Cigarettes surpress my pouchitis

Hey yeah I remember when I was going for my op to remove the large intestine (I suffered with UC my gastroenterologist told me that I'd you smoke you don't get UC but then that that one positive doesn't outway all the negatives. So apparently smokers can't suffer with UC. I also met a man who gave up cigarettes got UC and went back to smoking and UC went away again!!

It obviously is same for pouchitous. Glad it's working for you but I think I'd rather have permanent stoma than other illnesses caused from smoking.

Funny because smoking had the opposite effect on me...I smoked and I ran...immediate cause/effect in my guts as a teen...a lot of people here tell me that without their cigarette they cannot 'go'...
I am now a social smoker who only smokes during social occasions or in the summer...(don't smoke at home) and I haven't found much difference in my pouch with or without.
But if it works for you....
Sharon
Sharon

Yes it helps UC and supposedly pouchitis but not good for crohn's patients. I quit smokes in college and I bet that combined with a year on tetracycline for mild acne, coupled with the genetic history in my family, set mine off. I've tried this route for my pouchitis but they make me so stomach sick and cannot stand the ick factor. If I run out of options though I may give it one last try.

Some people use nicotine patches to acheive UC remission, but it has not been shown to be useful for sustaining remission.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/medi...er-2010/may-14b.html

Have you tried UC meds to try to sustain remission without smoking?

Jan

are you sure you don't have cuffitis instead of pouchitis? As Jan said, nicotine therapy was looked at back in the 90s as a UC treatment but eventually passed by because it was found you got worse than ever when you came off the patch.

I found this link to a small study that showed no statistical significance between smoking and pouchitis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16803691

There is a product called Anatabloc that is made from tobacco and tomatoes. It has no cancer causing agents. Supposedly it stops inflamation. Its over the counter and you can get it at GNC. Fred Couples the golfer uses it for his arthritis.

Hi Rupert,

how many cigarettes do you smoke a day?
How long did it take until the pouchitis was gone after starting smoking again?

I had my bad UC flare up after I stopped smokeing.
One year later I had surgery with J-Pouch. Since then I'm struggling with pouchitis.

I have often thought about start smokeing again.

At the moment I'm on Remicade. I wonder what is worse?
Ciagarettes or Remicade?

thx

Cigarettes are definitely worse!

Jan

I smoked off and on and when I smoked I had great bowel habits and when I would quit I would get constipated and then a flair up. I read that smoking activated the digestive system. I guess that is what kept my colon in tract, then when I quit for good I eventulay got a disease colon but would not go back to cig's., had I known down tne line the colon would have to come out I would have found a way to get nicotin back into my system without smoking.

I tried nicotine patches and smoking for my UC but it never helped, and definitely increased urgency- I agree with the digestuev stimulant idea. Certainly it shoots the pulse up- my heart raced during thise experiments and I can see why nicotine is so bad for heart health. Still, had it given me remission I would have stuck it out.

My UC started a year and a half after i quite smoking, tho i my father was a heavy smoker and he had crohn's and i have a brother that has UC and he smokes, so i don't know it it will do anything for me if and when i have a flareup.

Does anyone know if it's just cigarettes that supposedly offer some relief, or do cigars and pipes help too?

I've always loved the smell of smoke from a pipe!

Cigar smoke should never be inhaled, see this:

http://j-pouch.org/eve/forums/...687051126#7687051126

HI Hansman

My specialist suggested that if I choose to smoke I should limit it to 5 or less per day, Unfortunately I'm an all or nothing kind of guy & smoke between 15-20 per day. I noticed an improvement in the number of BM & urgentcy within hours. Within a month I was completely pain free & my BM had fallen from approx 15 per day to approx 6-8. I was stoked! However I am curing one illness & no dought setting myself up for another one in years to come if I can't discover an alternative to smoking!!

What is this Remicade you refer to? does it help?

Regards Rupert

In my early on stages of UC I smoked, but thought it might increase my risks for colon cancer so I quit. Shortly afterword the UC flaired up like crazy. I found a wonderful GI doc who tried his best to get the UC back in remission. When I told him that it seemed better when I smoked he told me that if I had gone to him while still a smoker he would have told me not to rush on quitting. However, he also said the risks of smoking itself were not worth starting up again. About a year later I had the j-pouch surgery. After gaining about 85 lbs from 6 months of prednisone, after I healed from the surgeries I started smoking again to curb my appetite. I lost about 30 lbs pretty quickly and it really eased my stomach. I still smoke and really want to quit. Luckily I was always able to just put them down when ready to. The hard part is that it really helps settle my stomach when it is cramping. From what he told me, the tar and nicotine create a coating or film in the intestines and that was the reason the colitis was less likely to flair up.

