If am wondering if anyone has a theory on why doctors prescribe the drugs they do after or before someone is diagnosed with ulcerative colitis?
Has anyone reading this blog attended gastroenterology school and been taught the “best practices” for treating a new UC patient?
If so, please, please respond.
If you are a patient, please feel free to answer this question that I have been struggling with for about 5 months now.
Maybe we can all get to the bottom of this with the help of the entire world.
Thanks,
Adam, wait a minute I think I’m feeling an earthquake
I started site  shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
Leave a comment, ask a question, take advantage of our past experiences here, use the search boxes, they are your friends to0:)
I’ve written 2 different ulcerative colitis ebooks, you can check them out here.
And, the Free eNewsletter, which has important updates can be joined here.
The type of antibiotic prescribed by a general practitioner doctor is VERY important if you have UC. Since UC essentially wipes out the bacteria in your colon, taking antibiotics can make your condition worse, since they are also wiping out bacteria.
Some antibiotics are hard for the colon to handle – for any number of reasons. After I got diagnosed, my GI doctor suggested to me a couple of doctors to consider switching to that work in conjunction with him and have experience treating UC patients. There’s been a couple of times I’ve had to go to the ER and I always STRESS to the ER doctor that I have ulcerative colitis and I have to be careful of the antibiotics I take. A couple of those times, the doctor prescribed the wrong kind of antibiotic and my UC symptoms flared like crazy – so I’d have to go to my GI doctor and take more rounds of steroids and other medications to get my UC under control.
Some of the antibiotics that seem to work well with UC patients (my doctor has told me, and I’ve taken with little to no adverse affects) is Bactrim, the Z-pack, Amoxicillin, Cipro, and Doxycycline.
Hi Adam,
I believe its all based on severity, other diseases, and really just personal preference (if they want to treat the inflammation or treat UC as an autoimmune disease). Prednisone is always prescribed to get things under control. My doctors have always treated my UC as an autoimmune disease so they only use immunosuppressors like 6MP and methotrexate (also used in chemotherapy). Then again, I also have Autoimmune Hepatitis, so anti-inflammatory drugs weren’t going to work on both diseases. Mesalamine is part of the anti-inflammatory drugs. Remicade and it’s counter parts are immunosuppressing biologics and they specifically attack a very specific part of your immune system and it has had a lot of success instead of widespread immunosuppression like 6MP or MTX. Unfortunately, the drug itself has some potential to cause your body to develop antibodies to it (which is the main reason it doesn’t work for some people). I think it also depends on if you started with a pediatric gastro or an adult gastro. Pediatric gastro’s are more conservative with new drugs since kids are much more complicated and sensitive and stick to things that work across the board and don’t change a lot there after (they aren’t prone to stopping drugs once remission is met, they keep some of them going to help maintain remission). Because pediatric gastros are more conservative they have a different method for remicade. I have always received “pre-treatments” to remicade (hospital grade benadryl and IV steroids) to prevent any reactions to the medication, they just do those about an half hour before starting remicade. Remicade infusions in childrens’ hospitals are given over 5 hours, regular hospitals over 1-2.
Why there’s so much difference in drugs is that each drug has its merits and its problems. So they’re always trying to access the severity of the disease with which drug will help it with minimal side effects (especially long term). And everybody metabolizes drugs different. I just didn’t metabolize 6MP (so my blood levels were always too low for the drug to work) and when they bumped up the dose, my body had a toxic reaction.
Hope that helps!