Hi everyone.
I'm 18 weeks pregnant and started flaring in my 7th week of pregnancy. Took Pentasa, Canasa which helped a little. I switched to Lialda which I tried for a week however I was vomiting everything I ate that entire day (which included the morning pills I was taking)...I ended up losing a few pounds. I got frustrated after 2 months of nausea/vomiting (despite taking Zofran) so I just stopped everything against the advice of my GI who wanted me to start Pred (I resisted). So, the day after I stopped all my meds, the vomiting stopped, the bleeding stopped and I was extrememly happy. The cessation of nausea and vomiting may well have been a coincidence...I know that.
Fastforward 2 weeks...we had a big scare with the pregnancy. I had abnormal quad screen which gave me a 1 in 10 risk of Downs syndrome. Had a detailed ultrasound which showed a few soft criteria for Down's (single umbilical artery and echogenic bowel). These are non-specific but have been assoc with Down's. That put my risk at 1 in 5. I had an amniocentesis...everything just happened so fast...I really wasn't expecting this at all because i know the quad screen has a high false positive rate and I'm only 32. Right after the amnio, for days I was an emotional disaster...miserable, anxious, depressed, crying nonstop...you name it....you really never know what it's like until you go through it. I was in such shock that although a I had 500,000 questions to ask the perinatologist, I couldn't even forumulate them...it felt like a nightmare. I know I should be stronger but I just couldn't control my emotions. I was beside myself.
Okay...a few days ago I get the FISH results and MIRACULOULSY the results are negative for trisomy 21! We are incredibly relieved and ecstatic but I also know that we are not out of the woods. We are still waiting for the chromosomes to make sure there are no wierd translocations, etc...and we still have the single umibilical artery to deal with and we're hoping the echogenic bowel is gone on the next ultrasound.
Sorry for being so long with this...but the past week has been stressful with the baby scare and I do feel that my increase in symptoms are due to the recent stressful events (my colitis has always gotten worse with stress, despite medications). In terms of my bowel habits, I've been having bms ranging from loose to diarrhea/mucous but no blood or very minimal. This is certainly a change in my prior symptoms which were just formed bms with some blood/mucous. I'm wondering if this could mean that the colitis is progressing?
I know this sounds completely illogical, but after this whole scare and after I saw my little guy (it's a boy :) on the ultrasound I decided to stop all meds (I was also on Nexium) for fear of side effects and I think I'm stable...it's not D out of control (only 3-5/day). What do you all think...could this be progression of the colitis? With my daughter I flared during my 3rd trimester with bad bloody diarrhea (not diagnosed yet) and she turned out just perfect without meds....I'm hoping the same for this one...
Thank you so much for your insight