Symptoms worse on my period

I didn't have this problem when I first got UC, but in January I started taking prednisone for two months. During that time, I didn't get my period. After that I was only on Asacol, 6 800 mg pills a day which is what I've been taking since then. Since I've been off the prednisone I've started to get really bad stomach cramps during my period. Usually there is a lot of rectal blood too, luckily there isn't this time.

I'm wondering if this is the asacol because this started happening when I was taking asacol by itself. I've tried talking to my mom about it but she's convinced it's just regular period cramps and unrelated to my colitis, since I've never had to deal with PMS or period cramps before she thinks I wouldn't know the difference. But I know, I usually don't eat anything on the first day because I can't handle it.

Is anybody else having the same problems? Any suggestions what I could do about it?

I too got worse symptoms during my period. They make birth control pills that will give you a period once every three months instead of every month. Also because of the steady dose of hormones every month your periods get lighter and easier to handle, even the UC symptoms. One brand of these is Seasonique. There is an increase risk of blood clots so you have to be careful.

I always got worse symptoms during my period as well. I was not on Asacol for very long. I think it is UC related rather than meds as many others seem to experience this.

I always have IBS symptoms when I have my period.  I also often have my UC act up, many times causing to flare around the 4th or 5th day of my period.  I take Yasmin birth control pills for packs in a row, so I only have my period every 12 weeks now. It works great and really helps keep my hormones in check. I've been doing it for so many years now I can't even remember how long.

Prednisone really screwed up my periods too, even on the pill. But reducing prednisone is what really screwed things up. It causes a hormone drop which often would make me get horrible cramps even when NOT having my period. So bad I had to take 1/2 Vicodine pill to get rid of it as they had me in tears and woke me up at night.  Now that I'm down below 10mg of prednisone I don't get as much of an issue, I do see a little period-like spotting though each time I taper and sometimes get little cramps. Nothing as bad as tapering from the higher Pred doses though.

I don't think you need to talk to your GI about it. You would need to talk to your primary doc or your ob/gyn though.  They could maybe help you figure out which birth control pill would be best for you as they all have slightly different types and doses of hormones. I take Yasmin because it has a different type of hormone dropsirenone - that helps my hair loss a bit (although nothing helps hair loss when coming off Prednisone it seems). But I've tried lots of others in the past.

Just an add on to the previous posters comments - I actually took an antidepressant for IBS symptoms as well. I took Nortriptyline.  It did really help with my IBS symptoms and I would have kept taking it except it made my heart race really, really badly after I took it. That is one of the possible side effects so I had to stop taking it. But it was one of the few things that helped my IBS.