One Said I Had UC and One Didn’t Say

Introduction:

My name is Chris and I’m 39 fixing to be the big 4 0 in a couple weeks. I live in Alabama “roll tide”. I love spending time with my family, detailing car and going to car shows.

Symptoms:

I’ve been symptom free for about a month.

My Story:

Three years ago I started having stomach cramps, bloody stools and going to the restroom a lot. I didn’t know what was going on and I was to embarrassed to tell anybody. So I finally broke down and told my wife what was going on and we got in touch with a surgeon and he did a colonoscopy. He said I had UC and he put me on flagyl and he schedule me to see a GI doctor. When I finally got in to see the GI doc everything had settled down by then and I was back to normal. When I told him what was going on and what the surgeon said he didn’t act too concerned. He then sent me for some blood work and said if I see anything I’ll call you. Well I never heard from him again. So here I was wondering what was going on and wondering did I have UC or not.

Time went on everything was going good so I put it on the back burner and went on with my life. Well January of this year I wanted to get in shape cause I let myself go and I weighed more the n I ever have so “230lbs” I set a goal to lose weight and start eating better. So I started doing P90X and eating veggies, fruit and all the good for you stuff and started having some issues toward the end of my 90 day journey. I started having the same symptoms as last time. I thought that it was just my body reacting to the different stuff I was eating. I wasn’t thinking about UC.

Well April and May rolls around and I’m still having problems but not as bad. Then June comes and all heck broke loose. Came home from work and check my temp and it was 99.7. Told my wife I wasn’t feeling good. So I laid on the couch and the next morning the sever diarrhea started. Then next 3 weeks i was going to the restroom 15-20 times a day and fever anywhere from 99.7-102. I stayed out of work june 12-15 and went to the doc told him what was happening and he did blood work and said my white blood count was very high and that I had an infection some where in my body. I told him about what had happen to me few years ago so he wanted to do a stool sample. And I told him that the doc before put me on flagyl and that it seem to help me the last time so he put me back on it. I was able to work that next week and things started slowing down I was still going bout 10 times a day but when I took that last flagyl things just exploded. Diarrhea went back up and I couldn’t pass gas without having to be on the toilet. I was getting very weak and it was all I could do to walk around. Couldn’t go anywhere because o the diarrhea and June 23 it all came to a head. My skin color was fading and i was down to 178 lbs and my wife said we going to the ER. I couldn’t put up a fight cause I was so weak. We get there and went through the whole thing again about what’s going on blah blah blah. They started running test and started me on IV drip and admitted me. The first couple days they wouldn’t let me eat then they started me on a liquid diet. They called in a GI doc and he did a colonoscopy June 28 and before he did the colonoscopy he said I’m going to figure out what’s wrong with you and get up fixed up and he said do you have any question, I said yeah when can I eat LOL he said when I get done I’ll let you have anything you want. Well that was the delicious hospital food. He done the colonoscopy and turned out that I was having a severe UC flare and that it had infected my entire colon. He took the time and explained everything to me so that I could understand it and he answered all my question. He actually seem like he cared “unlike the other doc”.

They finally let me go home after a week and he put me on 40mg prednisone and sulfasalazine 500mg 3 pills twice a day. I’d never heard of prednisone before and the nurse warned me about the side affects of it. I couldn’t sleep and I was hungry all the time and very moody This is an evil drug!!! After about a week everything start calming down and I started having normal bowel movements. It was so nice to finally crap like a normal person LOL. When I went back to the doc for a follow up I ask him to taper me off the pred because it was making me feel crazy and I was getting mad for no reason at all. So he started taper me down 5 mg every 3 days. I have two weeks left then I’m hoping to be off pred.

My family have been very supportive especially my wife. She has been my rock. If it wasn’t for her I would’ve let the diasese consume me and brag me down.

I ended up losing 54 lbs this time between UC and dieting. Mostly from UC.

Thank you Adam for starting the site it has been VERY helpful and you are a huge inspiration to me and other UC’ers.
A HUGE thanks goes out to my fellow UC’ers for giving me hope. I’ve read most of the stories on here and there is hope.
I’ve went on long enough it’s time to hush LOL. I still have a lot to learn about UC so any tips suggest or if y’all just want to say hi feel free. Thanks everybody and have a blessed day!!!

Where I’d like to be in 1 year:

I’d like to be off meds completely and uc free living a normal life.

Colitis Medications:

The combination of Prednisone & Sulfasalazine seems to be working for me. But I’ll be glad when I’m off pred. I just hope I don’t flare when I come off of it.

written by Chris

submitted in the colitis venting area
—
—