smoking with UC

diagnosed 7 years ago with UC when I quit smoking.

Tried traditional medicine for a full 3 years (worst 3 years of my life) with symptoms only getting worse by the day. To the point where I couldn't even leave the house any more due to the urgency of going to the bathroom. Would pass blood up to 20 times just in the morning. Was hospitalized a couple times. I couldn't go anywhere that I hadn't mapped out the toilet locations. Had several accidents while waiting for a stall. Was sick all the time, had to carry a change of clothes with me all the time when I was brave enough to leave the house. Could barely work. Had doctors running experiments with meds that did a sum total of nothing.

Finally, 4 years ago, with my wife expecting our first child, I decided to start smoking again as a test. Well, what do you know? Took about a month to totally reverse my condition until I was completely symptom free. For the past 4 years, I haven't taken any meds for colitis and eat whatever I want. Sure I'd like to quit but I have to remember how bad it is living with UC, with a grocery list of meds to take, or diets so complicated that you can never eat out, or with company of fear that there will be nothing to eat...starving because you know if you eat that piece of cheese, it's coming out in a heartbeat.

Social norms are making it very difficult to smoke though so I sure hope that someone figures out what's in cigs that cause the remission (research pointing to carbon monoxide). However, if it is the carbon monoxide, it's too bad because such a product will never reach the public. How much money is there to be made by a pharmaceutical company selling a readily available gas (CO) that causes 100% remission...very little! That's the way things work.

And as anyone like me knows, when you smoke, you're treated like a monster regardless of the reason for the habit, and it's a waste of saliva to try to explain the exception of the condition.

If anyone hears of progress in a medication that can rival the results I get with cigs, I'm all ears. But anytime I ask my doc about the results of trials, the response is usually: 9/20 patients experienced a reduction of 50% of symptoms. And that's positive! How many of you want to feel only 50% better? So you're passing blood 10 times instead of 20 in a morning. Wow, killer improvement.

I always knew there was a connection to smoking.

However, I was diagnosed at age 15 and had never smoked. My dad did but my didn't. And my dad quite AFTER I was diagnosed. I started smoking at 20 years old, to lose some weight and basically I was fatalistic anyway, since there was NO CURE for my UC. I had spent over a month in the hospital while stlll in high school. I constantly had flares from 15 through 30 something. The smoking did not make a positive difference for me. However, when I quit smoking at age 35, I had one of the worst flares ever that last for months. Then ten years later I started smoking again. Again, no real positive change like total remission. However I quit again five years ago. Instead of cold turkey, I did is more casunally. I still had a flare but much more mild.
I don't want to smoke again but if they could ever bottle the reason smoking can help.....>wOW

By the way....I forgot to welcome you! Glad to have you here!!

nicotine is beneficial to UC but not crohns. i have spent the last week having a cigarette here and there after not smoking and my symptoms are definitely getting better.
whether i can attribute this to the cigarettes or not i dont know.

but every single doctor i have spoken to says that smoking is good for UC'ers. and i dont mean "good" as in smoking is good, because every single one of those same doctors said that they do NOT recommend taking up smoking because it is bad for you.

so its really a no win situation. one doc said nicotine patches have actually helped his patients. as well as the gum. for those who dont smoke he said the gum is best because you just chew a piece here and there, not like a smoker who is trying to quit and has to chew lots.

i am at the point (after a year+ long flare) that i figure if a cigarette here and there will make me not so symptomatic, then i will go ahead and have a cigarette here and there. but i am unique in the fact that i can smoke and stop at will. not everyone is like that, so there in the problem arises for others of becoming addicted to smoking.

its a tough situation isnt it....

Ok, just my opinion... no matter how good my UC got, I wouldn't smoke, even if I would go into remission for life.  I just lost my Mom to Emphysema, I wouldn't wish that amount of suffering on anyone.

Like I said, it's very individualistic with IBD, I have crohns and smoking is suppose to cause flares in the small intestines, but for me it doesn't (knocking on wood it stays that way, afterall, when I first got sick with crohns it was affecting my TI (small intestines, colon, rectom and anus).

Princesscolon, you do have a good point, afterall we all know smoking in general is bad for us, keeping in mind not everyone who smokes gets emphazima and/or cancer but of course the risk of either of those will increase for smokers but it's not definite that it will happen to every smoker either.

:)

Many people do have success with their maintenance drugs (once they kick in which can take 6 months or so) like asacol, imuran, ect...If you smoke a little it's better than smoking alot even with the fact that smoking at all is harmful in the case of UC you can look at it like a little is better than none (smoking that is)...I don't plan to go back to a pack a day, 6/day works for me.

:)

my GI said that smoking can actually reduce UC symptoms..I quit smoking 10 yrs ago and wont go back, no way.

We all risk something in order to feel as good as we can...the irony of reality. I see people ride bikes and run along busy streets..and I'm sure they'd believe smoking is bad for their health. I want to puke even thinking about how healthy that can be.

No, I'm not a smoker...but I was in my teens, albeit light. I have no idea what can eventually come of that..especially since I have asthma and my mom died of lung cancer.

quincy

Well, I'll definitely be re-thinking my use of dryer sheets and scented laundry detergent. I don't wear make-up, so I don't have to worry about that one. And, yeah, I always kind of cringe when I see runners jogging alongside busy streets...and you gotta love people that drink tons of sugary soda every day and eat fast food all the time, but think it's okay to put down smokers b/c they are so unhealthy. I know smoking is unhealthy and I want to quit, but, yeah, there are lots of habits and products we use that are unhealthy.

I just came home today from the hospital after having surgery. I didn't smoke for about 48 hours (before/after surgery) and by tonight I'm starting to have symptoms of a flare again... The same thing happened when i tried to quit a couple of months ago. So I know smoking helps my colitis and, personally, I'm sticking with my habit. I also smoke less than 10 cigarettes per day and, yes, I also struggle with really knowing what exactly is the most damaging to the body: flaring, popping higher quantities of prescription drugs or smoking. There is no denying that smoking is bad for us. Can't help but agree though, many of the "socially acceptable" harms people expose themselves to on a daily basis (air pollution, growth hormones in non-organic meat, fast food, refined sugar, pesticides, cleaning products, obesity, etc., etc., etc) are getting off easy as long as smoking is around to take the bum rap. Smoking is one of many manmade/self-inflicted evils.

it is the carbon monoxide and not the nicotene. I say this because my GI told me that studies have been conducted where UC-ers are given nicotene patches, and the patch doesn't have the same benefits of the cigs. bummer. I asked my GI if I should start smoking (this was when I thought Imuran was going to fail me), but he was against that strategy.

Yes well I'm an odd-ball because I have crohns (crohns-colitis, where CD is affecting the colon) and I do much better smoking than not, my colon and rectom surgeon told me never to quit smoking, I did anyways and my flare went from bad to much worse with 30+ BM's a day, I started again and along with natural products that I was taking I improved.

Nothing's written in stone and there isn't one thing that works for everyone, smoking will not necessarily help every UCer or hurt every CDer.

:)