I have attempted to quite smoking many times and I always get way worse. I have been a smoker for 17 years and was diagnosed with UC 15 years ago. I have always felt my inume system uses the nicotine as a cruch. I have become a avid runner and want to try again. Now that I have become 100% gluten free. I feel I may finaly be able to kick the habit, before something else bad happens. But at the same time my pouchitis could become a thousand times worse. Its kinda a toss up for me


Diagnosed W/ UC 1999
1st surgery 2002
2nd surgery 2002
Take down 2003
constant pouchitis

It was 1987 when I quit smoking after 25 years. Within weeks my 20 years of nonstop colitis began. There is no question in my mind that two were connected. When I quit I was smoking the weakest cigarette available. I think it's obvious that you can get nicotine into your system without lighting up 20 times a day. We all make our choices, and we live, and we die by them.

if i could smoke and not have had uc or not smoke and have uc and the rest...i would have smoked until the day i died, happily.

nothing replaces the freedom of only going once or twice a day.

i say smoke but maybe just half a pack

I was a very heavy smoker with no GI problems at all until I quit in 2005. In 2006 I developed severe refractory colitis that kept me in the hospital for most of an entire year. The only thing that would keep me close to well was high dose steroids; biologics failed, canasa didn't help at all. So I had a total procto-colectomy and a j-pouch and expected that all would be well. Unfortunately after the takedown I wasn't all better. I developed chronic cuffitis and started having lots of episodes of horrible fatigue, joint pain, neuropathies in my hands and feet (which I'd had throughout my life off and on to a lesser degree) I started smoking again in 2009 during a period of utter frustration with what was happening to my life and whether coicidence or not, very soon after I stopped having pouchitis/cuffitis. I tend to think that I'd have stopped anyway as the pouch had gotten older but who knows. (It should be noted that I used nicotine replacement products throughout the years that I didn't smoke, with my doctors blessing as I got pretty severely depressed without it) What I do know is that everything else I was experiencing continued to progress in severity to the point that I am went on disability. I worked in a meat plant prior to my illness lifting 100 lb boxes all day and by 2010 I couldn't easily carry a grocery bag from the car to my apartment door. It seems now that there is a genetic autoimmune problem in my family who I am not close to, and colitis wasn't the first sign of it, just the first really bad sign. I quit smoking again recently though, since I was diagnosed this summer with COPD. To be unable to breathe is a really horrible feeling. If you're thinking about smoking to defeat colitis/pouchitis I would think hard on it. COPD is not curable or reversible. I would have had problems regardless but knowing that I did this to myself by smoking doesn't make me very happy. I feel like an 80 year old or worse most days and I'd hate to think of this happening to someone else.

My GI told me soon after my diagnosis that maybe I should talk to him before I quit smoking. I had cut way back to 1-5 a day and never was a heavy smoker. A family friend had to have his bladder and colon removed due to cancer caused by smoking and has 2 bags. There are reasons other than lung and heart problems to quit smoking. The prednisone really did a number on me, I gained 65 pounds I could never loose until my colon was removed and then it just fell off. I also had diverticulitis pan colon with my UC - double wammy.

I see why some of you are smoking, I've thought of taking it up again but after going through 2 friends lung surgery, removal of a lobe each, that never smoked and Joe with his double bags due to smoking I can't. I'm on social security disability and likely not to improve as I also have fibromyalgia, etc. I don't want to suffer any more than I am.

I use to smoke could not though when my colitis flared it made me run, plus just the smell made me sick when I was not feeling gooe. I quit when I got sick about four months before my first surgery, when I saw Dr. Shen at Clevleand CLinic he told me never to smoke again becasue it can cause crohns in the pouch, not in everyone but in about 30% of j pouchers he said, that enough made me not want to ever pick one up again. I want to keep my pouch forever if possible.

Smoking can cause Crohns then why didn't I get crohns instead of UC? Just saying as I thought know one knows what causes these diseases.