Meet Didem:
I’m a 25-year-old microbiologist recently diagnosed with ulcerative colitis after 6 years of suffering. I like cycling (which I do every chance I get), I love red wine (even though sometimes it hurts me), and I spent all my spare time watching HGTV :)
My UC Symptoms Right Now:
Occasionally small amounts of blood, urgency, awful and constant diarrhea, bloating and gas.
Colitis Families, Listen Up:
Hi Everyone,
My name is Didem and I’m originally from Turkey but I currently live and work in Canada. I used to be one of those people who are very picky eaters and my health was, let’s say it was quite bad. I wasn’t really taking care of myself. I started smoking at the young age of 15 and smoked all the way to 23. I wasn’t really exercising and as any other college student, I was drinking quite heavily. When I turned 20 I decided to quit smoking, which I did for about 5 months, until I started getting awful GI symptoms. I was constantly having diarrhea, and I was scared to eat. All the doctors I have been to did some stool tests to check for parasites and told me I have IBS. The stress of all of this made start smoking again and I found a balance of imodium and strong probiotics that kept me relatively symptom free for about 4 years until I wanted to quit smoking again. At this point in my life I started dating a guy and it was starting to get serious so I was thinking about getting married and having kids. I didn’t want my kids to grow up with a smoker. So I successfully cold turkeyed that sucker and started exercising. I was eating healthy and I cut out dairy from my diet. Fast forward a year and my symptoms came back with a vengeance. Imodium wasn’t doing anything and I started going to doctors again until one day they decided to do a colonoscopy. I was officially diagnosed.
Right now I’m on mesalazine which is working fine enough except for the crazy bloating and nasty gas that comes with it but it helped my abdominal cramps and decreased the amount of visits to the bathroom. My biggest concern is that I would like to get married and have kids soon. I’m very worried about becoming pregnant with a disease like this. I feel like my baby is not gonna get enough nutrients when the mom can’t retain any food without being heavily medicated. I’m also concerned about being on medication while I’m pregnant as well as passing this awful disease to my kids (my mom has IBD as well).
I would appreciate any and all help you can give me. I know many of you have kids and families and I would like to hear about how you cope and what you’ve done.
Thanks :)
Where I’d like to be in 1 year:
I would like to be symptom free and eating all the raw fruits and vegetables I can.
The Colitis Medication I’m Taking:
Mesalazine
written by Didem
submitted in the colitis venting area
I’m a 25-year-old microbiologist recently diagnosed with UC after 6 years of suffering. I like cycling (which I do every chance I get), I love red wine (even though sometimes it hurts me), and I spent all my spare time watching HGTV :)
