First Time Poster - Newly "Diagnosed"

Hi everyone, this looks to be an active forum so I wanted to join in and say hello.

I am a 36 yo male, who about 5 months ago went about a full month of what I guess was my first long term flare up (greasy stools, very gassy, frequent, coming on suddenly, and nothing solid for a month). For 10 years or so I have had diarrhea more often than the average person, but it has never been much of an issue (only occasionally, never long term). I get canker sores inside my mouth on a regular basis - especially the past 4 years or so. I had a colonoscopy / endoscopy and the MD saw irritation, took some samples, blood tests etc. I was prescribed an enema that seemed to work quickly and in about 4 days everything stopped.

He said it looked like Ulcerative Colitis, but that we couldn't be fully certain (i believe one of the tests that usually confirms it came back inconclusive) but based on the symptoms, colon irritation he saw it probably was. He prescribed me asacol (2 tablets 3x per day) which i have been taking generally according to schedule (the mid day ones sometimes get skipped).

Anyway, i wanted to ask if the whole "we're not totally sure but you probably have it" diagnosis makes sense / is common in regards to UC. With other conditions it seems like the diagnosis is more concrete. I have not had (luckily) and more long flare ups since the last, and hope I don't. I have been back for follow ups twice, both times with the MD saying "no new flareups? good, don't stop taking your medicine" (which i have read here is very inadvisable).

Any insights / thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

GB

Post Edited (GB2000) : 11/5/2009 11:21:50 PM (GMT-7)

Well first of all welcome! you'll get the best info here in this forum I have and everyone has helped me out! and don't be shy! humor helps and you gotta have a good sense of humor with this condition (lets hope ya don't have it!) But if you do, you can get through it and this forum just helps push you along.....

Don't skip that medicine dose! you don't want to go into a serious flair because of skipping doses... anyways update us and let us know what the doc says they gotta figure out if it is or not they can't just say well it might be and let you on your way ha

thanks everyone.

I don't know if he saw actual ulcers or just inflamation - i will ask this at the next appointment. There was definitely blood in my stool during the flareup.

I forgot to mention that the MD did reference it as proctitis (which my limited understanding is just relative to where it occurs in the colon?).

To be honest, I probably should be following it a bit more closely / know more, but since it has really only affected me once and is now gone I have been a bit more lax than I should. I know how important it is to keep it in check going forward.

Hey GB2000 - That's exactly how I was diagnosed 2 months ago! I'm relatively new to UC but when I was diagnosed in August I had a colonoscopy and what my GI saw was inflammation in my colon, he took biopsies however they came back as inconclusive. He felt certain enough based on what he saw and gave me Asacol to take indefinitely for the colitis and suppositories to take to deal with the proctitis that he also noticed. Good luck & welcome

I had a similar diagnosis process. I started seeing the GI in early April after passing several mucous-only stools in late March We went through a rule-everything-else-out process that included a colonoscopy (showed inflammation but biopsies inconclusive). A month after some antibiotics and anti-diarrhea stuff (to treat possible infection and IBS in case that's what they were), the follow-up sigmoidoscopy ('cause it was all in the lower part of the colon) still showed inflammation, so he felt confident with the UC diagnosis by mid-May and prescribed Asacol. Everything was fine until early October, when I had a major flare.

I love my doctor--he's really conservative with treatment and careful with diagnosis, BUT he listens and acts quickly when I have problems.