I'm in remission right now and never post. I come here to read the posts every once in a while looking for useful information. I guess I'll tell you a little bit about
my situation.
Well, back in 2006 I was having these episodes where I would have bloody diarrhea 15 to 20 times a day. Had several of these episodes before finally deciding to see a GI. After he performed the colonoscopy I was diagnosed with UC, which was in 2007. My GI put me on Asacol @ 400mg 6 times a day. I was in remission for about 8 months after being diagnosed then started having diarrhea about five times a day with blood. I never went to the doctor over the next 3 months or so and ended up getting so sick(felt like my immune system was attacking my lungs) I had to be hospitalized and received prednisone through an IV for the next 4 days. After I was released from the hospital my GI put me on 40mg of prednisone, to go with my asacol, and I would taper down from there over the next 6 or 7 months. I was feeling fine as far as the UC goes until about 5 months later. Once again I started having diarrhea 5 times a day with blood and also developed new psoriasis like patches on my back. Just had three or four spots before and now I got over 10 psoriasis like patches on my body. This when I kinda figured out what was causing all my problems.
I noticed my health got a lot worse after I had started drinking 2 or 3 cups of coffee in the morning to go along with my 3 16/20oz. coca cola's I drink throughout the day. A few days after I had started drinking the coffee, which I put a lot of sugar in, is when I noticed the new psoriasis like patches. The next day it felt like my immune system was attacking everything around my stomach and lungs. It wasn't as bad as the time I had to be hospitalized but bad enough to keep me balled up on the couch for a whole day. So I started to feel better the next day after not having any coffee or any other caffeinated drink. I suspected the coffee was what caused my health to get worse so I decided to not drink much caffeine for about a week and then go back to my coffee in the morning and coca-cola throughtout the day to see if I was right. As soon as I went back to the 2 to 3 cups of coffee and 3 or more coca cola's I ended up sick and balled up on the couch in pain. Once again it felt like my immune systems was attacking my body. That's when I decided to quit drinking caffeinated drinks. I went a day without drinking anything with caffeine or sugar in it and my health did a 180, complete turn-around. I stopped having diarrhea 5 times a day and ended up being constipated for a couple of days before going again and started to notice the blood going away. A week or two later I was so confident that I figured out what was causing my health problems I quit taking my asacol. Also, the psoriasis like patches started to slowly go away.
I quit taking the asacol back in April of 2009 and have been in remission ever since. I'm not exactly sure what it was in the caffeinated drinks that was causing my problems. I need to go back to my GI to see if he can explain. I think my problems may be similar to this persons problems http://curezone.com/forums/am.asp?i=743619.
I'm not good at articulating what I want to say so hopefully this made a little sense. Well, maybe I'll stay in remission, if anything changes I'll let you guys know.