learning that sickness can strike any time

well ive always been a healthy person i am 28 years old and never been sick!!!! i have 2 kids so when i found out i had uc i was scared and surprise mostly scared that being so young i was giong to be on medicines all my life and dealing with this forever and having to watch what i eat. well i most fear that someday if things all the sudden take a turn for the worse my colon may have to be removed if i would of gotten this in my 50's or 60's i would not be as worried of the future becouse as the years whent by i would just get older so then if my colon was removed by that time i would be like 70 or something, but thats not the case so the younger i am the more years i have to worry and watch what i eat so whose to know where things will be by the time im 40 0r 50 wich to me its still young. but on the other hand im lucky that this dease is not deadly!! so for that i count my blessings!!! well im new here and has any one been diagnosed with mild uc then years later it became severe? and if yes how many years did this take? well just curious

i cant spend my time worrying about what the future holds but when i flare up its a grim reminder that maybey the next medicine will have to be stronger and the secondery effects are much worser that scares me

 

28  yr old female

diagnosed with mild uc

on mesalamine 60mg

 

 

well chatter thanks for your post, but what scares me is that my gastrointeroligst told me that my rectum is also affected with uc and that means that surgery for me means to remove the rectum as well as the colon and a colostomey bag or j-pouch would be my only option so its not like other people were the colon gets removed but the rectum stays and the small intestine get serve as the colon that is not an option for me so i would have it worse than others in my worsed-case scenerio and also ive read other post here and many people are on 4-6pills/a day!! that is insane!!! well that could be me or not, but the ANTICIPATION of what my future holds is what scares me... did you have your rectum removed as well?

IT IS SO SAD THAT WE CANT JUST "USE THE BATHROOM" NORMALLY WITHOUT SO MUCH DRUGS

princess-do not think of losing your colon and having an ostomy as a horrible things. Trust me, its not. I had my surgery when i was almost 30, and its a great thing! very convenient actually, i even chose a perm ileo, instead of a jpouch. its not a worse case scenario, its not giving up. There is so much misinformation abotu surgery that people are terrified of it.
Before surgery i was taking 14 prescription pills, plus remicade, plus numerous immodium, plus phenogren most of the time and advil for the side effects from the meds.
I orginally got sick when i was 22, and for about a year it wasnt bad. I ended up with food poisoning which threw me over the edge. Andthen i was ok for a while, until a course of antibiotics a year later made it flare again. thats actually what started my UC up in the first place. then again i was in mild UC, still bad enough to feel bad but not bad enough to stop my life for a few years, until then another antibiotics. then i got pregnant and was great during that, then my son was born and i flared and was all down hill from there. for two years after he was born it was horrible i missed everything, life sucked. and then i had had it, i was tired of that stupid colon and stupid UC so it kicked its butt! and now im healthy and happy! and off all those meds, woo hoo!
Surgery isnt for everyone, and if you are mild right now and not on many meds, its probably not the best thing yet, but dont think of it as a death sentence.
good luck!

hi princess,
glad you got lots of replies, gives you lots of different opinions. As i said, i struggled on for 12 years before i eventually gave in and was more or less forced into surgery, the consultant said i was what we call 'thraun' in Scotland, which means stubborn but in a nice way. Often i was in hospital about 4 times a year and never for less than 1 month at a time, really took over my life. Just like you i was scared of surgery even when they said that for the majority of the time i had pancolitis which meant that the whole of the colon was affected. Makes me shiver to remember how it was.
Looking back, i am glad i had the surgery but obviously i which i had never needed it. My life now is great. i had a colectomy with a temporary ileostomy for nine months and then they did an ileo-anal pouch. That option was my choice, but sometimes i wondered if i should have just kept the ileostomy. Anyway, apparent from the number of answers you received, everyone is different and everyone copes with different things. Fingers crossed you go into remission and don't need surgery in the future. There seem to be a lot more dietry options these days which appear to help. Hope to hear from you again.

Hi prinncess -
I was about your age when I was first diagnosed, and I remember how scared I was. And I was freaked out that I had to think of myself as a "sick person." I remember talking with my husband and crying about all the "what if"s.......

and the thing that helped me most was to come to the realization that if/when the day for surgery ever does come, I'll know it. And when that day comes surgery will seem like a hopeful and good option - but in the meantime, not to angst over it.

In the meantime, yeah, so, we have to take a bunch of meds. Ho well. I used to figure, when my kids were small, that if they could see me taking these meds and dealing with stuff in a very matter-of-fact way, my example might help them to become strong and resilient! And what better gift could we give those we love.....?