I stayed away from steroids; I was quite scared by them and thought the reprucussions of steroids seemed to be a greater threat than my condition to my overall health. I also read extensively, and in all reports, the ‘remission ‘ brought about by steroids reversed back to active CC about 2 weeks after stopping the drug, or tapering off the drug in over 80 percent of the cases, for all types of the steroids used in this condition, including their favourite: budsonide. Then these reports then talk about a ‘maintenance’ dose for the rest of your life. Not really an attractive option.
I was given sulfasalazine once, and while it really helped with normalizing my bms , I experienced stomach pain, gas, bloating, and horrible colon spasms. I then read about it’s side effects and found out you need to have regular blood tests and your liver and kidney function checked due to life threatening, irreversible ‘ side effects’., besides the ‘common’ side effect of the stomach pain. Great. So that lasted only about a month.
The thing that did help was the Pepto Bismol ( Bismuth) routine ( developed by Dr Fine specifically for Microscopic Colitis ( CC). 3 pills / 3 times a day for eight weeks. )It is reportedly well tolerated and no side effects other than black stools and a black tongue ( I discovered the tongue will not blacken if you just rinse your mouth well after each dose). Well it was like a miracle. I was NORMAL. Afterwards, my CC gradually did return, but ever since then, I have really decent periods of remission regularly, and while I do get flare ups, the condition was far easier to deal with. Before that, I had not really experienced remissions and had urgent, explosive diarrhea at least 10 to 15 times a day. After the Pepto routine, I would get ‘urgency’, and mostly loose stools , but usually 2 times in the morning, and then be ok for the rest of the day ( except for periods of flare ups usually brought about by eating too much roughage and fiber in my diet). Often I had normal looking stools too. So it helped something with that Bismuth routine. Doctor Fine has since then dropped the Bismuth protocol and now recommends a gluten free diet. I do think that gluten free can work for some people. My own thinking is that our food is so adulterated these days with harmful things and we are therefore damaging our guts in many possible ways. But how to get away from the harm in our foods is the question. Oursocieties are based on catering to corporate profit regardless of the harm to people ( look how it has to be a fight just to try to label GMOs in food. Look how long Big Tobbacco got away with literally killing people; the harm we are subjected to by what is in our food: pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, etc. And don’t underestimate the harmful effects of stress hormones that are in all of the food produced by those poor tortured animals in factory farming : our milk, our eggs, meat, ...). We need a new society. One not dominated by Corporations and their disregard for people in their drive for ever increasing profits. We need to stop the corporate takeover of our governments and societies. I feel we can’t even trust the medicines we are prescribed. Our pharmaceutical companies control medical schools and doctor’s education. Things that won’t make them big profits are not funded for research. Whatever happened to the oath: first do no harm in medicine? Ok. Sorry for the lecture.