Colitis- From Being Glutened?

[sandsurfgirl]

I was just in the hospital for 2 days for colitis. The CT scan showed lots of swelling but no ulcers. They treated me with major IV antibiotics for infection but they just aren't sure what caused it at this point. And the docs OF COURSE did not know much about celiac. What a surprise! (insert sarcastic eyeroll here).

I will follow up with GI doc later, likely get a colonoscopy or some other unpleasant tests. But from my bloodwork and my CT scan they don't anticipate finding anything alarming.

Does anybody know if there's any info out there about being glutened and getting colitis? The doc said it's not uncommon for people to end up in the hospital for this and they never find out exactly what caused it, but I did get glutened before this started.

The pain was unbearable. I felt like my insides were turning upside down and backwards. The antibiotics have helped, so I guess it was an infection. What an ordeal.

[cahill]

I was just in the hospital for 2 days for colitis. The CT scan showed lots of swelling but no ulcers. They treated me with major IV antibiotics for infection but they just aren't sure what caused it at this point. And the docs OF COURSE did not know much about celiac. What a surprise! (insert sarcastic eyeroll here).

I will follow up with GI doc later, likely get a colonoscopy or some other unpleasant tests. But from my bloodwork and my CT scan they don't anticipate finding anything alarming.

Does anybody know if there's any info out there about being glutened and getting colitis? The doc said it's not uncommon for people to end up in the hospital for this and they never find out exactly what caused it, but I did get glutened before this started.

The pain was unbearable. I felt like my insides were turning upside down and backwards. The antibiotics have helped, so I guess it was an infection. What an ordeal.

I recently had a colonoscopy and my doc took 2 biopsys to check for colitis. She said colitis can be a complication of celiacs.

Hope you are feeling better soon ((HUGS))

[georgie]

I got diverticulitis from a Glutening and needed antibiotics. Hope you feel better soon. Most people don;t have a clue what Coeliac can do to our bodies.

[quincy]

I got diverticulitis from a Glutening and needed antibiotics. Hope you feel better soon. Most people don;t have a clue what Coeliac can do to our bodies.

I just went through this as well. I suspect the colitis was from a glutening. It started with pain on the lower left side which they thought was diverticulits. Cat scan showed colitis and diverticular change from my scan from 2 years ago.

how did your pain present itself sandsurfgirl? going for colonoscopy in June

[Takala]

Oh, that is bad. I'm sorry.

Two years ago, for no known reason we had a horse get it. I got to watch the ultrasounds they did of his intestines. We were very lucky that we live within an hour of a really, really good equine vet clinic and that he responded to treatment when we took him there. They (veterinarians) assumed it that it might be of an infectious nature and so they had him in an isolation stall and we had to glove up, paper bootie up, and paper gown up to see him, then disinfect our shoes and wash our hands with surgical scrub solution afterwards. The odd part was that this can easily kill a horse - when they start loosing a massive amount of fluids - and he DID respond to the treatment, they, besides all the support therapy of IV fluids, antibiotics, painkillers, gave him some sort of new fancy- dancy tummy soothing electrolyte type of oral paste, (actually, I ended up giving it to him because he's prone to rooting his nose up in the air when he sees any sort of oral med, and he was giving the vet tech a hard time and I knew how to ask him to relax enough to get it into his mouth - going around and around in a stall with 1200 lbs of sick equine hooked up to a suspended drip with all that tubing was making me dizzy just watching it.... ).

We had not changed his feed and he does not get grain, just grass and pasture. His pasture mate didn't get sick, nor did the other horses on two other sides of the fence of his pasture. He hadn't gone anywhere nor had anybody come here.... and there was never any clear cause established. (unlike other situations we've had where there was clearly some sort of weirdo infections causing a horse to act depressed).

With humans sometimes you can just run into a pathogen lurking somewhere like food poisoning, and if your gut is more vulnerable, there you go. But for this horse, I will always be wondering if there was something in the hay or something carried by a bird, rabbit, squirrel, skunk, possum, raccoon, etc - it was wet weather and there is a lot of runoff in the winter and early spring here.

For humans, I found this PubMed citation from 2000, Prevalence of celiac disease in collagenous and lymphocytic colitis

Open Original Shared Link

Here is something else from medscape

Open Original Shared Link scroll down to colon pathology in patients with celiac disease

This is where you say to yourself, "well, aren't I just special. "

please note the totally nonsensical sentence about gluten not being the trigger for IBD....

coexist by chance... yeah, right. sure. whatever.

