NICOTINE - peoples thoughts?

MossPiglet said...
warrior.princess (and others) here is info on my own experiment with nicotine (sorry for length):
I was never a smoker and have had UC for almost 18 years. Had been fairly well controlled for almost 10 years with Asacol (9 pills/day and 50mg Imuran) but then in Nov had a big, bad flare (BBF, not to be confused with BFF.) At that point I was on 6 Asacol HD/day as asacol was taken off the market in June 2013 plus 50 mg Imuran. Did a Medrol 4 pack which helped some but then was still very sick, lots of bleeding every day, all day; chronic pain, loss of appetite and subsequent weight loss. There were periods where I never left my house for several days in a row, though I was able to work b/c I work at home. Anyway, it was getting to the point where I had to act, and act fast. My GI wanted me on prednisone, and I have been on that before and just cannot stand it; additionally I ended up with osteoporosis in my spine in my 30’s, which I was able to reverse in about 3 years.
So, after doing some research and reading other people’s posts on nicotine use, I decided nicotine was the lesser evil over prednisone. Feb 12th I started slowly on 5 mg, then went to 10 for 7 days and am now on 14 mg. On day 3 when I went to 10 mg noticed IMMEDIATE relief. Bleeding , pain, diarrhea and urgency significantly reduced. At 14 mg now I have no pain, a little bleeding on occasion, am able to eat and gain weight (a good thing for me) and rarely have urgency. The only side effects I notice is it does give me some insomnia and the patches sometimes itch and the glue is a bit hard to remove; baby oil helps somewhat. I am still taking all my other drugs which were not helping with my BBF, though as I stated prior , in the past they were effective in keeping me in remission. I added generic mesalamine enemas over the summer and am still doing those 5-7 nights/week.
Right now I am using the 21 mg patch and cutting it up; there is conflicting info out there about whether this is a wise thing to do or not. 14 -21mg patches cost the same as 14-14mg patches at Mal-Wart (my preferred name)
I am not sure how long I am going to be on the patches. Yes, it does increase ones BP but my BP is so low that I often don’t even have my systolic over 100 so I am not too worried about that, and I have been very active most of my life and eat few animal products (one study said nicotine increases risk of atherosclerosis)so I feel like this is a low risk for me. I think I will stay on 14 mg for a few more weeks and then drop to 10 and see how it goes from there. Right now this is allowing my body to heal and allows me to lead a “normal” life. I haven’t “come clean” to my GI but will do so in a few weeks if I continue to benefit from this little experiment.
When I researched this on the internet, there were some articles that said the patches were safe for long term use, but all of the studies were done on former smokers. The thought was that for those who were/are addicted to smoking, the long-term use of the patches was MUCH better than going back to smoking (duh).
Some of the clinical trials comparing nicotine vs prednisone are a bit old- from the 90’s and early 00’s. One study stated that nicotine provided longer remission over prednisone once it was terminated. I find it interesting that there is little information about long-term use of nicotine in UC patients. Big Pharma has little to gain from the use of nicotine. Right now, if I had to pay full cost of all my meds, it would be over $3500 a month, compared to ~$70 month for nicotine patches. Nicotine patches might not work for everyone or be a good choice for everyone, but so far I have been very, very pleased with my results. Hands down nicotine is (at least for me) much better than prednisone.