Intro:
UC Since August 2012
Symptoms began right after Invisalign treatment started.
Nothing angers me more than hearing a doctor state the following – “We don’t know what causes Colitis, but we know diet has nothing to do with it.”
Some more background info:
Hobbies have turned into beating UC.
Symptoms:
Full blown flare currently. 7-10 bathroom trips per day with blood and mucous and not much solid.
TJV’s Colitis Story:
Here is a breakdown of my UC adventure:
8/1/12 – Invisalign Started
8/3/12 – Horrid smelling poop and mucous in poop
8/10/12 – Blood in poop
8/14/12 – Call Dentist to see if this is a potential side effect
8/15/12 – Of course Dentist never heard of anything like this
At this point I stop using Invisalign and get the brackets taken off. I have blood in my poop and it is a real disaster. Change eating habits, rest, drink tons of water and nothing seems to help.
Seek medical attention
9/10/12 – Initial Appointment with GI
GI Starts diagnosis process, blood tests, stool tests, etc.
Everything is golden.
Colonoscopy/Endoscopy reveals Colitis symptoms
Schedules additional MRI type testing to confirm
Prescribed Asacol in October 2012 after rigorous testing…
Asacol kind of works, but not great. Makes me tired, gain weight, thinning hair.
Find that eating soluble fiber helps quite a bit. Gain more weight.
The rat bastard pharm company changes to Delzicol right before the patent runs out on Asacol.
Delzicol seems to not work as well. Start getting depressed, losing hope, and become addicted to food.
2/1/14 – First son was born a few months back and realize I have to beat UC and live long enough to get him to the point where he is a functional member of society. I start doing tons of research, take charge and start asking questions to the GI. I now refuse to see my GI. How can there be absolutes with a disease they do not know the cause of? Total red flag. Stop taking Delzicol. Research other ways to deal with UC.
3/1/14 – Begin juicing. Do a couple 3 day fasts here and there. Decent results. Same, if not better than doing asacol/delzicol. Eat perfect, no crap (candy bars, sweets, sugars, etc.)
9/1/14 – Decide I want to end this shit once and for all so I do a 30-day juice fast. Incredible results. Everything back to normal.
11/7/14 – Get sick (cold/flu), flare starts creeping up, go on a trip to Wisconsin for Bears/Packers. Eat like crap, don’t get sleep and remain sick for weeks and back to square one. Very deflating.
Do some more juice fasts. A few 3 day and 5 day fasts. Symptoms controlled.
Creep back into horrible eating habits. Can’t quite seem to stay on track with the diet.
3/15/14 – Things start going haywire again. Eating like crap. Having a hard time juicing this time around and as much as I know it helps, I just can’t stay on track.
Present Day – Full blow flare and losing hope. Falling back to more research and looking to find another GI. Research has led me to this site and I found a most interesting recommendation to smoke 3-5 cigarettes per day?
A few months before the Invisalign incident I quit smoking and have not smoked since.
In other research I have found maybe I have Candida/Fungus? Plausible since after a juice fast I am in great shape for a while until I relapse and become addicted to food again (sugars feeding yeast/fungus).
I am hoping maybe someone has a similar experience and can maybe expand upon what I have experienced thus far.
Medications Right Now:
Currently not on any medication
Most recent success was juice fasting.
written by TJV
submitted in the colitis venting area
UC Since August 2012
Symptoms began right after Invisalign treatment started.
Nothing angers me more than hearing a doctor state the following – “We don’t know what causes Colitis, but we know diet has nothing to do with it.”
