Has anyone every heard of or had this test done? I sounds very helpful in determining if my if have inflammation in my pouch, or have IPS (irritable pouch syndrome).
The test is described on page one on this newsletter.
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My daughter has Crohn's type or indeterminate colitis.
They send fecal calprotectins on her. The pediatric doctors love it, as it's a non-invasive test to determine bowel specific inflammation.
My understanding is that it is very good at determining large bowel inflammation. Varies more with small bowel inflammation.
I don't think it's been well studied in pouch patients (to find a baseline... What does a "normal" level = in pouches as many or most test for some inflammation.)
Less than 50 is normal for a person with a colon of school age to about 60. I don't know that *any* pouch would test that low... However, again, I'm not aware of any "normal" range for a pouch. I don't know that the test would be as good of a guide for a person like us. My GI who specializes only in IBD patients and has a lot of pouch patients doesn't even consider sending it on me; he says there's no point.
My daughter's flare showed a fecal calprotectin of >2000. Crazy! At her best control, it was 17. Recently, it was higher than normal, but she was on a proton pump inhibitor, and PPIs can cause false positives, so we will repeat it off them in October. There are some meds and factors that can influence false positives for this test.
Following this post as my GI just suggested this after this latest round of 1000 mg of Cipro and 1000 mg of Augmentin daily has had very limited results.
my son gets this test done to check on inflammation. He has a J pouch and has had low levels (as low as 15). He has continued IBD ( unclear if Crohns or more UC as too much rectum was left) so he is on humira. The dr believes the higher numbers can reflect some disease activity.
Thanks very much. My GI described it as you both have.
I'll be very interested to see my results!