Can It Really Help This Quickly?

[keyjo50]

This is going to be long, so please bear with me.

Four weeks ago today I came down with what I thought was a stomach virus, and very likely was. I was nauseated, but didn't throw up, had severe diarrhea and generally felt rotten the entire time. On Monday morning, I woke up and "felt" ok, but still had the diarrhea. I went that whole week with only eating broth for half of it and then decided that I was sick of not eating and ate whatever I was feeding the family...I mean, nothing was working so why not attempt to eat, right? Well, it basically went through me undigested.

During Week 2 of the "Stomach hell of 2009," I was scheduled to graduate with my M.A., so I went to see my doctor...on the morning of graduation. He wanted to put me in the hospital, as I had already been the week before for dehydration, but I told him that I had to graduate and refused to miss the ceremony. He dosed me up on Lomotil and Phenergan and sent me on my way. I made it through graduation, although I was quite drowsy and sweating buckets, and collapsed at home after instead of going out to eat with my family/friends.

Week 3: I returned to my doctor, who then referred me to a GI who assured me that, no, diarrhea for 3 weeks is anything but normal. He immediately scheduled a colonoscopy/EGD, labwork, and stool samples to rule out parasites, bacterial/viral infection, and blood in the stool. I was especially worried because my biological father (I'm adopted) died of colon cancer a year ago June. The colonscopy/EGD came back perfect and the GI woke me up in recovery with 2 beautiful words, "No cancer." The lab tests weren't back yet (it was a 3-day stool sample), so he scheduled me for an appointment for today and sent me home with colestipol to try and reign in the diarrhea and Zofran for the nausea.

Week 4: The colestipol didn't even put the slightest dent in my diarrhea, which I not-so-affectionately labeled "urination from my butt." With a feeling of hope this morning, I went to my appointment hoping like hell that I had some sort of worm from my recent travel to Hawaii (this all started the week after I got back from presenting a conference paper there). Not a chance. All blood and stool results came back fine. He presented me with 3 possible options: (1) IBS, (2) Chron's, or (3) Celiac Sprue. He advised me to stop eating any dairy, gave me Bentyl for the diarrhea, and I'm still taking Zofran/phenergan for the nausea. He also scheduled me for a barium small intestine x-ray for next week, had some more blood drawn for Celiac testing, and I had to give another stool sample.

Well, after talking to my Mom, she reminded me of my horrible food allergies as a child and how the ped had advised them to take my digestive system back to scratch. For a month, I was only allowed rice, turkey, and jello to "clean" out my system (this was in the 70's). Then, they were allowed to add things back in until I had a reaction. After talking to her about all of my food allergies that I had "grown out of," I decided that I would cut all dairy, casein, and gluten from my diet and since I hadn't eaten anything yet, I decided to start today.

All I have eaten today is gluten-free/CF jasmine rice, turkey breast (with no skin or fat), and a little bit of gluten-free/CF bouillon for taste.

I have not had a BM in 4 hours. I had been going 15-20 times a day with explosive diarrhea. I feel more energized, do not have my nightly headache, and was actually able to pass gas without worry of messing myself (which was great considering it happened in my sleep the other night). Can the results really be that quick? I figure that having had nothing in my system since midnight the night before, I must've been somewhat cleaned out anyway...I guess the only thing I can do is wait and see, but I'd love to hear some replies.

I also had PCOS (I had a complete, classic hysterectomy in December), am insulin resistant (though not diabetic), have hypothyroid, and relatively high cholesterol. I'm 34.

Thanks in advance!

[The Fluffy Assassin]

This is going to be long, so please bear with me.

Four weeks ago today I came down with what I thought was a stomach virus, and very likely was. I was nauseated, but didn't throw up, had severe diarrhea and generally felt rotten the entire time. On Monday morning, I woke up and "felt" ok, but still had the diarrhea. I went that whole week with only eating broth for half of it and then decided that I was sick of not eating and ate whatever I was feeding the family...I mean, nothing was working so why not attempt to eat, right? Well, it basically went through me undigested.

