Just a couple more questions.

Of course. I have had "slightly more severe than moderate" inflammation without blood for over a year. Blood only occurs when there is ulceration.

First off you need to always remember that everybody is slightly different. My first initial signs that things are getting inflamed are loss of appetite and loss of energy. From there it progresses to urgency and more BM's per day. Blood may be present or not with me. From what my GI has told me urgency is the biggest sign of inflamation in the rectum as it moves higher into the colon urgency is less if the rectum isn't inflamed. I believe blood is only present if you have active uclerations or other issues at the same time. Blood isn't a gauge for inflamation specifically but will typically happen with inflamation, it could be one of those things which happened first the chicken or the egg? Did inflamation cause the uclerations or did the ulcerations cause the inflamation? But to answer you first question you most certainly can have inflammation with no blood.

Not sure how long you have had UC, but from my years of having it (and it takes years) you will learn to know your body better and how UC impacts you specifically, when I first got UC my answer to flaring would be yes you will have blood and urgency. But years later I have discovered there are many other signs that I have noticed that are much more subtle that a flare is coming, like I said before, appetite, energy, sleeping patterns, mood etc.

Don't know where my sig has gone but I was diagnosed with proctitis in 2012 and two months ago it had moved to 25cms so part of the sigmoid was affected. Two rounds of pred didn't get rid of it but maybe helped slightly. Been on salofalk enemas for 6 weeks now. Blood went after three weeks but still got some urgency first thing. How long after the blood stopped should you start reducing the enema. However I feel like I am simmering so maybe I should carry on using them for a long time yet.

Thanks for your replies. It is always helpful so read others experiences so you can put some perspective on things.

I used to always start with blood, then D a few days later. However, my last two flares starting with a couple of weeks of D getting worse until finally blood appeared. Very strange.

If I do have mucous there is very little of it is mixed in with the poo/enema. My poo is nearly always starts fairly firm then gets mushy the more I do. Its funny but two weeks ago I was only going 3 times in the morning but this is gradually increasing. How far up does an enema reach? I wondered if this was the culprit for making things mushy.

Hi,

I do it in bed and lay on my leftside for as long as I can. I fall asleep so may be turning over sooner. I don't get out of bed then for at least 7 hrs. My other question is does it do the rectum okay. Someone said it doesn't get down enough also.

Thanks for your reply Kazbern. Even though I have had this for nearly 3 years I still feel as if I know nothing.