Hormones and Flare

Does anyone know how much hormones have to do with flaring? I have 2 girls and have started flaring when both of them reached 5 months. My daughter is now 7 months old and I've been flaring for 2 months now and I am so miserable. Does anyone have information or have you had the same problem with flaring postpartum? I am seeing a GI doc as well as a holistic doctor. I am currently tapering from 40 mg of prednisone and am at 5mg. I am still having problems with blood and mucus and going to the bathroom 5-10x a day. The urgency is so bad. I am down to only breastfeeding her once a day now. Any information would be helpful.

Prednisone- tapering down from 40mg to 5mg currently and still flaring
Cortifoam taken nightly
Lialda 4 pills nightly
Vitamin D, B, Fish Oil, 3500 mg glutamine powder
VSL #3, prenatal vitamin

I definitely believe that there is a link between hormones and flares. With my first pregnancy, I knew I was pregnant because my UC immediately flared. Three to four months after giving birth to each of my two children I flared. My doctors had pretty much told me that I would flare postpartum. My son is now 8 months old, and I have been flaring since he was three months. I just started my second course of prednisone and am now taking Imuran. I just had to give up breastfeeding three days ago when I started the Imuran. I basically had a weekend to "wean" my son. It has been horrible for both of us. He will barely drink any formula. He has been crying and not sleeping. I have been trying to hold him, rock him, walk him, etc, but I can't stay out of the bathroom. My husband has been really helpful, but this has been so stressful for all of us. I hate that I can't be the mom that I want to be to my two children as I am tired, or in the bathroom, or afraid to go to the park with no bathroom, or losing my patience too quickly from the steroids. So I don't know what kind of information I can share, but I can certainly relate to your situation.

Why are you tapering the prednisone if you are still experiencing so many symptoms? How long were you on 40 mg? The steroid enemas seemed to help with some of my urgency/frequency issues. When I took them in the morning, I would usually have several hours that were better during the day. Have you thought of doing the cortifoam during the day, too? Have you tried rowasa? Where is your inflammation?

Oh man, I'm so sorry. I flared so intensely after having my daughter. It was godawful. I was probably going 30 times a day in the first week. Every single time I tried to breastfeed I had to run to the bathroom. I got so dehydrated I ended up in the ER five days after giving birth because I was so sick I couldn't stand up for more than a minute without falling over.

On day 10 I went on prednisone and stopped breastfeeding. Every time I pumped I had to run to the bathroom and I couldn't stomach the thought of giving my daughter prednisone milk. I got a lot of crap for that from the lactation consultants, who I still want to punch. Of course, then I got mastitis and dealt with three separate surgeries to drain me of the tennis ball sized pus pocket in my boob.

I am celebrating my daughter's 2nd birthday and I'm still sick. I'm considering trying to go back on birth control since I definitely see spikes in my symptoms tied to my period. I'm convinced there are hormonal links.

So sorry you are having such troubles. I absolutely see a connection between hormones and flares. My daughter has pancolitis (UC over the entire colon) and she flares every time her period starts regardless of medication.

And then when her period subsides, so does her flare.

Perhaps once your hormones return to "normal" you will see a reduction in your flare/symptoms

UC is an autoimmune disease. It is fact that more women come down with autoimmune diseses than do men and hormones are very much suspected of being involved. For some reason I believe UC is more like 50/50 women vs. men but I would still say that hormones definetly still play some kind of role. Beyond that I really don't know what to tell you. Were you taking any maintanence therapy or meds the last time you were in remission? I see many, many people here who go into remission, quit taking their meds, then they flare worse than they did before and the meds that used to put them into remission no longer work as effectively. It is extremely important to take meds (not prednisone) while in remission to keep the disease at bay.

I have always felt sure that progesterone must be involved. I don't really understand why we don't see more research about it. My best days of the month are always those that coincide with the progesterone surge, the worst when it is at the lowest. Multiple Sclerosis, another auto immune disease in my family also seems to often flare for women post partum, when progesterone drops.

Some relevant research here?
www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0102-86502012000100005&script=sci_arttext

and here www.news-medical.net/news/20130302/Synthetic-progesterone-birth-control-injections-have-vulnerability-to-certain-infections-Research.aspx

I believe that Jini Patel Thompson recommends rubbing progesterone cream into the feet...

I also recently watched a short lecture on youtube that mentions that the endocrine system relies on gut bacteria to produce hormones (at least I think that's what I understood), so whether it is chicken or egg in the process, I don't know

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWT_BLVOASI

faith, I am so happy you're feeling better. I would like to try this myself :)