Unsure what I have, fastest way to diagnosis?

I figure there are a lot of guinea pigs on here, hopefully I can learn from past missteps and get to a diagnosis faster that most did here who were without the help of message boards.

My question is, having gone through UC yourselves, what would you recommend someone who is undiagnosed but has the symptoms do? I have been having trouble for a month, going 5-10x/daily with blood coming after every movement. Going to a bland SCD type diet has given me relief and has firmed up my stools some, but things are still bad in the morning and I'm going after each meal as well. All I'm taking at the moment is some Calcium+VitD and I think it's helping (although it could just be the dietary change).

I don't have health insurance that would help w/ something like this so I'm trying to not put myself and my wallet through the ringer here. I went to my GP today and he took blood samples, I guess the next step is stool, and if that's all negative I'll get referred to a gastro. That's going to run me $600 total before even getting to a specialist, who from what I gather here, is going to want to take a peak inside. Am I basically at the mercy of the medical process here, or are there things I can ask of my doctors to speed this process up, removing unnecessary tests along the way?

How about joining a clinical trial? I was able to get a free colonoscopy though one once. You really need a scope with biopsies to get a diagnosis. Without that, many GIs will not even give you any type of UC medication. If you were to get a colonoscopy out of pocket, it would cost a lot and the pathology is another expense. I am willing to bet it would be 2,000 or more :(

     I assume you live here in the US?  Isn't it just a crime that we can send billions to foreign countries to rebuild them just so they can stab us in the back but we can't take care of our own who need help in this country?  Oh well, that's another topic.  The only way to be certain it is UC is through a colonoscopy.  Sorry I cannot help you in finding out how you can get a free colonoscopy but, perhaps, you can ask your congressman or someone in politics.

could a GI prescribe treatment solely on symptoms or will they insist they do a colonoscopy.

thanks, so they will be reluctant or completely against meds w/o doing one?

thanks for the info!

I'm in DFW which is near the Baylor Medical School, I'll check them out too.