The association between celiac disease and microscopic colitis (either collagenous or lymphocytic) is well recognized. In addition, Yang et al.[15] reported that the prevalence of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease was significantly higher among patients with celiac disease than in the general population (prevalence rate ratios of 3.6 and 8.5, respectively). In 5 out of 10 patients with both celiac disease and IBD the diagnosis of celiac disease preceded that of IBD (by 7 months to 12 years); in addition, the symptoms of 4 of these 5 patients were improved by a gluten-free diet, which suggests that gluten is not the trigger for IBD in patients with celiac disease. Similarly, the case patient had excellent clinical, serological and histologic improvement of celiac disease before the onset of her ulcerative colitis symptoms. Finally, while there is no firm evidence to support an association between celiac disease and colonic neoplasia, both conditions are common and can coexist by chance in older patients.[16]

More recent pubmed, the Yang at Columbia paper, 2009

An association between microscopic colitis and celiac disease

Open Original Shared Link

Microscopic colitis was found in 44 of 1009 patients (4.3%); this represented a 70-fold increased risk for individuals with celiac disease to have microscopic colitis, compared with the general population

[sandsurfgirl]

I just went through this as well. I suspect the colitis was from a glutening. It started with pain on the lower left side which they thought was diverticulits. Cat scan showed colitis and diverticular change from my scan from 2 years ago.

how did your pain present itself sandsurfgirl? going for colonoscopy in June

Oddly the pain was very low near my bladder. I felt the constant urge to pee and I had cramps like really bad period cramps (which makes no sense to the boys, sorry). Then I got the pain in my sides. I got really bloated and my whole belly hurt at one point, but the majority of pain was low in the middle above the pubic bone. Doc said that's referred pain from the pressure of the swollen colon pushing on other things.

I still feel like I have to pee all the time but it wasn't as intense as before I was hospitalized. The antibiotics are working so it must have been some sort of infection. I am not 100% but I'm much improved for sure. My D was completely watery yesterday and today things are much better. Not normal yet, but not water. And I haven't been in the bathroom every hour like I was yesterday.

I'm so scared of a secondary yeast infection though with all these antibiotics! I am taking BioK and I took Jarro Dophilus today.

I can't stop worrying though. I hate the anxiety! Ugh.

[sandsurfgirl]

Oh, that is bad. I'm sorry.

Two years ago, for no known reason we had a horse get it. I got to watch the ultrasounds they did of his intestines. We were very lucky that we live within an hour of a really, really good equine vet clinic and that he responded to treatment when we took him there. They (veterinarians) assumed it that it might be of an infectious nature and so they had him in an isolation stall and we had to glove up, paper bootie up, and paper gown up to see him, then disinfect our shoes and wash our hands with surgical scrub solution afterwards. The odd part was that this can easily kill a horse - when they start loosing a massive amount of fluids - and he DID respond to the treatment, they, besides all the support therapy of IV fluids, antibiotics, painkillers, gave him some sort of new fancy- dancy tummy soothing electrolyte type of oral paste, (actually, I ended up giving it to him because he's prone to rooting his nose up in the air when he sees any sort of oral med, and he was giving the vet tech a hard time and I knew how to ask him to relax enough to get it into his mouth - going around and around in a stall with 1200 lbs of sick equine hooked up to a suspended drip with all that tubing was making me dizzy just watching it.... ).

We had not changed his feed and he does not get grain, just grass and pasture. His pasture mate didn't get sick, nor did the other horses on two other sides of the fence of his pasture. He hadn't gone anywhere nor had anybody come here.... and there was never any clear cause established. (unlike other situations we've had where there was clearly some sort of weirdo infections causing a horse to act depressed).

With humans sometimes you can just run into a pathogen lurking somewhere like food poisoning, and if your gut is more vulnerable, there you go. But for this horse, I will always be wondering if there was something in the hay or something carried by a bird, rabbit, squirrel, skunk, possum, raccoon, etc - it was wet weather and there is a lot of runoff in the winter and early spring here.

For humans, I found this PubMed citation from 2000, Prevalence of celiac disease in collagenous and lymphocytic colitis

Open Original Shared Link

Here is something else from medscape

Open Original Shared Link scroll down to colon pathology in patients with celiac disease

This is where you say to yourself, "well, aren't I just special. "

please note the totally nonsensical sentence about gluten not being the trigger for IBD....

coexist by chance... yeah, right. sure. whatever.

