symptoms?

[Cheryl]

I have had diarrhea for going on 3 months now.  It started with either a stomach virus or a reaction to celebrex.  I had been taking celebrex for about four days when I got very sick, nausea, lots of reflux and then watery diarrhea.  This only lasted for a day or so, but diarrhea has steadily gotten worse.  I stopped the med and kept changing my diet thinking I could fix this, but nothing helped.  Went to the doc and was prescribed flagyl, thinking that it must be a bacterial thing.  Flagyl did not help, made me pretty sick actually and diarrhea continued to get worse. It had started as a day time thing only, then became a night time thing too.  I was then prescribed a six day treatment of prednisone.  I improved almost immediately.  Since being off prednisone, my symptoms are steadily getting worse again.  I recently did a fecal occult test which came back positive (although I can't see any blood)  I waited four days after I stopped prednisone to do the occult test.  Would the prednisone have any effect on this test?  I know that pred is a strong anti-inflammatory drug.  With my reaction, does this definitly mean I have some type of inflammatory bowel disease?  I have left messages at my doc's office, but haven't heard from them yet.  What should I expect next?  Am I doing myself harm by not being very aggressive about finding out what this is?  Thank you for your help.

[HFHSm.D.-Gastro-rf]

Dear Cheryl,
You do not provide any information regarding your age, characteristics of the diarrhea, concurrent medical conditions, lifestyle, data that is necessary to develop a list of possible explanations for your diarrhea.  In general, infectious diarrhea usually lasts only a few weeks. There are however, some parasitic infections that can have a long clinical course.  Also individuals with AIDS can have prolonged bouts of diarrhea.

It is always necessary to exclude structural causes for the diarrhea.  The guaiaic positive stool could be an indication of mucosal inflammation, including inflammatory bowel disease, but there are a number of other possible explanations.  

I think that you should find a doctor who can initiate the appropriate testing to determine the cause for your problem.  Although you have probably not suffered any irreversible damage as a consequence of the delay in investigation running around with diarrhea must certainly impact your quality of life.

Best of luck

[Cheryl]

Thanks for your response.  A little more info - I am a 39 yr old, heterosexual female.  I have had thyroid cancer in the past and have occasional runs of supraventricular tachycardia for which I take synthroid and sectral.  I also take prevacid for gerd. Diarrhea I have been experiencing is liquid.  Have not had any formed stool in at least two months. I did have a colonscopy done yesterday.  My colon looked mostly normal.  The doc pointed out several areas with small flecks of blood and a couple of ulcerations.  There was an area of what he called "a lot of vascularity"  He took several samples for biopsy.  He did not know what, if any, problems I may have, but gave me samples of asacol to start and see if it helps.  He did say it did not look like crohns, but possibly uc.  I thought if it was uc you could tell right away during the scope.  Could this still be uc with just a few ulcerations?  Also where would the blood be coming from.  When he would wash it off there did not appear to be anything under the blood.  One more question;  if the asacol is effective, when will I notice a relief in symptoms?  I started it right after the scope yesterday, but today I have had diarrhea four times already.  Thought maybe I wouldn't have it today because I was so "cleaned out"  I am getting very discouraged.

[Erik]

It sounds like you have inflamation in your intestines seeing as the prednisone relieved your symptoms. You do not want to stay on prednisone very long though, as it's long term effects can cause other problems.Your Dr is trying to find an underlying condition which is causing the intestinal inflamation. Once this is controlled, the symptoms will stop. You may need surgery to remove part of the intestines.

[Brandon]

Take Acidophilus tablets (one billion CFU) for diarrhea.  Works very well.