What are your weird tips and tricks for living with UC?

Based on my own experience and from what I have read, people living with UC seem to have a range of odd and unconventional tips for living a normal life during flares (beyond diet and meds). It would be great to get all these together. Below are a couple of mine. What tips do you guys have - can be related to anything. I know you guys must have a bunch of weird things that you do everyday or products you use that help you cope with UC

Dealing with anxiety of going out:
I have been terrible at this - when ever I leave my house even for a small walk I get a ton of anxiety which I think increases anxiety a ton. One thing that has helped a ton in terms of piece of mind and sparing my clothes is wearing diapers whenever I go out. HUGE improvement in piece of mind - its an ackward stigma to get over but definitely worth it. I have also found that listening to music and applying pressure to my butt (like sitting down really hard on a ledge) help ease urgency and need. Finally, planning helps a lot: knowing where the nearest bathrooms are and what my backup plans are help a lot. That being said I dont really go out a lot because I just dont have the butt stamina to be out very long without needing to go urgently.

I havent used it yet, but a buddy recommended carrying this card that said like "URGENT I NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM" and you could just flash it to store owners or people in a long bathroom line and cut the line.


Bathroom Buddies:
When I get really bad I use Charmin with aloe and pampers sensitive baby wipes. Really helps with lowering irritation. If thats not enough I take a hot epsom salt bath and use baby rash cream (one or two applications usually calms down irritation).

For washing my hands I use Jergens Extra Moisturizing soap - it really helps not dry out my hands when I wash them 25+ a day. Corn Huskers lotion is also great to help when your hands are already super dry.

Squatty Potty - Obviously I dont need to put much effort in passing stools, but for when its painful or when I want to go out and feel like there is a little pooper just hanging out, I feel like using squatty potty makes it a little easier to clear out my immediate colon.

Monitoring/Logging condition:
Ive noticed that its hard to keep track of what my symptoms are and thus might give an incomplete answer whenever I talk to my doctors. So I have been monitoring the times I have a BM (gives me a much more accurate count which I was quite off before I started diligently logging it). I just do this in the google Keep app on my phone My next steps are to log what I eat that day and general consistency of my stools. This is important for me since I have been completely unable to control my flare and have yet to find any food/drink that may affect me. How do you guys monitor your conditions? Do you log it?

General Piece of Mind:
Humor and being open with friends/family is my greatest weapon for keeping my sanity. I cant emphasize that enough, without their support I would be in a much worse place. Its sometimes ackward to bring up, but once you've popped that bubble it feels much better. That being said surgery is definitely a possible certainty for me - however what I have not found yet is a great semi-colon joke relating to surgery. Any jokes?

and use rectal meds...lol.
q

Eink e-reader + Goodreads Best Bathroom Books

And finding a good doctor who knows what he's doing (treatment protocols,plans and regimes ).

When I have bad gas I lie on my left side in the foetal position which seems to open everything up and allow me to pass it.
I generally try to avoid grains, white bread and dairy. In a flare I pretty much stick with protein only, steamed salmon, steamed chicken etc. it's boring, but in combination with probiotics is usually enough to get me out of a flare as I can't tolerate steroids.
Early mornings give me a lot of trouble so I try and avoid them where possible. And I always know all the bathrooms on the way to a place, my brain is like a directory of toilets all over the city.
In Australia we also have an MLAK key, not sure if other places do too? If not, it's a key that allows you to open MLAK-fitted locked toilets at any time so if you've ever had the desperate park run only to find the toilets are locked, most often this works. Plus because they're locked it's always private. I also tend to choose my jobs based on the bathroom situation. I used to use Panadeine forte to stop motility and get me through difficult times when a bathroom just was not available but I don't do this anymore as I figured I need to learn to deal with it.