College and Colitis

My name is Matt and I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2013 after struggling with symptoms for about 6 months prior. I played hockey in high school and continue to play hockey in college.

I was out of a flare for about a year and a half, symptom free and living normally. I was able to eat anything and drink anything as well.

Colitis Symptoms:

The symptoms came back the summer before junior year in college and were extremely harsh. I was having a ton of dark blood and soft stool that would always leave me feeling inflamed and uncomfortable when I sat down at first.

Anyways I took lialda for this I am currently coming off predisone which I started at 30mg,20,15,10,5 and I’m on lialda as well as following the scd diet that I have been on for almost two months. I am having trouble handling a lot of food. This is my second timeout the diet and I don’t remember it taking so long to kick in and start helping. Flare and it took about 3 months of summer and two months into the school year to settle things down. When I was getting better I slowly added in foods off of the scd diet and wasn’t having any problems. I was not so much introduced, but finally gave aderal a try because the school work was getting crazy. I noticed I would go to the bathroom at least 3 times after taking it but no other issues were present.

Later in the year I took it for a exam and the following day my symptoms came back slowly and progressively got worse. I am courteous if anyone else has messed around with aderal. I know my trigger is stimulants. So it was stupid of me to try this. But just looking for some thoughts.

College and Colitis

I am wondering how important the intro is and if anyone else has messed with aderal. I am also interested in how many people are dealing with ulcerative colitis in college and how they manage. I am almost done with college which my gi doctor says is awesome that I managed to make it through with the drinking and all the stress, but I am still interested in others people’s experiences.

The predisone I feel has helped me in the past and started to help me this time but at the start of the predisone I was put on an antibiotic for an infected cut and I feel like that couldn’t have helped my stomach at all. My cramping for the most part went away, but the bleeding continues and I’ve tried what I feel like is everything to help. I’ve been alcohol free for over two months and like I stated before in the scd diet for about two months. I have lost 20+ pounds which I’m not complaining about, but I’m getting extremely frustrated with all the food going right through me. At most times I rather not eat all day to feel as close as back to normal as I can. I’m 6 ft 214 and working out as much as I can. I’ve also had to register with the disability office at my school because I was missing so much class towards the end of the school year. I know the scd will put me in remission and honestly if I stay away from stimulants I can never have a flare again. I am just looking for some feedback on what I could be doing differently with the diet and what not. Another thing that I find annoying is the lialda seems to take three months to help and then for most of the time it does nothing at all.

Medications / Treatments

I have tried glutamine as well because I think it has helped me in the past, but I cannot recall completely. I skipped the intro diet it have been strict with eating only legal foods. No day has been consistent. Some days I’ll have blood and water with small formed pieces, some just a bunch of soft stool and sometimes just blood. My bowel movement range from 3-8 a day.

written by Matt P

submitted in the colitis venting area