interested in antibacterial therapy during the first year when I got diagnosed and definitely agree with your point.

I was on Cipro for the bad food poisoning.
Then + stress = UC diagnosed within a few months

I already felt changes in my BMs and GI track after the food poisoning. My BM was becoming more foul smelling, skinnier, I didn't eat anything green but it would be green at a lot of times, loose stool constipation and weight gain. My stools were loose but I was constipated. I didn't go for 2-3 days though I usually go once everyday.

When UC symptoms started, I was put on Cipro by the doctors at Emergency room for a week then the colonoscopy revealed UC after the biopsy confirm. Went on a round of cipro/flagyl + Asacol, refused Prednisone.

I got into almost full remission while gaining back all the weight that I've lost within 2 months since the diagnosis just with Asacol. Then flared 3 months but flared differently. No blood, a lot of pain in right lower abdomen, urgent green loose stools(6-7) probably also because I was eating a lot of fried chickens and diner/restaurant food.

I thought it was bacterial so I asked my GI for flagyl/cipro voluntarily(this was stupid b/c on my next flare, these two started causing bleed and ANY antibiotics cause flare ups now) Then IV steroids put me to 100% remission for the next 4 months again. And my life went on lol.

badslinke,

Well actually, I'm not sure now. Because during the 2 year period of GIGANTIC stress, we ate out once to a BBQ place. I don't usually eat pork, and I had baby-back ribs. When I got home I got soooooooo sick... cramps, diarrhea, vomiting. I was sick for nearly 2 days. I didn't get it diagnosed or get it checked out. I just figured I ate bad food. How badly contaminated with bacteria who really knows?

So, I really am not sure.

This is getting more interesting by the minute.

rbartolo, were you able to beat the colitis given you fully understood and had identified the cause? How did you find out as well? How long after getting that parasite did the colitis start? Was there any significant stress before the onset?

So many questions

InSoFla, that's classic food poisoning, and food poisoning is always bacterial. You can in fact eat old, rotten flesh, as long as it's bacteria free (i.e. cooking the sh1t out of it). You can also eat purely raw meat as long as it's really fresh (i.e. within a few hours) and bacteria haven't had a chance to grow. Do you remember how long after that case of poisoning your colitis started/was diagnosed?

CollegeStudent, I'm not surprised that the western diet is already so prevalent in Korea, and it of course fits naturally with the rise of IBD there. Take a look into epigenetics, and how diet interplays with it. Here's an example of what I mean:

"During the 1930's, Dr. Francis M. Pottenger conducted a 10-year study on the relative effects of pasteurized and raw milk diets on 900 cats. One group received nothing but raw whole milk, while the other was fed nothing but pasteurized whole milk from the same source.

The raw milk group thrived, remaining healthy, active and alert throughout their lives, but the group fed on pasteurized milk soon became listless, confused and highly vulnerable to a host of chronic degenerative ailments normally associated with humans, including heart disease, kidney failure, thyroid dysfunction, respiratory ailments, loss of teeth, brittle bones, liver inflammation, etc.

But what caught Dr. Pottenger's attention most was what happened to the second and third generations.

The first offspring of the pasteurized milk group were all born with poor teeth and small, weak bones- a clear cut sign of calcium deficiency, which indicated lack of calcium absorption from pasteurized milk.

The offspring of the raw milk group remained as healthy as their parents.

Many of the kittens in third generation of the pasteurized group were stillborn, while those that survived were all sterile and unable to reproduce.

The experiment had to end there because there was no fourth generation of cats fed on pasteurized milk, although the raw milk group continued to breed and thrive indefinitely.

If that is insufficient proof of the ill effects of pasteurized milk, take note of the fact even that newborn calves fed on pasteurized milk taken from their own mother cows usually die within six months, a fact which the commercial dairy industry is loathe to admit."

Though this is not a direct example of epigenetics, it essentially shows the same idea: the diet that previous generations consume directly effects generations further down the line. Thus, the crappy western diet that both our parents started to eat after its major onset in the 1950s genetically predisposed us, and many others, to genetic intestinal/immune weaknesses. A bacterial invasion occurs, and then a period of stress exploits the genetically inherited weakness, originally transmitted by generations of bad diet, resulting in UC.

