HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Ulcerative Colitis Flares with mensturation

Support Forums
>
Ulcerative Colitis
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 11/4/2011 4:27 PM (GMT 0)
I see I am not the only person with period associated GI symptoms. I am so frustrated that I can't find a GI doc who believes me. (currently my doctor is a women) In 2006 my husband and I wanted to have a baby but since I didn't cycle but once or twice a year I went to the gyno who got me to cycle with progestin. With my very first cycle I had rectal bleeding with the start of my period and I was then diagnosed with UC. I now cycle every 30-40 days I am very good at predicting when it will start based on GI symptoms and cervical mucus. I have the same GI symptoms with ovulation each month then symptoms with PMS and then when my cycle first starts. I have had 3 major flares and all of them were associated with my period. This last September I was admitted to the hospital for a really bad UC flare (ran out of blood) and my cycle started a few hours after I was admitted (I told them it was going to). I really want to know what is the mechanism that triggers this. I never know where I'm bleeding more from or what hurts more. I am considering BC but I am really afraid this will make it worse and I still want to have a baby but maybe it's not meant to be. I don't know. If anyone has found research about this connection I would appreciated links. I am just angry that none of the many GI docs I have seen believe me. Thanks in advance for feed back.
Posted 11/4/2011 5:25 PM (GMT 0)
I'm convinced that my most recent flare is related to menstruation, too, in a way. I've started menopause and my periods are becoming less predictable, and just before this flare started, I had a weird few weeks of it where I got a period and then two weeks later, another period, and then I had light spotting consistently until my flare started. Not to mention the fact that the intestinal cramps are, as you say, practically indistinguishable from menstrual cramps.

Here's an NIH study titled: The menstrual cycle and its effect on inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome: a prevalence study.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9772046
Posted 11/4/2011 5:34 PM (GMT 0)
It's due to hormones, and it's pretty sad if your GI really has no clue about the connection, geez, even my family doc knows this can happen with IBDers and for women with IBS as well, their symptoms can also get more active/worse during menstral cycles...kinda scary your GI doesn't know this, let alone many of them.

It's out there in google land LOL!
Posted 11/4/2011 5:51 PM (GMT 0)
I'm surprised your doc doesn't know this either! I was placed on progesterone a few years ago (by my family doc) to help regulate my cycles and my GI about flipped his lid. He told me to get off it ASAP because of my age - over 35 - and because Uc can cause blood clots; add in a hormone and it doubles the threat of blood clots. I later had to end up having an endometrial ablation mainly because my cycles were getting so strange and they would throw me constantly into flares. My GI put me on rectal meds a week before my cycle to help stem flares. Sometimes it worked and other times it didn't. Now I haven't had a period in 4 years. However, the ablation is not ideal for you especially if you want to have children.

Even normal women have looser bowels during their cycle so it is a known fact that hormones play a huge role in especially us (Uc'ers).
Posted 11/4/2011 7:33 PM (GMT 0)
I always had loose bowels during my period and my first uc signs were when my second child was 4mo. Right when your hair falls out and hormones are adjusting, since then I have noticed a difference GI wise with my cycle, but it has progressed now that it is just bad all the time.
Posted 11/5/2011 1:29 AM (GMT 0)
I get diarreah with my period usually a day or two and especially when I have terrible cramps (I miss aleve so much!)......uugh!
Posted 11/5/2011 2:01 AM (GMT 0)
Beth, can you get away with one or two doses of Aleve? I found that if I take a dose or two that it doesn't seem to bother me. But if I take it for more than two days that I have issues. I know some Uc'ers have some major issues with Aleve (and especially Advil - major no no) and others not so much.
Posted 11/5/2011 2:45 AM (GMT 0)
Unless I'm on birth control, I have a couple of days right before/at the very start of my period where I poop 2-3 times a day (normal is 1), and the consistence is definitely looser than normal, but not diarrhea-ish. It is also a bit urgent on those days. I don't think of it as a flare, though, because I did this from the time I started my period.
Posted 11/5/2011 3:28 AM (GMT 0)
I would always flare up around my period too. Even now that I've had J-pouch I still get looser stools around my period. Its like my body is trying to flush everything out all at once! I can't say if my flares were worse or better on BC because i was on it the whole time I had UC. I stopped taking BC a few months before I had surgery, but I was in 3 flares the 6 months prior to my surgery. So i'm not much help, but I know what you mean.
Posted 11/5/2011 2:51 PM (GMT 0)
Yep, me too! I will often get mucous and blood at the beginning of my period. I have been lucky it tapers off, but sometimes it doesn't and I will go into a flare. I have very bad cramps and i take Celebrex for it because it last 24 hours instead of taking several Aleve or Motrin.
Posted 11/5/2011 5:14 PM (GMT 0)
Fromchaos- This is what I would say happens for me. It will usually resolve after my period till I ovulate again. But at least once a year it turns into a full blown flare and I end up in the hospital. I am considering birth control to suppress having a period but I am scared this will make it worse has anyone experienced remission on birth control? On Sept 12 I was admitted to the hospital and my period started later that day. I was almost done with the pred taper when I cycled again and now I'm back up to 40mg because it got really bad again. I hate that in western medicine there are so many specialist. I know that no one can know it all but I wish that they could acknowledge that my body parts are all connected. You can't treat one organ and think it will not effect the rest of me. All my bits and pieces are interrelated. And I refuse to accept that the answer to health is to destroy it. This is crazy logic.
Posted 11/5/2011 5:17 PM (GMT 0)
Fruitgirl- you said unless your on birth control. Does that mean you are better on BC?
Posted 11/5/2011 9:24 PM (GMT 0)
I think I have always had issues around the time of my period. I would call them "episodes" - horrible stomache ache and the inevitable trip to the bathroom that was long and painful. Luckily it was just one day and one "episode" but it did and does always happen a day or two before my period.
Posted 11/5/2011 9:54 PM (GMT 0)
I don't think my UC flares (no blood from the butt), but my IBS acts up. I get a lot of nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting during the first day or two of my period. And for the first time, it's acting up before my period--I'm due any time now and I've been to bathroom 12 times in the past 3 hours. sad I need to be tested for endometriosis.

Last time I went on a BC, I flared for almost a year--definitely not doing that again, especially since IBD patients have a higher risk of blood clots even without BC.
Posted 11/5/2011 11:05 PM (GMT 0)
bookworm21 thanks for your feed back do you know what kind of bc you were on? Endometriosis is a good thing to be checked for it would have explained a lot for me but I recently had a Laparoscopy and they found none.
Posted 11/6/2011 12:06 AM (GMT 0)
I had been on Kariva, which is both estrogen and progesterone. When I recently told my endocrinologist about these menstrual issues, she said that I should go on a progesterone-only bc because of UC. When I talked to a gynecologist about it, he said that anyone with an autoimmune disease should be on estrogen-only bc....so completely opposite opinions. But given my bad experiences with bc (even before UC), I didn't take either.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply