FRUSTRATED!

Introduction:

Hi! My name is Tracy, I’m 33 and from Canada. I was 16 when i was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) but started getting sick just after I turned 14. I was scared so i tried to hide how sick i really was. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done!!!!

Frustrated with Colitis:

I was 14 when i started getting sick with UC, not the greatest thing when i had an hour and half bus ride to and from school. It got to the point where i was taking garbage bags with me in-case i had to go (not a finer point in my life). I was scared so i down played it to the doctor when my mom would take me in.

Two years later it was so bad

that it was nothing but blood coming out,

I was only 100 pounds.

Most nights i was camped out in the bathroom with my pillow and blanket because there was just no point in leaving it. I was going up to 45 times a day. On one of my doctor visits i finally opened up about what was really happening and my doctor told me to quit chewing gum for 30 days. My mom came unglued!!!! that is when action was taken, so on my sweet 16 i was pooping in containers to give to the doc. After i was diagnosed they put me on prednisone for a month which put me into remission. They put me on asacol after but i had too much joint pain so they switched me to sulfasalazine. I felt great and once again enjoyed life. I started coming out of remission when I was 22, after i had my first child.

I have been in and out of remission since.

More out than in probably. My doctors have never put me on anything else, not even back on the steroids. I tried LDN for about 6 months but all that did was give me crazy nightmares all the time and my UC got worse. So now I am back on the sulfasalazine, out of remission and have less than 4 months to get myself in control or they take my colon out ( with no help from the doctors of course, steroids are looking pretty good about now). I’m going to try the SCD diet and hope that it works for me.

written by Tracy

submitted in the Colitis Venting Area