So, the equation being presented here might be modified to look like this: generations of bad diet + resulting genetic immune weaknesses + bacterial invasion + period of stress that exploits said weakness = onset of UC. This helps explain why diet exacerbates UC so much, and why I'm doing horribly after that darned cornbread, and another lady's son (MotherOfSonWithUC I think her screen name is) recently had her son explode into a flare after several months remission right after eating a greasy hamburger. It also helps explain why diet can control so many people's UC (i.e. SCD) but can't actually cure it. When people go off the diet, they explode again.

This of course doesn't explain everyone's UC, but it explains a significant subset. Healthy eating will help correct the genetic imbalances down the line, but it doesn't cure ours. Honestly, I think the best we can do, if we fit into this subset, is to eat healthy to not exacerbate the condition, and start taking immunostimulators (like LDN) and natural antibiotics (like Olive Leaf Extract) to help battle the persistent bacterial infection and get the immune system back to where it needs to be.

This has got to be the longest post I've ever written haha.

Keep these stories coming! This is all starting to make sense.

And to patch up some holes in the above theory, given many will probably be asking these questions:

Q: How is it that a bacterial infection can remain even after something like food poisoning goes away? Usually if someone gets food poisoning or another type of infection, they are sick for a few days to a week and that's it.

A: This is a question I'm still trying to find a solid answer to. Some research suggests that certain bacterial infections in the gut are never actually completely wiped out by the immune system. Much rather, they are simply put into check and reside there benignly. This is the same theory behind helminth or whipworm treatment, that has helped some people. The presence of the worms, by all means an invader, actually stimulate the immune system's activity and are known to reside in the gut for several years before they naturally die of age. At this point more whipworms are ordered, which have been genetically modified to not reproduce so as to not completely take over the intestinal tract (GMO worms!!). This also lends credit to the argument that the ultra clean modern household has actually led to weaker immune systems among developed nations. Some of the strongest immune systems in the world have been recorded among gypsy children, who are constantly exposed to travel and environmental conditions. They literally grow up in the dirt, and the immune system never completely kills off certain bacteria, in an effort to strengthen itself.

Q: If a persistent bacterial infection is causing constant this type of UC by exploiting a weakness in the immune system (derived from stress and dietary genetics), how come antibiotics don't just cure it?

A: Well, in fact, they do, just not for everybody. There are testimonials out there of people who have had their UC totally stopped in its tracks after taking a significant course of standard antibiotics. However, there are other people, like CollegeStudent, who end up going into massive flares after taking the same stuff, because antibiotics both kill good AND bad bacteria in the gut. The good bacteria (probiotics) are the first line of defense in keeping bacterial invaders in check. Should a course of standard antibiotics not manage to completely wipe out the bacterial invaders, they will have all the opportunity in the world to go berserk because the gut's defenders have been depleted as well. Thus, many people actually either get UC after antibiotics, or have their UC get much, much worse. It is biological warfare, literally. This is well documented in research literature and case studies are easily found.

Q: So if not standard antibiotics, what can be done?

A: Olive Leaf Extract appears to be the most potent natural antibiotic commonly available. It is very effective and targeting only bad bacteria, leaving beneficial flora completely untouched. There's a lot of research on OLE's effectiveness against over 100 types of microorganisms. LDN also helps quite a bit evidently, as it allows a compromised immune system to return to a normal state of functionality.

I am by no means a medical professional. This is all based on things I've read over the years. I just really hope this forum post ends up helping a lot of people, because the cause and effect chain is starting to make sense.

More testimonials!!

Haha I don't know if any of these ideas could be called cogent, let alone theories. More like hypotheses, and patchy ones at that. There's still a lot of details and holes in there, but it makes sense on a surface level. I'd like to see a respected GI read this and hear his/her comments.

