I have an appointment with my GI next week, he just moved hospitals and I have no way of sending him a message so I can't easily ask him for advice.
I have chronic pouchitis and treat it with Stelara because I've used all the other biologicals previously with UC. Stelara has been working really well for me for about 6 months.
I've had this cough that I haven't been able to get rid of for the past 2 years, I thought it was allergies to my dog who I got around the same time. My cough was getting worse so I finally went to an allergist and I'm not allergic to anything when they did all the tests.
I filed enough claims this past year so I was assigned a nurse from my Insurance Company to check on me and help out with any health questions that I had. She suggested that since my cough wasn't allergies that it could be acid-reflux. I've had heartburn maybe 3 times in my life, how could it be? So I tried Prilosec, Gaviscon, Tums. They all make my pouch go crazy, lots of liquid output and discomfort but my cough gets better. The best part is that I sleep so much better when I take antacids/PPIs, I've never been able to sleep well my entire life, even as an infant I couldn't sleep.
So I stopped taking PPIs yesterday and I slept like crap last night. I took pepto for the pouchitis but I'm coughing today. Pepto doesn't help with my acidreflux. My pouch is working a little better today.
The craziest thing is that I've never had buttburn even after my take down but since I started taking PPIs/antacids I've had buttburn/itching almost all the time.
Any suggestions?
--Keith