Firefighter Matt FINALLY Got the Nerve

Abd pain, recal pain, blood here and there not very often

Back in 2010 I had diarrhea for 30 days in a row and thought it was probably food poisoning. Went to Dr and was sent for stool culture that turned up negative so a week later was scheduled for colonoscopy. I was awake for it just sedatated and was able to see the inflamed colon on the tv screen. After a meet with Dr when he finished I was given Lialda, Canasa and was under the asumption it would clear up in a few weeks I would be back to normal.

We just bought a bigger house because my wife was pregnant with twins and we already had a 3 y/o daughter. The next 11 months was complete hell, I went through a bunch of different medications you all know the story, none were working. My wife delivered a boy and a girl and they were brought home on Halloween. My wife was bed ridden and I was my mom, a one man show with 20 trips to the toilet a day.

I was back to work after 3 weeks off with the babies, work was stressful to say the least. I’m a firefighter/paramedic and I was always worrying about the calls coming in and the fear of crapping my pants. The alarm would go off and I would run to the toilet, release the blood and mucus quick cleanup and jump on the truck or ambulance.

My life went from great to grim in a very short time I was devastated, the fear of not being able to support my family was all I thought about and still do. After multiple more trips to the Dr I was told I’m out of options and we talked about surgery a little. I decided to get a new Doctor. She was stunned my old GI was out of options. She read my records and saw I had quit s moking 1.5 years before my diagnosis and told me to start up nicotine. It sucked to hear I was proud to be a nonsmoker. I got over it, I would try anything. I stayed on the Lialda x4 and Nicorette but then started Smoking again, after 6 weeks the blood stopped. After 7 weeks a solid poop it was hard to believe! It wasn’t all symptom free I was nauseous and belly pain but that went away eventually. I went almost a year without a flare! Had one in Feb 2012 when I stopped the Lialda for 5 days. Today I am doing decent I do the e-cig and Lialda x2. I still have bad days here and there, and I still am deathly afraid of surgery because I fear I my loose my job. Anyway It took some nerve to post this it’s not my proudest moments. I’ve been reading this website so many times with all your stories and wanted to give one back.

Adam’s the man, we’ve talked several times and his book(Feeling Crappy to Feeling Happy) was great for me.

One last thing I didn’t give every detail or medication but some of the stuff I tried Lialda, Imuran, prednisone, Canasa, steroid enema, probiotics, FMT, SCD .  If you have any question please ask. Thank you