Alan Webb's Goggles wrote:
Could IBS become the new asthma?
I would have thought the side effects of long term Prednisolone use would outweigh the benefits of use for IBS.
Be careful! They have IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, not IBS, Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome. They are not the same thing. IBD is a general term for chronic inflammation of the digestive tract. Most cases are IBD are either ulcerative colitis and Crohn's Disease. Both are very serious diseases; like asthma, they can kill. In the meantime, they can make life hell.
As for whether IBD could become the new asthma, I'm not sure. There is such a thing as "exercise induced asthma." This real disease provides the medical foundation for the "diagnosis" of "training induced asthma." I'm not sure there's a comparable "exercises induced IBD" to provide a medical foundation for the "diagnosis" of "training induced IBD."
On the other hand, the number of asthma TUEs suggests that many elite athletes are shameless, so it's probably dangerous to say it won't ever happen.
PS That steroids are the drug of choice shows how serious these diseases are. Most of the other drugs have even worse side effects than steroids. The surgeries usually involve removing large pieces of your gut. And, in the case of Crohn's the surgery may only provide temporary relief; eventually, you can run out of gut.