Currently I’m Symtom Free

me with my girlfriend in a recent pic

Intro:

Hi, my name is Gary. I was diagnosed with UC in 2006, which was my first year in high school. I am currently 21 years old and live in Bakersfield, CA.

Some more about me:

I’m a pretty quiet, laid back person. I enjoy spending time with family and friends, playing video games, cooking, and I love eating which is kinda a bad thing with UC. I would have to say my favorite food is pizza but I try to stay away from it.

Symptoms I’m Dealing with:

Currently I’m symptom free. Occasionally I get loose stools, probably from things I shouldn’t eat.

My Colitis Story:

I was living a completely normal life, no stomach problems and ate whatever I want. Towards the middle of my school year I would get terrible cramps at school. The cramps that make start sweating and you can’t even move. I didn’t like using public restrooms so I would wait tell I got home to use the restroom. At first I didn’t have any blood and my stools were very hard. So the cramping went on for for several weeks and then I started noticing a lot of blood. I had no idea what it meant so I started doing research and I’ll I came up with was a hemroid. So I continued on with life for about 6 months and it kept getting worse but I was afraid to tell anyone. My parents started noticing blood in the toilet but I denied it was from me but they kept asking me about it and I finally told them. I went to the ER that morning and waited a good 12 hours before a doctor saw me. He examined me along with my butt and said everything see ms normal and sent me on my way with a high fiber diet. That when things got even worse. My stomach pain was terrible. It felt like I swallowed razor blades all day. Next day we go to urgent care and the doctor refers me to a GI doctor and says to eat whatever I want.

The doctors next opening wasn’t for another month but I kept complaining and they doctor agreed to do a colonoscopy in a couple days. So I do they prep and the colonoscopy and the doctor said I have severe UC. She put me on prednisone and sulfazine within a day I had no symtoms and no bleeding. I continued sulfazine and stopped the steroids and was doing great for about 6 months. Had another colonoscopy and my colon was perfect. No inflammation. Well time goes by and my neck starts to get this lump and it kept growing. I saw the doctor and he said its a swollen lymph node. Could be cancer. So they take it out and it’s negative for cancer and ruled it was an allergy to sulfazine. At that time my doctor retires so I get a new doctor he puts me on asacol and I go into a flare and not responding to Asacol. We try Pentasa, enemas, 6mp, more prednisone and nothing helped. He basically told me just give it some time and the flare will go away but I refused to wait. I wanted to be better. So I said I wanna try remicade and he was against it but he said he wants to do a colonoscopy first.

The day of the procedure my doctor got sick and had another doctor do it in Hollywood, CA. I had a bad flare again and he put on remicade and it worked instantly. I’ve been on the remicade ever since and I’ve been in remission. I normally eat what I want but I’m actually trying this scd diet just to make me healthier and possibly get off all meds. I’m hoping one day they find a cure. So that’s my story in a short version. Thanks for listening. Have a great day!

Medications:

Most of the normal pills like lialda pentasa and asacol didn’t help at all. Remicade has worked great but I’m accrual of the side effects.

written by Gary C

submitted in the colitis venting area

Gary C

Hi, my name is Gary. I was diagnosed with UC in 2006, which was my first year in high school. I am currently 21 years old and live in Bakersfield, CA.