Introduction:
My name is Jason and I have been living with Ulcerative Colitis for about 10 years. It’s been manageable with mesalamine in the form of Asacol for most of that time. I’ve had probably 3-5 severe flares and dozens upon dozens of sometimes long lasting low grade flares, mostly resulting in gas that smells ashy. I’m writing now to discuss my latest flare, the most severe since the UC diagnosis and possibly the worst flare I’ve ever experienced.
Story:
As of this writing April 25, 2011, I have been treating a one of the most severe flares I’ve ever experienced for just over a month and a half. A food allergy or food poisoning kicked it off. About a week into the flare I was moving only liquid and blood 8-12 times a day and sleeping 3-4 hours per night. At the worst, maybe one month in, I was having dark, bloody diarrhea up to 20 times a day. By that time I’d been on 40mg of prednisone and 3600mg of Asacol a day for about 1 week.
By the second week of treatment things stabilized, but were only marginally better. I was down from 20 movements to maybe 15 per day with no improvement in quality. In those two weeks, I lost 18 pounds. Many years ago I read an anecdote about a person who ‘cured’ herself with Vitamin E enemas over several week period, so I began researching the possibility of doing that myself. Then I found a [1]paper released by an Iranian researcher that reported a 64% remission rate in UC sufferers who administered 8,000 IU of Vitamin E (d-alpha tocoperhol) over a 12 week period.
Seven days ago I started the Vitamin E enema using the Now Foods Liquid E supplement
. Because of a miscalculation I administered an ounce per night for the first 4 nights, which comes to just over 13,000 IU. This turned out to be a blessing. On the first night things were pretty harsh, it was an almost immediate change from the previous two weeks and I got the impression that I was flushing. It worried me because there was so little food content and so many very bloody visits to the bathroom, but the next day I had a dramatic decrease in pain. This is just day one and the pain had reduced by at least 30%. By the fourth day I had at least one semi-formed movement per night two nights in a row. This is my seventh morning and I visit the bathroom 2-3 times per day and once per night. Last night and this morning have been completely pain free, though still mostly liquid and still a not insignificant amount of blood. For the last three days I have been taking just over 7, 000 IU (1 tablespoon, .5 oz) of the Liquid E supplement after dinner.
What I can share is that over a seven day period of vitamin E treatment I have experienced a rapid and dramatic decrease in pain, blood, and number of bathroom visits, besting a maximum dosage of mesalamine and a highish steroid dose over a 3 week period. I hope others can use this story to inform their opinions and treatment options.
Story submitted by Jason
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18932276
Marine’s story from Cyprus about Vitamin E enemas from a while back.
Jason’s story is now entered into the 2011 Ulcerative Colitis Writing Contest!!!
You Can Join too, click here for details
