Oh the joys of this darn disease

For three months I dealt with the worst constipation of my life, even ending up in the ER because of it. After doing my second pseudo-colonoscopy prep about a month ago (i.e., bottle of Mag Citrate), I thought I might actually be getting over the hump, as things started moving again. This may have been attributable to the antibiotics I started around that time. I also had to travel for work, which always seems to give me GI issues (and didn't fail this time either). Then I started taking the evil Augmentin last week, which shot things into overdrive.

Now I'm back on less-evil antibiotics and I've noticed a new (old) trend: mucus in my stool, or often by itself. Lots of it. And today, joy of joy, I'm pretty sure there was blood in it (it looked like there was dark red streaked throughout). I have never been a blood-in-stool person luckily, but hopefully this doesn't mean that there are bad things brewing. I'll bring it up with my GI on Tuesday when I finally get to makeup my Remicade treatment after the tooth infection delayed it. She's been mentioning getting me in for a colonoscopy soon anyway, since I haven't had one since 2009.

My joints have also been flaring like crazy lately. Interestingly, they started right around the time I started Remicade (April). Of course, a lot of crap was hitting the fan then, but it does make me wonder sometimes...

Sorry, I should have been a bit clearer. I would say my constipation has cleared up in July (maybe because of antibiotics?) and I've been dealing primarily with diarrhea this month, which is much more in line with my symptoms historically. To give you a timeline of last month:

End of June: I do my Mag Citrate cleanse because I'm starting to feel like the constipation is getting quite bad. It cleans things out and the next couple days I have somewhat normal BMs (I'm still taking Miralax daily).

July 2: I have dental surgery and get put on amoxycillin (one week). I'm still taking Miralax daily. Moving back toward constipated self of last three months, but not as bad.

July 7-11: Traveling, have significant diarrhea throughout; not taking Miralax.

July 15: Start Augmentin, almost immediately start having explosive diarrhea, cramping, etc.

July 18: Stop Augmentin, start another round of amoxycillin. Diarrhea starts to fade immediately, but do not go back to constipation, do not start up Miralax again.

July 19-today: have occasional diarrhea, 4-6BMs/day + in last two days, an additional ~3 instances of passing just bloody mucus. Most BMs also have mucus too.

Regarding the joint pain, I've had joint issues since 2009 when I had my last major flare prior to my current one (which has been active since July 2012). I've been having occasional joint pain over the last year, but I remember noticing it getting worse immediately after my first infusion and it has been significant worse in the last few weeks (a lot of stiffness and pain, no swelling). I agree that you would think it would help joint pain as Remicade is used to treat RA, but it's listed as one of the rare side effects of Remicade. So who knows?

Post Edited (vitaka) : 7/25/2013 12:34:12 PM (GMT-6)

I'm still on the antibiotics for another day. Hmm, I'm not sure if I'd rather give up the diarrhea if it meant going back to the constipation! Both suck. :) I'm more worried about the tremendous amount of mucus I've been passing, and especially the blood, as I haven't had this much mucus in a long time.

I'd like to give Remicade a chance--I have had bad reactions to so many medications that I don't want to give up on this one before I feel like I've at least given it time to see if it helps. The joint pain timing may even have been coincidental, as it comes and goes even when I'm not flaring (it's just been much worse lately).