City water or well water?

Hello All,

My wife is now recovering in the hospital from surgery and was told she has CD. I have done a little looking around so far and was wondering if the city vs country has anything to do with city water sources. I have also heard the CD does not exist is 3rd world primitive societies. So I was wondering if anyone has drank well water their whole life.

Thanks!!!

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How do I make this an actual poll?

Raised on the mixture of well water and city water, from various periods in my life. as were my parents and all my siblings. I am the only one with any form of IBD. I wish it were so simple. Same goes for the whole "whole milk" cause scenario too!

City water... most of my life.

There is some evidence that Crohn's is more common in urban areas, which made me ask the same question you did about the city water. But there is no direct link.

I would guess that there is probably multiple things, substances, that can bring the disease to the surface. Maybe my father has Crohn's, but it has never been active. The trigger has never been tripped, so to speak.

In another words, what we have is active Crohn's and there are probably thousands of people that have the same genetic problem, but for reasons unknown it has not been activated into the symptomatic type.

If I had to guess about a trigger, it would first be a bacteria such as a certain strain of H-Pylori, or a virulent strain of E-coli, or even the Paratuberculosis Milk bacteria. Other possibilities are the "refrigerator bacterias" such as Listeria. Vacinations are suspected of triggering other autoimmune diseases in susceptable individuals. Not proven, but there is some compelling anecdotal evidence. Mercury from fillings could worsen the disease possibly, but probably does not cause it. Plenty of people have it that do not have these fillings. I have a mouthful of these fillings and yet my disease did not become a problem until I was in my forties.

Any one or more of these may cause a tipping point in which the disease becomes active, but I believe the disease is genetic in nature which predisposes us to symptoms under the right circumstances.

Of course, it could be something yet unknown. Fun disease to try figure out.

Dan Bergman

I am just wondering about fluoride in the water as a cause for CD showing its ugly head in the first place. Third world places don't have fluoride in water and do not fluoride tooth paste. I am sure it could be a number of things but thought I would try to explore another avenue of thought. I wonder if there are people out there that are genetically dis-positioned to CD and will never even see it because they use baking soda for tooth paste and drink well water? I am by no means an expert on anything. But I hate to see anyone go through this and would take my wife's place is I could. I like forums because they are real people not a book, doctor, or website that might have ulterior motives or closed minds. I don't know what I just said but I am desperate as we also have a new daughter of 3 months, About when my her stomach pains started. She also had to get an IV of antibiotics for strep "B" during delivery.

I think mine was triggered by the meningitis vaccine I was administered before college. I really believe that there's a gene mutation that predisposes you to "freak out immune system" ... much like the ones for breast cancer (BRCA1 and BRCA2) and that something triggers your immune system to freak out and get stuck in the "on" position. So to speak. It may explain why we have flares... maybe there's a bacteria (any kind) of sort that we catch and although we were in remission, causes the immune system to get stuck again and doesn't go away until it gets suppressed. I don't know though.

We received the news that it was CD about three days ago and all I can say is it has to be one of the most mysterious diseases out there. I have a lot to learn and I am glad we have a place to talk things over.

Thank you!!!

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Jim

The reason proposed for third world countries not having as much CD is because they have parasites and a dirtier environment. The theory goes that our environment is to sterile and our immune system needs something to fight so it just starts reacting to harmless bacteria or our own tissue.

This is the basis of Helminth treatments. This is where you infect yourself with some type of parasite to prevent symptoms. While it appears to work to some extent it is just another treatment. Plenty of people do not have these parasites and still do not have Crohn's. I do not really buy into the sanitation theory. But I think there is some evidence that the Helminth treatments do work to one degree or another, but not because a normal person needs parasites. I had parasites that I got rid of recently. In spite of that I still have Crohn's. If anything my Crohn's came around the same time I believe I got the parasites. My particular variety comes from fleas. We had a flea bitten Cat my son brought home and all of our other pets got them.

http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/crohnsdisease/CD_outlook.html

Buy all means, check out any hypothesis you have on the subject. I do the same thing, but have a head start. I actually have a pretty good link collection for many theories and treatments. There seem to be many plausible explanations for the cause of Crohn's, but non of them are bullet proof that I have come across.

Maybe you will come up with an angle that we have missed. It is a very difficult puzzle to solve.

Dan Bergman

When I first was diagnosed, had to deal with a flood of emotions. Amongst them was Shame as in.. "what did I do to deserve this?". Anger, as in "Who is to blame for me getting this?" Fear, as in "Did I expose my kids to getting this as well?" It took me a while to put most of these aside. don't get me wrong, if the answer to the cause of this came to light, I'd be the first in line to learn of it. Especially if it meant that I could limit or avoid my children's exposure to it.

You know what they say about an ounce of prevention... but for the present, I find it more immediately beneficial to just live in the here and now, to deal with the day to day aspects of this disease. To work for a plateau or a remission. I hope for all those who don't have this disease that they find the cause so they can prevent it.. But, being selfish for the moment, I hope they first find a cure for those of us with it. Or that learning what causes it leads to a cure, at least a safe, effective, long term treatment. I hate that this disease made me selfish

City water, until September last year, when I moved to the country and started drinking well water. Symptoms started around christmas and was diagnosed in March. I doubt it could be the well water that triggered the disease though. Or could it? Who knows.

Well, some think e-coli or h-pylori infections can trigger crohns in someone either pre-disposed, or who has crohns already, just in an inactive state. How well was your well water? Anyone else drinking it get any stomach issues, food poisoning, things like that? E-coli contamination is common in shallow wells around farms. It can even occur in deeper wells if the well head or the lining pipe is damaged. The odds of that... who knows. It's in the past, does it really matter? You are far more likely to get e-coli from fresh veggies in the grocery store...

I am thinking that city water might be bad not well water.

I was raised on city water. I have lived in the country now for about 8 years and have the best well water ever. Now when visiting people with city water I will not drink it. Its bad when you run water into a glass cup and it looks like milk for a few seconds until it settles and clears up.