Stress Related Colitis and SCD Diet

Hey Ya’ll,

It has definitely been a crazy past two years. Dealing with health problems and personal problems has put me through the ringer with Ulcerative Colitis.

Here’s a short story about my UC roller coaster. I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in Feb 2010. I actually had been diagnosed with IBS(Irritable Bowel Syndrome) for a prior with some blood spotting and uncontrollable bowel movements since college. I went on a weekend trip and on the 3 hour drive back I had to stop about 15 times. I had an extreme fever and was in extreme pain and my primary doctor suggested I go to the ER. After the cat scan, I was admitted to the hospital for a week because they thought I had a bad case of food poisoning. I went home with anti-biotics and still had no recovery a week later. I saw my GI and he said I had to be admitted immediately to get on fluids and be well enough to have a colonscopy. He discovered that I had UC with Pan-colitis. Spending Valentine’s Day in the hospital with my then fiance was when harsh reality hit. My life would probably never been the same. Since then its been a cycle of relapse and remission, depression and positivity. My fiance and I broke up but I started my MBA. My body had a very bad reaction with Lialda and Imuran but I have been able to keep my UC under control with prednisone which is lucky because at one point my doctor was convinced that surgery was my only option. I even went to India for ayervedic treatment, that I am not sure how much it helped, but my parents are convinced it helped me.

Before my last relapse in August, I had gotten down to 1 mg of prednisone. I was also taking tumeric for inflammation, glutamine, and VLS#3. But being in school is really stressful and had caused a flare again.
While i have been lucky to have it under control with prednisone, its definitely not a long term solution. I have been taking prednisone since I was first diagnosed in Feb 2010. and this time my UC is taking alot longer to get better. So the next step is Humira or Remicade, but i really would like to avoid starting those if I can.

First question is: How well does the SCD diet work when stress is a really key factor in flare-ups? When I have the most stress, that is when my UC gets bad. I know the diet should help with the irritation, but does it work for stress-related SCD?

Second question is: Has anyone used Humira for UC? I know it is in the process of getting approval still. Is there anyone that went into remission with Humira, if not for UC then chrons, and stopped using Humira. If you had a flare again, were you able to start Humira again?

Thanks for listening, hope I can get some answers.

~ Tasha

Submitted in the Colitis Venting Area