BananaGirl

Haven't heard a peep from you lately... just curious as to how you're doing with the symponi (I forget what it's called)

Hopefully quiet = getting back to life again!

It would appear that she's giving the good ol' nicotine therapy a go. The results appear to be promising, but don't take my word on it until we hear from the official source. :D

Awesome on the farting :)

How long are you going to give the nicotine a go for?

I get all itchy from the patches and eventually freak out and rip them off... and I find the gum and mouth spray gives me this intense dry/cough type thingy. Hard to describe but it feels odd. For some reason these nicotine replacement items tend to bother me so I have a hard time using them.

EDIT: So I just smoke... which is pretty darn stupid. But I think I'll give quitting an honest shot very soon. Lately I've been able to go for very extended times without a craving or a smoke (half a day type thing or even while driving or having a coffee) so I think I'm close to really trying to quit.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 2/5/2014 11:50:00 PM (GMT-7)

hey mark, i will stay on the nicotine as long as it helps. my doctor also said i could stay on prednisone indefinitely but i think that's a bad idea. he does have patients that do it though.

yeah, if the nicotine gives you reactions, then i wouldn't do it. the first few days, my mouth tasted like pure acid and it went down my throat. after about 4 days i got used to it and i don't notice it anymore. the key is keeping the lozenge under my tongue even if that means it takes longer to dissolve.

i always forget you're a smoker. i guess you don't mention it too often though. how much do you smoke? my dad ended up quitting a few weeks ago but uses the 21 mg patch every day. no problems at all for him. he was a pack and a half to two packs a day smoker.

conqueruc, my dad had been telling me to smoke for a long time but i have asthma and allergies. i just wasn't gonna risk it since my lung function was always so low.

yeah, the nicotine and simponi both work well together for me. i noticed relief from simponi about a day after i took it even if it wears off. i still take imuran, too, since my GI said that combo works better than the biologic alone. honestly, at this point, i know it's a lot of meds, but i really want to keep my colon so i just suck it up and take them. with the nicotine, my belly has never been flatter ( i mean besides after i do a colonoscopy prep haha). i used to be so bloated and gassy and that disappeared after my first lozenge. the simponi was helping with my right sided pain.

if i were you, conqueruc, i'd try the nicotine lozenges because they have smaller doses and you can work your way up. i think if you've never been a smoker it would shock your body to all of a sudden have a huge burst of nicotine. even the 4mg caused me a lot of dizziness. it goes away after about 30 minutes for me and now i dont get it at all. i mean, i'm not doctor, but i told my gi and the resident gi that i was doing nicotine and they said the studies support it even if they don't technically know why it works. they both agreed it was better to use nicotine long term than be on prednisone long term.

This thread gives me really mixed feelings:
While I am very happy you are getting better, bananagirl, I feel sad you end up taking an addicting drug. I wish the best for you and I hope you are doing well! And in the end I hope you will one day manage to not take nicotine.

I had very bad problem with farts. It is all gone since I begun with food combining a few years ago.

Nicotine itself, though untested on UC patients, has a better safety profile than corticosteroids, immunosuppresants and biologics. That being said, I'm not endorsing the use of it. I just think it's trading one lesser evil for another when it comes to UC medications.

Here's a promising animal study study that showed relatively few long term repercussions of just inhaling nicotine:

We could not find any increase in mortality, in atherosclerosis or frequency of tumors in these rats compared with controls. Particularly, there was no microscopic or macroscopic lung tumors nor any increase in pulmonary neuroendocrine cells. Throughout the study, however, the body weight of the nicotine exposed rats was reduced as compared with controls. In conclusion, our study does not indicate any harmful effect of nicotine when given in its pure form by inhalation.

You might find this interesting.

It's a dream for us RS junkies.

( Hint : It's about bananas )

I hope they get the remaining funds for it to go through because of the current rarity of such flours. Would kill to see it on the store shelves here. Will order the 1 lb package to give them a slight boost.

On the topic of plantains, I started making green plantain chips using palm oil, but the taste was slightly off putting. My guess is that deep frying generated extra acrylamides, making the taste pungent ( this is why potato chips mess up our arteries ). It works as an extra carb and RS source, but I have a feeling it will do a bit better with lard.

Ah cooking, so much tougher than rocket science.

Hey Banana-Are you using the 2mg or 4mg lozenges?

Did you consider the patches? I think there is some tooth decay and mouth cancer risks with the lozenges.  I am seriously considering the patches since I can't get off Pred.

Well i used the patch today. I used the 10mg patch which delivers over 16 hours, so it should give 0.625 mg nicotine/hour.

At first i felt 'wired' similar to when you have too much caffeine. Then after 3 hours i started to feel a mixture of dizziness/headache/ inability to concentrate and got bad enough for me to take the patch off. So by the time i took it off i would have gotten about 2 mg nicotine.

I know these are side effects of the patch, but is it normal that they are that bad? I have never smoked btw. But the side effects were so bad i felt like i had to take it off because i felt so weak and the headache was bad, also i felt this weird prickly sensation in my hands.

I don't know if i should try again tomorrow.

The patch was originally in an aluminium foil, so i put it back in aluminium foil: does that mean it should stay fine until i use it next time? Or will it continue to release nicotine even if not attached to the skin?

I had such high hopes for the nicotine, i was so sure i would feel great on it. Clearly the placebo effect does not work on me.

Post Edited (Conquer UC) : 2/8/2014 9:22:18 PM (GMT-7)

Wow! I hope you relief Joanna ! I'm on anti anxiety meds now...I hope a combo of that and Lialda will help. I'm on pred now :( 40 and taper of course, I was on like 60 or 80mg in hospital.

Bless us all!