Can the gym cause a flare??

Hi,

I'm new to the site but have used it for a while searching for anything to help my condition. I was diagnosed in 2005 and had six years of bliss with nothing but 6 x 400mg asacol a day. I then had a bad flare last year and had prednisolone which worked temporarily but was back on the mend once I started 75mg of azophioprine and 6 x 800mg asacol a day.

I'm getting married in a April next year and thought if go to the gym to get fit for the honeymoon pics lol. 3 weeks later flare and toilet trips 8 x a day (from twice a day). I had a weekend of lots of carbs right before the flare but I actually think it's exerting myself at the gym that's caused it (hour a day three times a week heavy lifting no cardio).

Now I'm on 1g salofalk enemas and cut the gym out and six days later I'm feeling better with no mucas and down to. 3x toilet trips a day. So my question is would the gym cause this? And if so, how can I tone myself without setting the UC off again! (Fingers crossed the flare is on it's way out!!)

Thanks for your reply.

Seeing as I'm already on 4.8g a day wouldn't that have been too much?

I once drank one of those "sports drinks" simply because I decided to go for a brisk walk! ....I don't particularly care for exercise, but of course I realize its important, and so I was flabbergasted when I got the most awful stabbing pains in my stomach, which was the first and last time I have ever experienced any kind of real pain with UC! so that, then and there confirmed that those drinks aren't that good for people with UC.

Nick: 4.8 grams of Asacol is the max dosage. I was referring to earlier in your post where you mentioned you were on 6 X 400 for six years. If you had a point where symptoms were returning I would have doubled it back up at that time. I don't know if you had any of those sports drinks or not but there have been many here, particularly weightlifters, who drink these lifestyle drinks and then come down with UC. There's something to that but I don't think anyone has made the connection.

Hi!
I've been googling and came across this....
Anyway.
I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2010, was on asacol 3 daily.
I then went into remission recently whilst pregnant and my daughter is just about to turn 1.
I recently started running an trying to get back up to 5k. Into week 3 my bms started getting more regular and I stopped running.
I would literally be holding it in and run to the loo after my exercise!
I'm now 3 weeks later and in an EXTREME flare... I'm now having bm 30+ times a day and really struggling.
Just thought I'd pop my story on here :)

Running will put me into a flare. Cardio is really hard for me. It makes me feel like I'm flaring. It's weird certain things are fine- box jumps, squat jumps, lung jumps, butt kicks, but others almost instantly start the trips to the bathroom- jump rope, jumping jacks, running sprints.

That said, I believe exercise is a really important part of maintaining remission (if only because it helps me stay more sane). You have to find what works for you- trial and error. For me, pilates, yoga, barre, HIIT, TRX, and free weights. When I'm flare free I also walk a lot- 3 or more miles a day at a brisk pace.

I also stay away from protein shakes, energy drinks, sports drinks, and protein/energy bars. Something about those products just don't sit well with me. My body seems to do better with less processed food and plain old water.

Everyone is different. I would suggest a food, exercise, bathroom journal to help figure out what makes your body most happy.

I've worked out in some form or fashion since high school days - but since uc, I've scaled back to less strenuous stuff - I firmly believe that over working your body when it's in healing mode is not beneficial - exercise and movement yes - heavy lifting, marathons, etc = no

Besides lifting weights, I always start my routine with some cardio just to help warm my body up first and then proceed to the weights and I even throw in some yoga, yoga is a great way to build muscles and stretch at the same time and there are so many forms of yoga out there that it's easy enough to find what works best for IBDers and IBSers as well.

It's sitting around all the time doing nothing that is the worst you can do to your aging body especially when you have a chronic illness like IBD.

I run four times a week and do sit ups, press ups and pull ups. I also do bikram yoga (hot yoga). All of which have helped me immensely in terms of mentally and physically. Physically, especially when in a flare and on prednisolone. Pred can cause osteoporosis so whenever I took steroids I would take a high calcium and vit d supplement and amp up my exercise. I have been on a good few rounds of pred (high doses) since my diagnosis in 2000 but can honestly say I've never had any issue with my bones or muscles and put it down to exercise.

I think we could spend our day thinking that everything we do is linked to UC. But then would we really be living our lives to the max? At the end of the day, it's a disease that will pop up at any time with no warning and we just have to manage it as best we can. I would not completely eliminate exercise though as I believe the benefits outweigh the risk of flaring. Plus if you're really worried I would highly recommend bikram yoga as it is pure relaxation but as it's done in a really hot room, you sweat, get rid of nasty toxins from medication and also it tones the heck out of you.

I find if I overdo it while flaring I will have a bad day, but otherwise I don't notice if it makes be worse. I do notice that if I leave my yoga practice in the dust for any length of time my stress levels go up... I almost never miss my runs 4x!

I have proctosigmoiditis, so the colitis is about 8 to 10 inches up the track, and when I lift heavy objects or even ride a bicycle my bowel movements are strained the very next day, if i continue the activity for a prolonged period of time I do have problems...Im also a professional musician and had to stop playing saxophone because I use my lower gut to the extent that it also causes strain on the procto area (back pressure)...So as crazy as it sounds, after 10 years of documenting everything from food to physical activity, I had to call a spade a spade when these things happened 10 out of 10 times for 10 years...Also the seasons play a roll in all this with me, and STRESS will trigger a flair like nothing else will, for me anyway...And I have friends from my UC support group that can eat anything, do anything, and are fine...Go figure it...Paying extremely close attention to food, stresses, and activities are a major necessity for me, but again, thats just me, everyone has their own story as to how this illness works on them...This is just mine...I hope you get to feeling better very soon... JB

Without a doubt, for me, the back pressure from playing saxophone (alto and soprano being far worse then tenor or baritone) always causes strain that will lead to problems for me, but I had another sax player tell me he had colitis, and didn't have any problems with playing at all, but Im not sure weather his was proctosigmoid or not, and that would make a difference...about 4 years ago a bass player from Art Farmer band ( Art, a jazz trumpet player) wanted to do a cd with me, and I went ahead and did it...I was dealing with symptoms the whole time, so I just had to lay it down after 40 years of playing...My working ax is Bass, so Im still in the game, but not being able to play sax just tares me up...I would do some experimenting with your own situation for 6 months or so, and log the results of your playing hours, to your symptoms, before making any conclusions as to weather it's problematic for you, or not...Because this disease can be triggered from anywhere, stress can be hooked up with the tension that lies deep inside of dealing with scale studies and the metronome, or a gig with all the stress that can bring, and so on, but in my case, back pressure has been a problem...Im going to attempt to see what the baritone can bring to the table in terms of less back pressure...Who knows maybe Ill get lucky and can play again...