founder of iHaveUC.com
Good Day to Everyone with Ulcerative Colitis,
I’m Adam-the UC’er who tries to keep this site running smooth and full of useful information and experiences of true UC’ers like us.
One thing I promise you is this page is full of GREAT NEWS.
So let’s start off with some simple question and answers that everyone can take part in:
Question 1: How long does it take for your finger to heal when you cut it with a knife?
Answer: well, don’t go cut yourself and find out, I’m guessing you have an idea already. For me its about 5-7 days.
Question 2: How long does it take for your mouth to heal when you bite your lip, or eat hot pizza and burn the roof of your mouth?
Answer: Again, we’ve all done it, if you can’t remember how long, that’s probably a good thing. For me its usually about 1-2 days.
Question 3: How long does it take for your colon to heal after it has been inflamed and bleeding for weeks or months?
Answer: I’d like to share with you some details from my dinner last night with world renowned Microbiologist Les from Stanford’s Microbiology Lab. As you may remember, Les is the star in all of the Gut Bacteria Videos that I shot on-site several months ago. He is an expert in understanding gut bacteria which makes him someone’s idol if you have ulcerative colitis(in my opinion at least, you the man Les!!)
Backround Story:
My ulcerative colitis went through a pretty nasty flare up towards the end of 2010 and the first week of 2011. I was bleeding pretty bad, and doing 5-10 soggy, whale killing bowel movements per day. You know what I mean UC’ers… I don’t need to go into to many more details for this crowd I hope.
Starting about the 7th of January, I reluctantly went back on a low dose (15mg/day to start) of prednisone and have tapered down to 10/day since. What was so shocking to me though was the change in symptoms and bleeding and crap hardness (CH) that took place just 24 hours after starting the steroids. In my mind it was amazing and almost impossible to believe. One major thing to take note as well, I re-started the SCD dieting program alongside with the steroids, and that combination has once again proved very useful for me.
When Les came over for dinner last night, I had to ask him this one question:
“How fast can the colon heal after bleeding and being tore up and inflamed for so long?”
The ideas that Les explained are something that should raise some MAJOR HOPE in all of us who deal with Ulcerative Colitis symptoms. The bottom-line is the colon can heal itself very quickly, sometimes the colon heals itself in 2-3 days. Faster than the cuts you get on your outer skin. The healing process inside our bodies, especially our digestive system is super fast. It’s similar to the cuts you get in your mouth. They heal really quickly right? Yes they do.
So what is the reason for this fast healing inside our colon? It all comes down to cell division and new cells being born. The body finds a way to speed this process up in places like our colon and our mouth. Instead of the normal 5-7 day process for a new cell on our skin making it to the outside layers to fix any cuts or scrapes, within the colon it takes place much faster Les explained.
So feeling better quickly and seeing your symptoms get better is possible.
And YES, the bleeding can go away fast. I am happy to say that my symptoms are not affecting my lifestyle right now. I am not bleeding, and I’m having formed poops once again. It’s great news.
But there is still just one BIG QUESTION:
“WHAT needs to take place for COLON HEALING to START?”
This is a question which I am able to answer based off my own experiences. For me, I have found my way out of two major ulcerative colitis flares(as of Feb. 2011). And both times the combination of a low dose of prednisone along with starting the SCD diet has worked wonders. The prednisone steroids ARE NOT a long term treatment, just a temporary inflammation cool down, but the SC Diet is the long term solution that I intend to continue with. I can’t thank it enough. If you’ve NEVER ATTEMPTED a diet change to help the colon begin a healing process, you just might want to look into it further.
The “Ulcerative Colitis Diet” page has details on how to get started with this.
-Adam Scheuer
I started site shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
Leave a comment, ask a question, take advantage of our past experiences here, use the search boxes, they are your friends to0:)
I’ve written 2 different ulcerative colitis ebooks, you can check them out here.
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