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I have Inflammatory Bowel Disease. What’s Next?
If you have been diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), you may be thinking, “What do I do now?” Luckily there are many treatment options available to you with more to come as Doctors attempt to better understand the causes and cures for IBD. From diet to medication, there are several different options available to treat IBD and allow you to live a normal life.
Working with your Doctor, you can find the treatment that works best for you to reduce your symptoms. Because the exact cause of IBD is unknown, there is not one treatment that works best for everyone. But it seems that between Diet and Medication, most people are able to find a balance that works well for them.
Diet
Many Doctors believe that because the diet has changed so drastically in industrialized nations, the body has been unable to digest and break down the foods we eat. This causes a change in the bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. It is possible that this change in bacteria is what causes the lining of the intestinal tract to become inflamed or aggravated which results in IBD.
Through trial and error, you can determine which foods affect your system in different ways and find a diet that works best for you. Dr. Gary Wu, a Gastroenterologist with the University of Pennsylvania, is working on studying which diets work best for those suffering from IBD. Dr. Wu stated, “We already know that these defined formula diets are effective in the treatment of IBD. We just don’t understand the mechanism, and if we could understand those mechanisms we could define better diets for patients with IBD.”
Dr. Wu and his team are working to understand how diets such as vegan or omnivore diets affect gut health and IBD in general.
Medication
The type of medication you need will depend on the severity of your symptoms. If you only have diarrhea, your doctor may recommend an over the counter diarrhea medication.
Your Doctor may also want you to use medications such as steroids which reduce the inflammation of your intestinal lining. Immunosuppressants have also been used to discourage the immune system from attacking the bacteria in your GI tract which could reduce the inflammation and aggravation.
One of the newest treatments is a drug called Remicade. Remicade was originally used to reduce inflammation in joints for people with arthritis. It was discovered that this drug also had a tremendous effect on treating Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis because it reduces the inflammation of the lining of the intestinal tract. Remicade has been found to result in great improvement, especially in children. In one case, a young girl who had suffered from IBD since age 4 started using Remicade and who now at 9 years old had made a remarkable difference and is able to be a child and run and play.
As Doctors continue to learn more about IBD, tests for diagnosis and treatments become better and more efficient. These are just some of many different types of treatments that can be used to allow you to live a happy and normal life.