UC and work question--I work in surgery

Hello, I am new to this forum. I was diagnosed with UC last year in June. After a long time of various medicines I finally reached a point of remission. I was not working during the time of my flare/diagnosis. My job history is in healthcare and I specifically work in the operating room. My question is for those of you who work and may not have very flexible jobs when it comes to "running to the bathroom". So far, I am in a remission and am really considering going back to work in the surgery setting. But, just to give those that are not in this field an idea of what my job would be like: once you are in the sterile surgery gown and considered "sterile" you cannot just run and leave to run to the bathroom for many reasons. First, the culture of working in the operating room is (and it should be) to maintain sterility and for obvious reasons for members of the surgical team to not just run out (of course if there is some warning time: "hey, I need to break scrub and use the restroom" and if you are at a critical point they would need to find someone as back up to take your place or someone already sterile and "scrubbed in" can take your spot for a few minutes). I am trying to think of other professions where it may be very inflexible and difficult to manage a UC flare and your type of career and the other one that comes to mind is police officers and pilots. Please give any advice you may have as this is a serious dilemma I am faced with. Thank you and Take Care!

I currently have a flexible job, prior to where I work now I worked on the road so it would be at least 20 min to an hour to use a bathroom. While flaring I could not handle that and nor would I want to. I am in remission now (no blood and I go 1 to 2x a day), however when I have to go, I have to go! Sometimes I can hold it but not for more than 20 min or an hour (which can be painful bloating), maybe I am not fully in remission...

My opinion would be if you can hold your poop for as long as a typical surgery would be, without feeling uncomfortable (because that would take my mind off of the important task at hand) then I would go for it. Try it and see what you can do. I still do some travelling for the job I have now and it is a concern for me, if it was something that I worried about every day at work, I think personally I would have a hard time dealing with that mentally and then that would not be good either.

Many people do fine with medications (most are not here ; )

I wish you all the best!

ILEDE said...
Hello, I am new to this forum. I was diagnosed with UC last year in June. After a long time of various medicines I finally reached a point of remission. I was not working during the time of my flare/diagnosis. My job history is in healthcare and I specifically work in the operating room. My question is for those of you who work and may not have very flexible jobs when it comes to "running to the bathroom". So far, I am in a remission and am really considering going back to work in the surgery setting. But, just to give those that are not in this field an idea of what my job would be like: once you are in the sterile surgery gown and considered "sterile" you cannot just run and leave to run to the bathroom for many reasons. First, the culture of working in the operating room is (and it should be) to maintain sterility and for obvious reasons for members of the surgical team to not just run out (of course if there is some warning time: "hey, I need to break scrub and use the restroom" and if you are at a critical point they would need to find someone as back up to take your place or someone already sterile and "scrubbed in" can take your spot for a few minutes). I am trying to think of other professions where it may be very inflexible and difficult to manage a UC flare and your type of career and the other one that comes to mind is police officers and pilots. Please give any advice you may have as this is a serious dilemma I am faced with. Thank you and Take Care!

I know what you are talking about, what is even worse, is that when you are in that situation and YOU KNOW you can't break scrub...man it's going to hit you even if you are in remission. This kinda stuff plays with your mind.

I guess you have to do another colonoscopy to figure out how your remission looks like.

Let me tell you about me. I had a meeting 2 days ago, just before the meeting I didn't have to go at all. In the middle of the meeting it hit me....thankfully it came and went came and went until the meeting ended. But man...I thought I was going have to go for about 3 times. grrrr.

This kinda stuff can happen to you, the fact that you can't leave...messes you up.

Thank you all for your helpful responses. I have not yet had a follow up colonscopy since diagnosis but will have one very soon. Again, I really appreciate the insight with job and UC.