Chase Wild Geese and You May Find Unusual Cures
by Dr James Le Fanu

When the doctors have done their best and failed it is only natural to wonder whether or not they have overlooked some obscure remedy, which, if tracked down, would make all the difference. This must be mostly unlikely. It would seem much better just to accept the limitations of medicine - and forgo the proverbial wild goose-chase in pursuit of the elusive miracle cure.

At least that would be the sensible view, were it not that every so often - as happened again recently - someone writes in to tell you of how, against the odds, they successfully snared their goose. Two readers describe how they discovered for themselves a highly specific remedy for the intractable diarrhoea that had afflicted them for many years - which I doubt few, if any, specialists in the country are even aware of.

We start with Major Pravit from Southampton who, 30 years ago, underwent a couple of major abdominal operations. The first involved cutting the acid-secreting nerves to the stomach to heal an ulcer, followed a few years later by the removal of his gall bladder. Since then, he had suffered "constant diarrhoea" of such severity and unpredictability, that he could never leave his home without a supply of loo paper and the knowledge of the location of the various lavatories en route to his destination.

Then three years ago, his son-in-law, while travelling around India, was struck down by a vicious attack of Delhi belly. The Indian doctor he consulted treated him with brewers' yeast, which is rich in B vitamins and trace elements but is presumed to work in infectious diarrhoea by encouraging the growth of "good" bacteria within the gut.

It is easy to guess the rest. Major Pravit wondered, "why not?" and started himself on two tablets three times a day - rapidly reducing to just once a week. His bowels promptly returned to normal and 25 years of "unnecessary embarrassment" became an increasingly distant memory.

Next, there is Jane Noon, from Tyne and Wear, who in 2000 required a major bowel operation for the inflammatory condition diverticulitis - from which she had suffered for 30 years. Her surgeon assured her that she was now cured and could eat anything she wanted, but her diarrhoea persisted. Frustrated, she resolved to try to pinpoint the cause by a process of elimination, cutting out, in turn, vegetables, wheat products, spices, dairy products and so on. This made no difference.

That only left the diet drink she consumed every evening, whose main ingredient, the sweetener aspartame, she was surprise to learn when surfing the internet, was reported to cause diarrhoea. "The result was dramatic to say the least, as my problem was solved overnight," she says.

Now, for most doctors, neither brewers' yeast nor the exclusion of aspartame, would even get on the list of possible things to consider when treating someone with severe and persistent bowel disturbance. Perhaps they should be, but they are not. So that wild goose-chase may not be quite as pointless as it would seem.
The Sunday Telegraph, 7th November 2004