What is urgency for you?

When I have to go, I have to go and I hoof it to the bathroom, pants coming off before I get to the toilet. It bothers me because I'm in remission and I would think I wouldn't have urgency. Of course, my bms are not as large and wide as they used to be so maybe that's one reason they want to come out quickly.

How urgent is urgent for you?

Yes, urgency is running as fast as I can pulling off stockings or unbuttoning pants while I run. My husband is lucky if I have enough time to shut the door. I'm down to about once a week with crazy urgency. My daily poo still gives me less than a minute but I'll take it! This last flare up was my first flare where I had no control anymore.

journey2health...I wouldn't say you're in full remission if you have urgency like that....there are different levels of flares, but remission in my opinion, is feeling healthy again as you did before IBD including being able to hold urges back, which clearly you're not able to do (same as me).

Hmmmm, I don't know if I'd consider myself in remission if I had urgency like that.  It does sound like you are almost there.  Perhaps it is partial anxiety?  Also, with the Rowasa, do you always insert them fully or do you sometimes pull them part of the way out to hit the rectum more?  (Quincy suggested this and I've found it does help)

When I had urgency it was pretty bad but I had a minute or 2, mine was not necessarily related to eating so there was no pattern of when I should expect it.

Now that I'm in remission I still go every morning but it's usually a slow build up...some mornings it's a little faster but never urgent to where I don't know it's coming and can't make it.

Oh, and here's one thing my GI said 'you may never feel EXACTLY like you did before UC but you should be blood/mucus free and have control.  You should strive to be as 'normal' as possible but you may always have more stomach noise, etc. As long as there is no evidence of constant inflammation and you have your life back, that is what we are going for.'  So, in his opinion, having control is something you want to have to be considered in remission.  Just his/my opinion.

Hope you feel better soon!

Urgency, it means when U have 2 go U have 2 go.  No exceptions.  If something or someone gets in the way they are pretty likely to get some poop on them.  That means I hate being in bumper to bumper traffic, being in a place where I don't know the bathroom is, etc...

Not having urgency is doing whatever you want and NOT thinking of a bathroom.  I have been doing  a lot of outdoor activities lately and I hardly ever think of the bathroom.  I go once in the morning, maybe twice and then I really don't go to the next day (for a #2).  It's peace of mind.  Now I don't mind sitting with a group of people I really don't know well and going for a long car drive. 

Urgency, it's the pits.

MyUC

Urgency and lack of control is THE issue isn't it? That's what changes our lives, the rest of it is just side issues that the doctor cares about (bleeding, inflammation, etc) but doesn't really affect our daily routine of how we live our life.

At my worst urgency for me was:
Not being able to have a telephone conversation without sitting on the toilet.

Not getting in the car without having an almost immediate stop planned out. I would sometimes get in the car, drive around the block and come back to use the toilet because the car always stimulated the urge to go.

Walking across a parking lot to get inside a store was too far and too much time.

Making excuses for not leaving the house

Not going out to dinner

Not doing anything before noon.

Getting up 3 hours before I had to leave the house

Not getting enough sleep because of getting up several times a night to use the toilet

Choosing clothes not for how I looked in them but how fast I could use the toilet (elastic not buttons).

Wearing a diaper (hard to type that)

It has taken 6 months and diet modification to get me to the point of talking on the phone and not even thinking about needing the toilet, I can get in a car without horrendous worry (but the past lives on in my brain). Urgency is the hardest and last symptom to heal for me. I know how to "shut it down" but am determined to not use Immodium or anything else in my quest to be totally healed. In the past 2 months I haven't used Bentyl, Immodium or anything similar. I feel 90% there with respect to urgency and 100% healed on all other symptoms.

What I finally understood was that the invisible inflammation was causing the bleeding and other symptoms including urgency and I needed to heal that before anything could improve. Duh, right? I took all the RX given to me but nothing ever got better until my last try at the SCDiet.

I KNOW what urgency is. When I read people writing about having a minute I think "I would have LOVED having a minute." because I had NO warning. That is urgency. Amazing I still have my colon but I am hard-headed.

I'm with imagardener2. Urgency for me was VERY urgent--no control. So many accidents in my car...ugh. A diaper or pad would not have helped at all--it was a lot and it was bad. There were times I couldn't make it from my bedroom to my bathroom (just a few feet away)

I don't think it's going to get any better than this and the urgency is what it is- a brisk, hoofing it walk to the bathroom. I'm using enemas and canasa and asacol. There's only so much I can do.

So I guess I'm nearly in remission instead of in remission as it showed on the flex sig a few months ago..

The next step is 6 mp and I'll put up with some urgency to avoid that. If I complained about this to my GI he'd say let's try 6mp.

I like what "calm on the outside"

Oh, and here's one thing my GI said 'you may never feel EXACTLY like you did before UC but you should be blood/mucus free and have control. You should strive to be as 'normal' as possible but you may always have more stomach noise, etc. As long as there is no evidence of constant inflammation and you have your life back, that is what we are going for.' So, in his opinion, having control is something you want to have to be considered in remission. Just his/my opinion.

I'd prefer a brisk walk to the bathroom over taking a drug like 6mp. I, personally, take it myself and it hasn't harmed me much so far (as I know) but I did everything I could to avoid starting it. It's just another thing to contend with... Although, I have to say, I've stopped 5asas and rectal meds for now and it's been so easy taking just one 6mp a day as opposed to 9 asacol.

journey2health said...
If I complained about this to my GI he'd say let's try 6mp.

Yes. Doctors are like that. If you complain, then they prescribe more medicine. If you don't, then they don't. It's all very predictable.