More recent pubmed, the Yang at Columbia paper, 2009

An association between microscopic colitis and celiac disease

Open Original Shared Link

I used to ride and my horse colicked really bad for no reason one time too.

With the wet conditions I wonder if yours got moldy hay. It just takes a teeny bit and maybe he got a bite from where the mold just started to grow.

At any rate, it sounds like animals and people can get colitis as a mystery disease.

Thanks for the links. I have always thought that we must be more prone to things like this, especially those of us who got diagnosed later in life. I was 40 when I finally found out what had made me sick my whole life.

[sandsurfgirl]

This is so frustrating. Everything i eat is bothering me and I'm on a bland clean diet. I feel like I'm back to the old withdrawal days when I first went gluten free and my gut was a disaster.

I thought I was past all this and here I am with a messed up gut again. So frustrated.

The bloat is the worst. I look pregnant and it makes me not want to leave the house.

[quincy]

This is so frustrating. Everything i eat is bothering me and I'm on a bland clean diet. I feel like I'm back to the old withdrawal days when I first went gluten free and my gut was a disaster.

I thought I was past all this and here I am with a messed up gut again. So frustrated.

The bloat is the worst. I look pregnant and it makes me not want to leave the house.

well you are not alone and i completely relate to your frustration. I have had a set back too after doing so well. My attack of colitis is subsiding but it has been slow getting back to normal

[sandsurfgirl]

How long does it take for it to go away? I swear people are going to start asking if I'm pregnant I'm so bloated.

I'm going back to the liquid diet again. They told me to do liquids and go very slowly introducing foods. I was so hungry I think I went too fast. Back to square one.

I didn't eat anything crazy, but even simple chicken soup with zucchini in it is too much right now. This SUCKS!

[Takala]

But the gut is supposed to expand and contract- if it didn't, we'd be in a serious world of trouble.

Go shopping. Treat yourself, body shape changes are the perfect excuse. Longer loose tunic tops (ethnic) like out of the sixties are in style for casual for the summer. Finally!

Could be worse. Could be late middle aged spread. Almost all women's pants right now, once they are big enough to go over the thighs, and large enough for the gut, are cut to fall off one's over 50ish body, because gravity takes away what was holding them up in the derriere. There is no waist. There is no hip. There is only a tootsie roll shape under the bosom and the pants creeping towards the floor every time one walks, and the crotch halfway to the knees, until you pull them up again. I see the younger women's tee shirts are still tiny tight short clingy things and they have got to be kidding if they think anyone over age 18 can wear this. Went to the sporting goods store yesterday and said, I need a men's shirt to cover up for sunburn, because the women's slim cut just won't fit- (this is where I pointed to my arm) the clerk, who was about 4" taller, "got" it immediately, said, "oh, you're a kayaker," (good guess ) and told me that every shape had a purpose and all were good in the world !

[sandsurfgirl]

But the gut is supposed to expand and contract- if it didn't, we'd be in a serious world of trouble.

Go shopping. Treat yourself, body shape changes are the perfect excuse. Longer loose tunic tops (ethnic) like out of the sixties are in style for casual for the summer. Finally!

Could be worse. Could be late middle aged spread. Almost all women's pants right now, once they are big enough to go over the thighs, and large enough for the gut, are cut to fall off one's over 50ish body, because gravity takes away what was holding them up in the derriere. There is no waist. There is no hip. There is only a tootsie roll shape under the bosom and the pants creeping towards the floor every time one walks, and the crotch halfway to the knees, until you pull them up again. I see the younger women's tee shirts are still tiny tight short clingy things and they have got to be kidding if they think anyone over age 18 can wear this. Went to the sporting goods store yesterday and said, I need a men's shirt to cover up for sunburn, because the women's slim cut just won't fit- (this is where I pointed to my arm) the clerk, who was about 4" taller, "got" it immediately, said, "oh, you're a kayaker," (good guess ) and told me that every shape had a purpose and all were good in the world !

No this is painful bloating, like my gut is a balloon that has been inflated too far and is about to pop. It literally looks like a round ball, like a pregnant belly. I do not want to go back to the ER but I may have to if this doesn't calm down.

[lcarter]

I too have been in the hospital with my intestines swollen almost shut and doctors threatening to remove part of my intestines. Fortunately, it never got to the point that they actually had to do it! But, it also has never happened again since going gluten free.