Grape Seed Extract Update

Just wanted everyone to know that the Grape Seed Extract I started taking at the end of January is still working well. I'm doing the best I have ever done in my 3 1//2 years with this disease. I go anwhere between 2 - 4 times per day, usually averaging 3. One or two of those are in the morning and then I almost always go 12 or more hours (often 15 - 20 (sometimes even more)) without having to go at all. I have my life back. Never have any blood (except for hemmies) or mucus, although I wasn't having those even before the GSE. My stools are formed but they were also formed before the GSE. I consider myself to be 90% in remission. Don't know if I will ever reach 100%. I started out taking one 400mg capsule per day, which made me much better half of the days and worse the other half. I increased to two capsules per day and the results were truly amazing and phenomenal. To get a little greedy I upped it to three capsules per day and was suprised I started getting worse. I immediately cut back to two and am back to amazing and phenomenal again.

Just as a reminder, I started taking the Grape Seed Extract due to my results from my American Gut Analysis, which showed I had almost all Firmicutes and no Bacteriodetes. I read that the GSE helped lower the Firmicutes and raise the Bacteriodetes and I guess that is what has been happening. Wierd thing is that my fequency has improved dramatically but my formed small, skinny, short stools really haven't changed one bit since before the GSE. This probably won't work in everyone I'm sure but for anyone willing to give it a shot it is fairly inexpensive and I really haven't had any noticeable side effects.

Good for you!
What brand and form of GSE are you using? Dosage?

That's fantastic news!..good for you, sounds like you did a lot of research which has paid off big time...

Levi: Here is the link -
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/american-gut

ItsAlways: I use OL (Olympian Labs) 400mg capsules and take one in the morning and one at bedtime. I order them from Amazon.

Mark: Like you, I am in a little bit of denial regarding my current condition. After 3 1/2 years it is just hard to wrap around the fact that I am almost normal again and I definitely don't want to jinx myself. It has been fantastic to go through the whole day and then some without having to worry about anything but for now I am taking it one day at a time. I don't know when it might eventually completely sink in but I'm afraid by the time it does something will happen and I will get worse. It's really hard to enjoy, knowing that any day my bubble could burst.

Poppie: Yep. I had another autoimmune disease 24 years ago and learned some valuable lessons.
Lesson one: Doctors don't know what causes autoimmune diseases and don't know how to cure them so all they do is prescribe med after med after med, hoping to hit on one to control your condition. Since they don't know how to cure you they don't even try.
Lesson two: If you want to be cured you have to figure out how to do it yourself. It took me 9 years to figure out how to cure myself of my first autoimmune disease and I'm 3 1/2 years into UC. I'm still not all of the way there yet with UC but I'm still working on it. Paying for a gut analysis was one of the first steps. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. How many GI's would order a complete gut analysis? So far, I don't believe I've even heard of one.


Mom: Thanks!

That's 100% the way I feel/think. To freaky.

I regards to the thin stool, now that I think hard I was like that for a long time. I think that changed when I added a large helping (Maybe 1 tablespoon+) of potato starch twice a day. Recently, like two days ago I even worked up the nerve to add oats. The combo of these two seemed to do some pretty decent bulking and good.

I was very cautious and nervous in doing so for the reasons you mentioned.

Vitamin C would probably be good for you. That will loosen up your stool.

Gary-
Checked Amazon and Vitacost for OL GSE.

Amazon OL GSE Naturopathic 400mg 100caps $39.96
Vitacost price is $21.99.

Is this the product you're using?

I use Vitacost to order Starwest Slippery Elm at $31.29. Get free shipping with $49+ order so usually group orders.

Just me trying to save $1.
IAS

IAS: here is the link to what I bought last time. It is temporarily out of stock but should be in soon. Last time I paid $17.99. I see it is listed now for $19.65. Hope the link works.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UZUAFA/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Believe I will start taking some.

My reason is to knock down inos, which makes NO, when the NO reacts with superoxide it then makes

peroxynitrite, bad actor,leads to all kinds of oxidation.

Gary:

Here is probably the reason that you got worse when you upped the does to 3x a day.

I can add more on GSE effects if anyone is interested.

Knocking down Inos, with chemicals did not work in uc monkeys, but perhaps different mechanisms operating.

I can also take a wild guess that the reason it can change bacteria population types is that, there are

many facultative anaerobes growing at the expense of strict anaerobes due to the higher oxygen tension

in the colon due to ROS, inos and some feed on nitrite/nitrate.

Old Mike

gse differential effects- in some cases can make things worse, IFN gamma,connected with UC.

LINK

I have a thread on inos but will had this here

http://gut.bmj.com/content/42/2/152.full

 

I bought grape seed extract this morning to help my flare. OM, how much are you going to take of this? Do you think it would help Crohn's disease (colonic) too?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12194639
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7541008
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7687730?dopt=Abstract

Any more experiences with grape seed extract?

Gary, how long does it take to work? How fast?

Edit: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20933009

Post Edited (xy123) : 6/20/2015 3:20:36 AM (GMT-6)

By the way, not too long ago I upped my dosage back up to those three pills per day (1200mgs) instead of two (800mgs) and instead of it making me worse I THINK it was making me slightly better. The difference was so slight though that I returned back down to 800mgs per day where I was before but this time around it did not make me worse. It may be something where you have to let your body get used to the higher dosage a little at a time.

OM, that one is interesting, I believe corticosteroids helping mechanism is mainly shutting down/reducing most of the immune system.
Found three gse studies on induced colitis, maybe some of you haven't seen these:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19088805
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21642017
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20921975

It is said that GSE can also induce apoptosis in colon cells which is defective with Crohn's disease due to genetic mutations. These studies focus on cancer but actually the same thing:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22312277
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21622155

A very good, comprehensive article about GSE:
examine.com/supplements/Grape+Seed+Extract/#ref97

Seems like mice studies with gse(and not only colitis studies but different disease studies) use very high doses. It confuses me. How much to take for humans is what I wonder most.

What is the cost of American Gut Analysis test? Which company did you use for the test?