Anyway, to answer your chicken and egg question, it is actually the chicken, or your first idea. Life stress reduces the immune system, exposing a genetic weakness caused by diet over generations that shuts down the mucosal barrier. This shutdown in the mucosal barrier allows what was once a benign bacterial infection to thrive, and penetrate deeper into the intestinal wall where probiotic bacteria can't reach to keep them in check. As a result, the immune system sends inflammatory signals to the intestine to literally prevent the bacteria from entering the blood stream and killing you. You can think of the inflammation as the cells of the intestinal wall increasing their size in order to decrease the physical space between them, which would otherwise be little holes for bacteria to get through. This, I believe, is what causes docs to think UC is autoimmune, because it appears on most tests that the immune system is inflaming the intestinal wall for no good reason, when in fact there is a deeply rooted and well hidden bacterial infection there. Certain bacteria will actually send off chemical signals to disguise themselves as normal flora to T-cells and natural killer cells (the soldiers of the immune system) and the immune system has a hell of a time tracking them down. This also makes those bacteria very difficult to detect through standard means like stool tests. Not to mention that most hospitals don't even check for more than 5 or so species of invasive bacteria when they do stool tests. They're just too busy.

Biological warfare, for real.

In your case, my case, and CollegeStudent's case, the stress came from life factors, like a lawsuit, not from an initial case of food poisoning and infection. If you have netflix, there's an incredible documentary on how stress affects the body. I remember when it hit the section on how stress effects the gut, my jaw dropped. Combine that with an epigenetic weakness from ages of bad diet, and you've got the perfect environment for a residual bacterial infection to go nuts and cause chronic inflammation, unreachable by the immune system and undetectable by common medical tests (i.e. stool samples).

Healthy eating, low stress, LDN, l-glutamine, some antiinflammatories like fish oil, and olive leaf extract to the rescue, I hope

I'd also like to reiterate to everyone reading this post that this is really only a substrate of UC. The causal explanation given here certainly doesn't fit everybody, but it does fit some of us. There are numerous different reasons for a colon to become inflamed and ulcerated beyond a persistent bacterial infection.

On another note, the only time I achieved a remission like state while not on steroids was when I was taking super massive doses of VSL 3. I was taking 3.6 trillion worth of bacteria a day, or basically 4 of the double strength (DS) packets (900 billion in each). That suggests that enough probiotics could help put the infection back in check, further suggesting that probiotic bacteria can reach as deep as the invasive bacteria into the intestinal wall.

I had to stop taking the VSL though because I lost my insurance after graduating last summer, and haven't had insurance since. VSL is simply unaffordable out of pocket. For those curious, the DS version should be covered by most insurances, and requires a prescription to get. It's basically prescription strength stuff, the kind they used in the clinical trials that support VSL's effectiveness.

Notsosickly, C Diff infections are incredibly common after hospital stays that include antibiotic treatments. If that's what preceded the onset of your colitis, you really, really ought to look into it. The genetic predisposition you have wouldn't be a cause for the colitis, and would help explain why no one else has it in the family but you. It simply makes you susceptible and makes it a lot easier for an infection to take over.

Can you give more detail as to what exactly happened in the months before the onset of your UC??

I don't really remember what happened in the months prior. I did have surgery twice a few years before and I was on pretty strong antibiotics folllowing each surgery. I also had hives a few months prior to developing UC. It was so strange because I've never had uticaria in my life. I think prior to having UC, I had boughts of D for quite a while and my UC came on slowly. It began with just a little blood and the occasional bought of D. After a flex sig they found that I had a precancerous polyp. That was also very odd considering no one in my family has polyps or colon issues. After that, I was ok for about a year but then I had a severe flare up and had to get on oral medication.

I haven't noticed probiotics helping my conditon at all. I have made SCD yogurt, tried VSL (and other brands), fermented foods.. None of it helped. I would try VSL DS but I don't think my GI would prescribe it.

Have you considered doing Fecal transplant?

Do you mean stool tests? I did get my stool tested once for a clinical trial. They said it was normal but I don't know what exactly they were checking for. I doubt they were very thorough. what else can you do to check for bacteria? I am sure there are a lot of bacteria out there that they don't check for or are unidentified.

I doubt I took a very high dose of VSL, I couln't afford more than a month supply and I had to be pretty conservative with dose because I would have run out in a few days.

You can't do FB in the US with insurance. The only place they do it is in Australia. They do it in the US for c. diff I believe but it's not typical. Typically they treat you with flagyl or vancomycin for c. diff. FB carries some risk of disease transmimssion.