All in the family, I guess

Hello to you all, this is my first post. Guess I'll start with a little background, I'm the youngest of 9 kids I grew up on the South side of Chicago and have lived in Kentucky for the last 21 years. My mother had a lot of digestive problems as well back trouble and other issues, My sister (child #1) and I seem to have inherited them all, several years ago my sister had most of her colon removed.

A year ago December in 2012 I had a colonoscopy as part of an annual check up and all was fine. So in August when my symptoms started the doctor treated them as temporary bug because of the previous colonoscopy and after about 3 weeks of treatment I was symptom free which puts us just about to October. Yes, I waited about a month to see my GI I thought it would go away on it's own, because when the symptoms started we were on vacation and eating in a lot of restaurants, I thought that was the cause. But I should have known better because I have had a number of vaccines for overseas travel. Now we move ahead to January 1 this year and the symptoms came back, but again, silly me thinks I will get better on my own so I wait another month before calling my GI.

So in for a colonoscopy I go and guess what, UC has caught up to me. But now that I have a diagnoses I will not procrastinate anymore and look forward to treatment and remission. It's hard out here for a chocoholic with UC! Had to go cold turkey.

I look forward to learning how best to deal with UC from all of you. Don't know if I will ever read all 1400 pages but I have made a little dent.

I do have one question, knowing what I know now. When I was about 12 or 13 (about 1966 or 67) I had severe abdominal pain with urgency and diarrhea that lasted several months the Doctor said I had ulcers and gave me this nasty green syrup like stuff, but it sure made me feel better. So could that have really been UC and could it possible stay in remission that long?

My guess would be that it contained codeine.

Hello and welcome. I am sorry you're dealing with UC, it's good that after all this time, you're going to get proper treatment. I tried to ignore my UC for quite a while but eventually it caught up to me. How are your symptoms now? Did they say whether it was mild/moderate/severe or which areas are affected? Codeine can definitely slow things down for a lot of people with UC. It's not usually prescribed for UC because it doesn't treat the root of the problem, inflammation, it's just a band-aid that treats the symptoms - though the same can be said about many treatments. Most GIs are likely to try to control the inflammation and that will control the symptoms. Have you taken any UC meds over the years?

Does your sister have IBD as well? Yes.

Since January it has been up and down from bad to worse, to the point they were going to put me in the hospital two weeks ago. Had a 101 fever for 2.5 days with all the nasty symptoms to boot but by Monday morning the fever broke and I was feeling relatively better, like crap but better. Hell of a diet plan, leading up to that I was losing about a pound a day, but the Prednisone seems to have slow that down.

When I get to the point my gut hurts enough I take a couple of the Tylenol 3 which I have for my back, but pain diversion has worked wonders for my back. Just waiting to get a date to start Remicade, I may eat my words but at this point looking forward to it.

Have you taken any UC meds over the years? No not till last September.

Hi everyone! This My first post. Im a 45 year old male. Ive been diagnosed with UC for a little over three years. Current med is Asacol HD. Its driving me crazy with all the gas it gives me after every meal. Has anyone here have the same side effect?

Besides all the other crap it gives you, the one that really bothers me is this gas.

Thanks Kat!!