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Regarding Leslie Elsner's post about sleep deprivation.
 
At long last someone else besides me has brought up this problem.  I have
been going to doctors for years (since 1975) asking for help to solve
these middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom to urinate.  I am up
sometimes as many as 8 times a night.  I have been to urologists, my
family-practice doctors, had an IVP done, kept a record of how much
output of urine I have in a 72-hour period.  No one has been able to
break this cycle I've been in.  I was just diagnosed with CD 3 months
ago.  Along with the CD diagnosis I have had a bone density scan and
been diagnosed with osteoporosis and fibromyalgia.  I want someone
to give me a cure for these sleep interruptions.  Leslie, please let me
know what they learn when you go for the sleep study so I can pass this
on to my doctors.  The only solutions the doctors have had so far is to
prescribe Levsinex which is actually a drug for intestinal problems but
it also causes difficulty with urination and I have been given anti-
depressants to take at night like a sleeping pill.  There are times that
it does give me more hours of sleep without being awakened to go pee but
I NEVER get an uninterrupted night's sleep.  If I do get to sleep longer
before I am awakened I don't wet the bed.  In fact some of my trips to
the bathroom result in about the equivalent of 1 tablespoon of urine so
I am not being awakened because my bladder is full and needs to be
emptied.  I might also add that all my life from childhood on I have
had a problem with frquency of urination.  If this is possibly related
to the CD I have had only the urinary problems all my life until about
3 years ago when I experienced some digestive problems and unexplained
weight loss.  The diagnosis for that was gastric reflux and was told to
take over-the-counter gas relief products and a prescription for Pepcid.
With the diagnosis of CD I had to switch to Zantac because Pepcid and
Tagamet have gliadin in them.  My daughter and grand-daughter have the
problem with frequency of urination, too.  My daughter was diagnosed
with Multiple Sclerosis 16 years ago when she was 18.
 
Darla Straka
Albuquerque, NM, USA