How long have you had Uc?

i started having problems back in 2002 with constipation,i was 25 at that time. went to my doc and they did a barium enema test. the test showed nothing so they said i was just irregular.well it stopped for awhile,i got pregnant well my son and around 7 months pregnant i started seeing blood and mucus in my stool. i told my gyn. and she told me i might have hemmies.well my son came early and then stress over that put me in a full blown flare,i was 26 at the time of diagnoses. so if i count from the time i had symptoms it would be 7 years,but from the time i was diagnosed would be 6 years.

1. When did you first start having symptoms and also at what age?

It was not long after my sixteenth birthday. It came on suddenly. Fever, severe diarrhea, sick all night long.



2. How long did you let your symptoms go before seeing a doctor about it?

At first my mother thought it was flu, so she was making me soup. After the first 24 hours, my parents got worried and took me back to the doctor who had just performed minor sinus surgery on me the week before. I had been on antibiotics. He assured them it was no big deal, advised them to give me aspirin and not to worry. I started losing weightt, and blood. My father got really upset, took me to the family doctor who immediately admitted me to the hospital whereupon I needed 6 blood transfusions. It took them two weeks still (and lots of barium enemas...no colonoscopy back then in the dark ages) to give it a name and another two weeks to start to get it under control with steroid treatment (cortisone...at first, then later years they called it prenidsone)

3. How long have you had it since being diagnosed?

I have lived with UC now fo 48 years.