Gutsy

My gut has not been happy, of late. I simply don’t process food easily, and I often have to go to the bathroom a lot during the day. Last week, this had gotten to the point that, despite multiple trips to the john that morning and yards of toilet paper,  I left the house only to have to run back inside for one more bout of diarrhea before I could get on the road to Boston for an appointment with my rheumatologist, Dr T.

This is a common issue with scleroderma. As Dr T explained (once again, because this is not a new conversation), over time the vascular supply to my small intestine has decreased, which slows the peristalsis (muscle contractions) that move digested food through my system. As a result, good bacteria that normally resides in the gut overgrows, and that’s what causes all the runs to the bathroom.

Ironically, the solution is antibiotics. Normally, antibiotics can cause diarrhea because they destroy the good gut bacteria along with whatever bad bacteria they’re aimed at. But with bacterial overgrowth, certain antibiotics can bring the issue under control.

I’ve actually noticed this whenever I end up taking antibiotics to manage an ulcer infection, or, most recently, when I had a dental implant and took Cipro to mitigate against infection. Sure enough, my gut issues improved.

Turns out Cipro is one of the antibiotics that helps with gut bacterial overgrowth. So Dr T wrote me a prescription for 10 days. Literally within hours of taking the first pill, my gut began to calm down. What a relief.

I also asked Dr T for a referral to a GI specialist. I haven’t had one in years. I think the last one retired or moved and I wasn’t as concerned as I am now to have that end covered. Fortunately, BMC has gained a new GI doc who knows scleroderma, too, which is what I was hoping for. Now it’s just a question of how long I’ll need to wait to get an appointment. This problem isn’t going away, but at least I have a stop-gap treatment in the meantime.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Image: Janelle Hiroshige