I had a rough month with my pouch, which just turned 8. Stricture, enflamed skin tag, and pouchitis to boot. I seem to get pouchitis every 3-4 months, which my GI says happens. Augmentin stopped working for me, so we used Cipro this time. It took a little longer to work, but after 5 days I felt like, well, I always do on the meds - NORMAL. HEALTHY. Sleeping through the night, going hours without need to go, having a blissful week. But I finished the meds on Wednesday and already I'm noticing more frequency and different textures. I feel like this always happens when I stop the meds - back to my "normal", which is not nearly as nice as when medicated. But then again I have no colon - I'm always going to have more frequency and ever changing bowel habits, right? It's just always been curious to me that I'm never as good as I am on the meds...What am I getting at? Well, I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has this almost immediate post-antibiotic regression? Is this normal, or could it possibly mean there's still some inflammation? And what should my "normal" be anyway? Also, I'm wondering what else I can do to healthy-up my pouch. I'm really committing to the low residue diet; I'm already gluten free and low dairy and just started up with probiotics again. But what else??? I want to limit the need for the antibiotics as much as possible - don't want them to lose effectiveness!
Thanks everyone