Hello everyone,
I know I have to go to a doctor and be diagnosed, I've been putting it off for too long but I'm hoping posting here and getting some advice will push me towards going already. about
8 months ago now I did a genetic test at 23andme. It was really cool and fun to do, it tells you gene traits, heritage, disease risk, etc. Well in my disease risks I came up high risk for ulcerative colitis. I had no clue what it was so I googled it, and I was blown away by what I read. Reading the symptoms was like a descript
ion of my life. Some of the treatments for it and worst case scenarios of symptoms scared me. I didn't want to be a hypochondriac though so I just figured maybe if anything I have a mild form and it's only a disease risk which doesn't mean I have it. So I read a little bit about
it and tried to put it out of my mind.
Unfortunately before I even got the test results and since then my symptoms have been getting much worse. I had a baby 11 months ago and I swear having a baby must make UC / bowel problems worse. Anyone know anything about
that? Well anyways just to give you all a little background I've had these "bowel" problems since probably about
13 years old. At first the only ever came when I got my periods. Each cycle I'd have the most excruciating cramps accompanied by an extreme constipation / diarrhea mix that would keep me on the toilet and in the bathtub (hot water helps when I have this pain) for hours on end (literally 3-4 hours). So for years I assumed I had some kind of "female" related problem. I went to a few gynecologists who insisted I was absolutely positively healthy which frustrated me to no end. I remember being so angry because there's no way you can suffer that much and everything is just ok.
So it went on like that until I was 19. When I was 19 I took my first plane ride ever. I didn't feel very consciously nervous about
it, but apparently I was subconsciously and it affected my bowels. I spent the first day of my vacation in complete and utter pain with my routine toilet / bathtub ritual for several hours. Then 3 more times during that vacation I had bowel attacks and even embarrassingly pooed myself TWICE! :( Thank god it wasn't in public. I took a few more trips by plane that year and each time the same thing happened. The 3rd trip I even has gushing blood coming out each time I went to the bathroom. I was pretty scared. At the time I noticed this pain was exactly like the pain I normally associated with my periods, but ignorantly blamed it on food poisoning each time. My boyfriend at the time who had eaten the same food with me each time would always insist it couldn't be since he wasn't sick. I just stuck to my story since I was pretty embarrassed and just tried to forget about
the incidents.
Over the next couple years things went back to normal, me only getting this pain on my periods and occasionally in between but not often. Outside of the once a month menstrual flare up I'd maybe have bowel attacks as I call them every 2-3 months.
Lately unfortunately I've had them increasingly more often. In the last 4 months alone I've had about
roughly 12 bowel attacks and several times at work I was afraid I wouldn't make it. One was even so bad that I threw up, which was a first. The pain was that bad that I threw up, about
6 times, accompanied of course by bloody diarrhea. Tonight I've been having another attack which is what prompted me to post. I even had to stop writing a few times to go. So I know even if it's not UC I have something seriously wrong. I know I need to go to the doctor and fast but I'll just be soooooooo pissed if they say nothing is wrong. So what kind of doctor do I need to go to? I don't really want to waste my time with a regular doctor and would rather go right to who knows about
these issues. Also I heard some of the medicine to treat this makes you gain a ton and some can even cause infertility. Is that true, because that really scares me (the second part). I'm 25 now and I've been dealing with this a long time and I feel it's only going to get worse. I know I've written a lot, any advice is so greatly appreciated!!!
Post Edited (DWcooky) : 5/23/2012 11:23:47 PM (GMT-6)