I'm male, age 71, still working part time and fairly active on a daily basis. Other conditions are stable angina, mild hypertension, sleep apnea, and dry macular degeneration, none of which would affect the digestive system. Those conditions are controlled by medications, CPAP, and monitoring. I was diagnosed with LC in late May, after trying for 6-8 months to self-manage the symptoms. Main problem was regular bouts of severe diarrhea and 6-8 trips to the bathroom daily. Energy had become very low, although I never lost any weight. I initially thought perhaps the problem might be related to my travel outside the US (regular mission trips to Myanmar and India), but parasite tests have repeatedly come back negative. There was an incident a couple of years back with a microbial intestinal infection which, in retrospect, may have been the trigger for the eventual development of the LC.

The diagnosis resulted from analysis of biopsies taken during a sigmoidoscopy. Initially my GI doc prescribed 3 MG of budesonide daily. After 8 weeks and a little improvement, I returned to him for scheduled follow up. Turns out there had been an error somewhere in the initial communication between his office and the pharmacy, because the dosage was supposed to have been the standard 9 MG per day. I made a mistake in not questioning the dosage, and essentially lost most of the progress I could possibly have experienced during the first 8 weeks (lesson learned). I'm now 2 weeks into the correct dosage and I'd say my symptoms are 60% improved. The plan is to stay on the budesonide for the full 8 weeks and then begin a taper (all provided symptoms are gone, of course). So far I have had no problems with the budesonide, but there's still a long way to go.

I've also joined the "Potty People" forum http://www.perskyfarms.com/phpBB2/index.php &#013 and have received lots of good advice over there. I strongly recommend that group, along with Wayne Persky's excellent book - "Microscopic Colitis", in addition to this forum of course. I lean toward the idea that there is a strong connection between diet and MC/LLC/CC and am still trying to sort this all out. I did order the Enterolab tests, which helped me to identify a few potential food sensitivities, although my results didn't identify and definite or significant food immunological reactivities. For me, this testing is just another piece of the puzzle, as I expect I will eventually embark on an elimination diet (but at least the testing will have given me a bit of a head start)

Seems to me that if anyone with MC/LC/CC is looking for a magic bullet to solve the problem once and for all, their hopes are probably going to be dashed. I see this as probably a life-long issue and one that will always be accompanied by some uncertainties. I suspect that the focus will continue to be treatment the symptoms as they arise, while recognizing that the underlying cause(s) may be a moving target with little prospect of "curing" the condition.