Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Interesting NY Times article on leaky gut syndrome

While this pertains to a case of juvenile arthritis, it is still interesting reading.

NY Times article

Brad

Brad - Facinating. *Every rheumatologist should have a copy and *read it ! Excellent. More and more gut involvement is coming to the fore, and, as shown it is 'possible' to make a controlled study. Good one.

Thanks Brad, interesting stuff.

That had me in tears. I am still on the fence about making that change. My blood results showed no sensitivity to gluten...is the test 100% accurate? Thanks for the article.

There is a woman in my office who developed severe fibro 2 years ago. Cut all starch, lost 30 lbs and off all meds. I am seeing the same rheum. As her...she supports that change.

thanks brad,

just confirmation that my rheumatologist (and I) are hopefully on the right track. early on (in our relationship), he stated that he thinks all spondyloartrhopathies begin in the gut. he was even more convinced of that for me, since i started with the gastritis and IBS symptoms 5 years before the inflammatory arthritis / joint symptoms.

fast forward, and stool sample testing and food "allergen" testing indicated that I needed probiotics (was ok with E. coli and Bifidobacterium, but no lactobacilli) and being on a casein free (dairy free) diet.

So now I take culturelle (lactobacillus) and align (bifidobacterium), have been finding new dairy substitutes, and take a number of suppplements.

i think, if its the culprit, that leaky gut must take awhile to heal, as i still flare (every few months). but am better between flares, and the GI symptoms, even when I flare, are a lot less.

the 6 days of methylpred still helps the flares, the LDN still helps the enthesitis, the zanaflex still helps the muscle spasms, but all the supplements (fish oil, vit C, magnesium, etc) also seem to have their place.

thanks for the article. i try not to bombard my doctor with too many articles, but this one I think i will take to him.

there is no true test for gluten sensitivity just allergen. I tested negative for celiac but my gut is a mess if I eat gluten. I am on a strict gluten free diet and have been for 5 years.

However it has very little affect on my AS so I still take enbrel when I can (antibodies).

there are no cut and dry answers. Our body is an experiment to see what works but no doubt food is a medicine we put in our body.

Don't know if its true or not, but my gastroenterologist, who I respect a lot (He attends a lot of conferences and always seems to come back with the latest scientific / medical findings, etc) told me that if these three tests came back negative, then there was a 99% chance that I was not sensitive to gluten.

1. the antibody blood test

2. the HLA-D? blood tests (don't remember the exact genes right now, but was tested)

3. biopsy of the start of the small intestine.

for me, all three of those were negative. the doctor did the biopsy while checking out my gastritis by endoscopy. on the other hand, my ileum was inflamed and had small ulcers, which is indicative of spondyloarthropathies. and gluten doesn't seem to make me feel bad either......all together, my problem seems to be casein....