Could it have been the antibiotic they gave me during surgery?

Okay, so I had parathyroid surgery on August 14 and I guess while they were doing the operation they gave me iv antibiotic and I did not know this, but while I was staying overnight in the hospital, the nurse came in with a big bag of antibiotic that she was going to hook up to me and I asked her what it was and she said its antibiotic and I told her no do not give that to me I have ulcerative colitis, so she left with the bag. I never did get any infection and I guess it was just a precaution, but I wonder if I could have come to have this new flare which I started noticing around September 5 and now I am on hydrocortisone regimen for it.

I said before that maybe it was the stress of going back to work after 3 weeks off but now I am wondering if maybe it could of been that antibiotic that they gave me would it take that long to show signs of flare or am I thinking too much of reasons for this.

I would not worry so much about what caused your uc flareup, hindsight is always set in 20-20 vision (if only I hadn't X then it wouldn't have happened). Nobody knows what causes uc flareups, so I wouldn't beat yourself up over possible causes. Antibiotics can kill off both good and bad bacteria within your gastrointestinal tract, so possibly it aggravated things. Stress can aggravate things as well. Uc is characterized by periods of remission (absence of symptoms), periods of flares (return of symptoms), and even those who play by all the rules doing everything right, still get flareups of their uc.

I am cautious about antibiotics. I think they were my initial trigger. And I have had increases symptoms after taking some oral antibiotics.

But during surgery, I would risk it. UC flares suck. They can make your life miserable. Infections in surgical incisions or sepsis can kill you. So if it is a choice between risk of death and lowering chance of flare, the costs and benefits should be carefully discussed with physicians.

Scarecrow, antibiotics are sometimes needed for patients with uc and there is no problem at all as long as antibiotics are used wisely. Your immune system is reduced in capability due to the remicade and therefore the antibiotics are a good thing, antibiotics are often used to treat pneumonia; standard practice; the ER nurse and doctor were correct.

I'm voting for the antibiotics but Lyme certainly can't be ruled out.

I was 10 weeks in remission until I got a sinus infection and took the antibiotic Ceftin. It has caused a terrible flare that I can't get under control. I am 100% sure that the antibiotic caused it because the flare started within 24 hours of the antibiotic.