Colitis – what a doctor would sedately call an ‘inflamed colon’ – is more like a fiery nightmare. Diarrhoea so constant the bathroom seems like a prison cell. Stools that are bloody and full of mucus. Abdominal cramps. Fever. Pale, sweaty skin. What’s worse, an attack can hit at any time, so that a colitis sufferer always has to have a bathroom nearby. Not exactly a fun way to plan your life.
The traditional view is that peace of mind will produce peace in the colon – stress and anxiety are considered major causes of an attack (some psychiatrists even claim they’re at the root of the problem). But trying to avoid stress is a never-ending and not always successful effort. There are temporary ceasefires, but the colon remains a battle zone.
Because the colon is the section of the intestine where food fibre absorbs water to create a stool, diet is another logical focus of treatment. The only problem is that nobody can agree which diet is right. ‘More fibre!’ cry some doctors. ‘Less fibre” recommend others. ‘A straight answer!’ pleads the colitis victim
Well, although fibre may not be the solution, it could be that the diet-therapy doctors are on the right track. As with many other gastrointestinal complaints, milk allergy is a common cause of colitis. Less frequently, colitis is caused by allergy to wheat corn, eggs, chocolate, meats or nuts. In a very few cases, water or antibiotic drugs are the cause.
‘As the first line of treatment [of colitis], all food or drug allergens are removed from the diet,’ says Dr James Ñ Breneman, chairman of the Food Allergy Committee of the American College of Allergists. Dr Breneman feels that allergy therapy should be given a fair chance in the treatment of colitis before drugs or surgery are used – as they often are. An allergy-free diet, in many cases, may be the only treatment necessary says Dr Breneman. In his words, ‘It’s better to remove the milk than to remove the colon.’
Sometimes colitis gets so bad that ulcers form in the intestine. Then, too, food allergy can be at fault.
‘I’ve found that in susceptible people allergic reaction to commonly eaten foods is the direct cause of ulcerative colitis ‘ says Barbara Solomon, a doctor in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr Solomon tests all her patients for food allergies. She finds that people with ulcerative colitis are always allergic to milk products and grains that contain gluten: wheat, oats, barley, rye and corn When her patients eliminate those foods (and sometimes other foods as well), the disease improves greatly. But not always.
‘Food allergy isn’t the only cause of ulcerative colitis,’ Dr Solomon told us. ‘Sometimes a patient doesn’t get well until I take him off tap water and have him drink only distilled water. Tap water is full of chemicals, and one of them could be causing the problem.’
Robert Rogers, a doctor in Melbourne, Florida, also treats ulcerative colitis as a food allergy. The first patient he cured of the disease was himself.
‘I developed ulcerative colitis early in my medical school career,’ he told us. ‘I had bleeding from the bowel, a lot of profuse diarrhoea and terrible cramps. It was very debilitating. I got books out and read about it and the professors told me about it.
‘But the only treatment was drugs. Drugs to slow down the feacal stream, drugs to take the cramps away, drugs to coat the bowel, drugs to tranquillize me. But while I was taking all these drugs, I was feeding the disease with the foods I was allergic to,’ says Dr Rogers. ‘Eventually I discovered on my own that all forms of dairy products and chocolate and caffeinated beverages were my enemy. If I don’t eat those foods, I don’t have ulcerative colitis.’
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