Ulcerative Proctitis - Help

I have been reading healing well over the last year and find it a god send for piece of mind but the time has come for me to ask you kind members for support.

I was diagnosed with Ulcertive Proctitis last October after being told multiple times by my GP that I had piles. Following my persistence due to symptoms of blood, mucous and constant diarreah I was referred for a sigmoidoscopy. They found severe inflammation at the lower end of my colon and diagnosed me with Ulcerative Proctitis common with Ulcerative Colitis. I was put on medication of Pentasa Suppositories twice a day and predsol retention enema once a day. Had to learn to adminster these from healing well because GP was useless and didn't bother following up like I was informed.

following my medication I started to get back to normality after a few weeks I.e gym, normal bowel movements, minimal bleeding etc. after about 6 months I started to taper off Predsol as felt that some side effects were occurring with weight gain etc. Also was told to taper off as it's not good to be reliant on steroids. Since then I have only been on Pentasa and to be honest I don't think there doing much at all. My mucous, bleeding and diarreah has come back. On average I have bowel movements about 7 times a day. 4 before I leave for work in the morning. WORST thing to deal with is the urgency to go (tenesmus) and sometimes I haven't been lucky enough to make it to the WC.

I really need some advice please because I remain positive but am started to feel debilitated. I travel for work a lot globally so part of my role involves presentations etc and I'm always worrying when il have an onset or where the nearest toilet is.

Could you help with:

- Any advice on medication
- Whether predsol side effects were more psychological because of what you read.
- any advice on overcoming tenesmus because that basically ruins my life !!

I would really appreciate Comments or assistance here.

Thanks

Thanks for the reply Charlie. Do you suffer any side effects from the oral medication. My GI advised that due to area affected medication administered through the back would be most applicable. I am considering asking for mesalamine enema though over the suppository.

I second what Gary said. My response to the enemas was almost immediate but we're all different. I felt a little funny from my original oral mesalamine, Colozal, but I was feeling pretty bad overall so I'm not sure if it was the medication or the disease itself. My skin turned a funny color and I would occasionally get tingling in my feet. I switched to Lialda because it was 4 pills a day instead of 9 and have not had a single side effect since switching. They are relatively harmless medications and have been around forever. Some people are allergic though.

I would agree with your neighboor. For me, steroïds enemas do absolutely nothing, while pentasa enemas help tremendously. Hopefully it is the same for you.