Meet Laura:
I am a 31 year old ER nurse from Ontario and I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis 1 year ago. I am struggling with this switch over from nurse to patient and coping with a chronic disease but I am getting through it one day at a time!
Some more about me:
I love to be active! Running, hiking, traveling, enjoying the great outdoors! I am a bit of a control freak..so this ulcerative colitis thing has been difficult to say the least haha
Colitis Symptoms:
Just started prednisone and my symptoms have resolved after 2 days, hooray!
Colitis Story:
So I was previously healthy, active and loving life when I noticed some blood in my stools early last year. I wasn’t too concerned and thought this could wait until I saw my GP that summer for my physical. I was sent for blood work which led to a colonoscopy that August which I was extremely nervous for! Once those drugs went in though, I didn’t have a care in the world! I was diagnosed with left sided UC and started on Pentasa with great results. I was to wean off this after a couple of months, which I did, and my bloody stools came back along with some new urgency and cramping that I didn’t have before. And so it began…I believe I was in denial when my symptoms came back worse than before because it was another 5 months of attempting to up my Pentasa dose (with no results) before I saw my GI doc again. It was a miserable winter and when I finally saw him he put me on prednisone. Knowing all the nasty side effects of this dru g and seeing people on prednisone at my job, frightened me to say the least. I stared the prednisone anyways and experience dizziness and nasty headaches that would wake me up in the middle of the night and bring me to tears! It worked though! I was in a remission from June to October when UC reared it’s ugly head again! We have just had an IBD clinic open in our city with some great GI docs and I phoned my GP for a referral right away when my symptoms returned. I now have a great team overseeing my care and they have put me on another course of prednisone and increased my Pentasa. I am 2 days of prednisone and my symptoms have resolved! (yeah)! Now to stay positive and hope for the best! I am scheduled for another colonoscopy in January and have a bone density test set up, since this is my 2nd course of steroids this year.
I could never have anticipated the emotional toll this ride would take on me, and how extremely isolated and lonely this disease would make me feel at times. I think a lot about my future and the uncertainty weighs on me. My parents and boyfriend are my supports as I experience my ups and downs.
I am so happy to have found this outlet to share my story and to remind myself to stay positive, healthy and most importantly remind myself that I am not alone. Thank you Adam for this great site!
Medications/Treatments:
Pentasa worked great initially, but now the addition of Prednisone was necessary, which is a great and terrible drug.
I have also tried making turmeric tea and tried charcoal a while back which I didn’t see any improvements with.
written by Laura
submitted in the colitis venting area
My name is Laura, I am a 31 year old ER nurse from Ontario and I was diagnosed with UC 1 year ago. I am struggling with this switch over from nurse to patient and coping with a chronic disease but I am getting through it one day at a time!
