My Personal IBS Therapy: Go to Nashville?

I'm serious. The facts keep mounting and I believe that moving to Nashville may be the best way to completely eliminate my Crohn's/IBS/Whatever the hell I have. I am posting this in the Crohn's and IBS support forums for your advice/entertainment :)

I know I posted this information awhile ago, but it continues to blow my mind as I have been ill all summer.

I started having problems with D in 2000. The D came and went for 2 years until I was diagnosed (using Prometheus) with Crohn's Disease. The symptoms were difficult to ignore, but they weren't too horibble either. My doc told me it was the most mild case he had ever diagnosed. He didn't even prescribe medication at first. But I did not have fairly persistant diarhea.

When I went to college at Vanderbilt (in Nashville), all of my symptoms disappeared.

That being said, I recently graduated. I went to college in Nashville for four years. I NEVER HAD A SINGLE FLARE THERE. NOT EVER. I WAS COMPLETELY ASYMPTOMATIC. I drank myself retarded on a regular basis, I ate jalepano's almost daily, I stressed myself out to no end, missed numerous medication doses. I sometimes went entire weeks with only 3 hours of sleep a night. No matter what, I did not flare in Nashville. I never saw my gastroenteroligist there once.

The day I arrived home after graduating, I flared massively and I have been sick since. The same happened over christmas break and thanksgiving, with complete symptom resolution upon returning to nashville. It has been similar during any break in the school cycle. Last summer I could only make it a max of one week off of steroids without becoming a complete mess. I mean in a days time I go from nice stools to like 25 a day with no hope of sleep and severe abdominal pain.

I swear to god, I'm going to Nashville, and if I am symptom free, I'm never leaving :)

What in the world could this be?

Side Note: By the way, its not just my home town where I have symptoms: I go to a different place every summer and christmas from Boston to Seattle to Raleigh/Durham to Houston. I get sick everywhere but at Vandy :)

Tests: 3 Clean colonoscopies (except one biopsy on last did show some mild colitis, but the doctor says that it could have been from the prep I used... he wrote "no evidence of a chronic inflammatory process" which is on every one of my colonoscopies.) 2 clean gi-follow throughs, 1 clean CT scan. Prometheus indicates Crohn's Disease, which is where my diagnosis came from, but this is not entirely definitive?

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Male Age 23. Diagnosed/Undiagnosed with IBS/Crohn's but no one really has a clue whats wrong with me. History of horrible Sinusitis, PND, allergies (very rare allergy to erythromiacin). Currently taking Pentasa and supplements, but will need to go back on steroids soon. Doctors don't want to give me Imuran until they are positive this is IBD.

After watching a "Flip This House" episode where the renovator purchased a home in Nashville for $85,000.00 I thought I might buy me a pair of cowboy boots, trade in my Prius for a Pick-up and head on down there!  Maybe the easy living vibe agrees with your bowels,  although drinking to retardation is gonna make sweet potato pie of your brain!

That's bizarre. I work in Nashville and have never been so sick in my life (except as a small child) as I have been since I moved up here. A woman I work with said she once worked at the TN History Musem and said she was sorting through information to put an exhibit together and said that she ran across a quote from the Native American population that called this place "the valley of sickness". Apparently after the paelolithic tribes moved out, no other tribes lived in this area permanently; they just hunted here. Everyone in the office agrees that it is a very bad place on your sinuses. The valley is not obvious, as there are no mountains around, but it's apparently just low enough to allow the grass pollen (and other pollens) and the smog to settle and not move on. I grew up in a valley in the mountains and it's odd; I was never sick like I am here. That being said, my guts aren't any better or worse, really, for living here; it's just almost constant nasal drippage and I catch everything that goes around (and I've caught a few things from I-don't-know-where).

$85,000? If you move out to the country, where I live (hour outside of Nashville--down the Murfreesboro way), you can get a house in the $75,000 range that isn't in too much need of work. A single-wide trailer on 3-5 acres of land will set you back $60,000-$75,000. There's a bunch of stuff going up for sale around me. In fact, a house down the road went to auction and it went for like $135,000 for a small but apparently well-done cabin, a garage/workshop and something like 12-15 acres of land.

Sometimes things just don't make any sense. I mean, it could be the local water (I think most all of our water around here comes from the Cumberland River), could be the air pollens and pollutants (or lack thereof), could be that you eat something different down here that you're just not aware of not eating elsewhere (perhaps sweet tea is your cure?), may even be the weather and humidity combined. Anyways, if it makes you feel better, why not move? With a Vandy degree, you'll be a good commodity here and should find plenty of contacts to get a job.