During Week 2 of the "Stomach hell of 2009," I was scheduled to graduate with my M.A., so I went to see my doctor...on the morning of graduation. He wanted to put me in the hospital, as I had already been the week before for dehydration, but I told him that I had to graduate and refused to miss the ceremony. He dosed me up on Lomotil and Phenergan and sent me on my way. I made it through graduation, although I was quite drowsy and sweating buckets, and collapsed at home after instead of going out to eat with my family/friends.

Week 3: I returned to my doctor, who then referred me to a GI who assured me that, no, diarrhea for 3 weeks is anything but normal. He immediately scheduled a colonoscopy/EGD, labwork, and stool samples to rule out parasites, bacterial/viral infection, and blood in the stool. I was especially worried because my biological father (I'm adopted) died of colon cancer a year ago June. The colonscopy/EGD came back perfect and the GI woke me up in recovery with 2 beautiful words, "No cancer." The lab tests weren't back yet (it was a 3-day stool sample), so he scheduled me for an appointment for today and sent me home with colestipol to try and reign in the diarrhea and Zofran for the nausea.

Week 4: The colestipol didn't even put the slightest dent in my diarrhea, which I not-so-affectionately labeled "urination from my butt." With a feeling of hope this morning, I went to my appointment hoping like hell that I had some sort of worm from my recent travel to Hawaii (this all started the week after I got back from presenting a conference paper there). Not a chance. All blood and stool results came back fine. He presented me with 3 possible options: (1) IBS, (2) Chron's, or (3) Celiac Sprue. He advised me to stop eating any dairy, gave me Bentyl for the diarrhea, and I'm still taking Zofran/phenergan for the nausea. He also scheduled me for a barium small intestine x-ray for next week, had some more blood drawn for Celiac testing, and I had to give another stool sample.

Well, after talking to my Mom, she reminded me of my horrible food allergies as a child and how the ped had advised them to take my digestive system back to scratch. For a month, I was only allowed rice, turkey, and jello to "clean" out my system (this was in the 70's). Then, they were allowed to add things back in until I had a reaction. After talking to her about all of my food allergies that I had "grown out of," I decided that I would cut all dairy, casein, and gluten from my diet and since I hadn't eaten anything yet, I decided to start today.

All I have eaten today is gluten-free/CF jasmine rice, turkey breast (with no skin or fat), and a little bit of gluten-free/CF bouillon for taste.

I have not had a BM in 4 hours. I had been going 15-20 times a day with explosive diarrhea. I feel more energized, do not have my nightly headache, and was actually able to pass gas without worry of messing myself (which was great considering it happened in my sleep the other night). Can the results really be that quick? I figure that having had nothing in my system since midnight the night before, I must've been somewhat cleaned out anyway...I guess the only thing I can do is wait and see, but I'd love to hear some replies.

I also had PCOS (I had a complete, classic hysterectomy in December), am insulin resistant (though not diabetic), have hypothyroid, and relatively high cholesterol. I'm 34.

Thanks in advance!

Yes. I quit gluten two years ago, but was still having periodic diarrhea (though the peeing out the butt thing had thankfully become rarer) until I gave up dairy and fruit a month or so ago. (Fruit I think was just because I was taking in vastly too much fruit juice for years at a time; I could probably reintroduce it but am a little gunshy, for reasons I bet you can instantly understand. Still, you might want to look into fructose malabsorption, too.)

Here's what I've learned about giving up dairy: get calcium/magnesium tablets and take them religiously. Pins and needles in the hands and feet 24 hours a day are almost no fun at all. I'm eating a lot of amaranth, kale and pistachios, but they don't seem to put a dent in my need for these minerals.

PCOS appears to be strongly related to celiac disease. (I say "appears to be" because I can't find medical literature to this effect, but many alternative health practitioners have had success treating PCOS with a gluten-free diet. My former girlfriend was a PCOS sufferer. I couldn't quite convince her that she's celiac; hopefully she'll figure it out for herself someday.)

It sounds like you have a rare and wonderful GI doctor. I've seen posts here from people whose doctors say that constant diarrhea is no problem, who won't test for celiac "because you're not skinny," etc., etc. You might consider posting about him on the Doctors forum here.

Welcome to the board, and to the tribe.