Positive stories? Myth?

My son has CD. He is 30 years old. He had surgery 2 years ago, having 2 feet of small intestine removed and the intestine sewn back together. He recovered from surgery remarkably well. He is now on Humira, and is doing great. He works full time, having a physically demanding job. He is married, has 2 kids and does whatever he feels like doing! :)

I think most people who have easy remission and mild disease don't end up on the chat boards! Lots of people go into remission on healing well too, they just mostly don't hang around once they are all better.

One positive story for you though is my stepmother's. She had very serious uc in her early twenties, was hospitalized, went on sulfasalazine, it helped her. She had a couple years of things being "iffy" but better, then went into remission and has yet to have a second flare over 40 years later. She still takes her maintenance dose of 1g sulfasalazine per day.

Yup, I've been in remission for over 4.5 years now, had a clean scope a couple-ish years into the remission and have had absolutely zero symptoms. I also got pregnant and had another baby (who is 11 months old today!) and didn't flare. My first (and so far only) flare started after I had my first baby.

So yeah, people can and do go into really, really good remissions. I bet a lot of people with mild UC never even find the need to join a forum like this. I had pretty severe symptoms when I was first diagnosed, and I dealt with my diagnosis by learning about it, which is how I found this site. If I hadn't been so interested in learning, or if I hadn't had bad symptoms at first, I probably wouldn't be here.

At any rate, I credit my remission to luck, that the mesalamines work so well for me, and that I seem to have a mild form of UC. I also credit the fact that I'm very diligent about taking my meds, and used mesalamine enemas nightly until I was in a stable, pred-free remission, and still use them twice weekly, even today.

I have a heck of a time getting my Uc under control...but I did it. Remission IS possible. I've been in a great remission now for almost 2 years. Mine is due to Remicade. I tried just about every med out there (except Pred...I refused to go on it). Either I was intolerant of it or it just doesn't work.

My latest accomplishment of a symptom free life is that my hubby, me and bunch a friends took the motorcycles on a 1,500 mile round trip to the Smoky mountains. I never once had any issues.

toomuchpoopin, I know exactly how you feel...I know a few people with IBD, one that has mild UC and even went off her maintenance meds because she felt so good (I warned her not to do that and we lost touch over the years so I have no idea how she's been making out with her disease) and another friend that has CD and she did ok on her meds with full remissions and set backs here and there over the years...my mom never used meds for her UC and she'd have some really bad bouts of flares but they would decrease randomly for her as well.

It's a very individual disease for each person...I know there are tons of people with IBD that have managed to live very full lives and the opposite as well.

My friend w/ UC had a 10 year med free remission. It did come back after 10 years (geez, I'll take that) but she got back under control w/ enemas and Asacol. Who knows why this stupid disease does the things it does. Wish it would go away and never come back. There are positive stories out there, as they say though, most are not on here.

Thank you, all for posting your stories. It's the encouragement I needed. I know I've only been struggling with this for a short time, and I assume mine is less severe than others. I should be grateful that I'm not worse off. I think the thing that scares me most is this is life long, and I'm just having a hard time seeing myself able to do the things I want to do. It's reassuring to hear that remission is possible and there's life after diagnosis.