Whats Next.

Have you done one of those uBiome stool tests? Maybe they can find something in your stool that you need to treat that is not common but you could tolerate like Grape Seed Extract.

I also became intolerant of mesalamine. It kept me in remission for 2+ years and then suddenly stopped working. Did it cause you liver issues? My liver enzymes went way out whack and I also had a liver biopsy done. My doctor now says it was mesalamine-induced hepatitis. Luckily, my liver has returned to normal since I stopped taking mesalamine.

My doctor's next step was to put me on 6-MP and oral steroids (prednisone). I would avoid the oral steroids if you can help it, the side effects are pretty bad and it can be hard to get off of them. You might also try a rectal steroid enema, suppository, or foam, which is safer since it is localized.

I'm about to start a biologic now, too.. hopefully Entyvio, or maybe Humira.

Did you see the recent thread about cannabis oil?

medicalmarijuanainc.com/inflammatory-bowel-disease/
In one study, cannabis rich in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) produced significant benefits to 10 or 11 patients with active Crohn’s disease, without side effects, and 5 of those 11 subjects achieved complete remission

blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2016/03/12/worth-repeating-medical-marijuana-defeats-crohns-disease/
Patients are saying there is an alternative to toxic prescription drugs, and access to it is expanding...

A small human trial in Israel in 2011 found that “Of the 30 patients 21 improved significantly after treatment with cannabis. The average Harvey Bradshaw index improved from 14 to 7. The need for other medication was significantly reduced. Thus, before cannabis use 26 patients used corticosteroids, but only 4 after start of the cannabis therapy.

medicalmarijuanainc.com/inflammatory-bowel-disease/
Cannabis has been determined to effectively address the symptoms associated with inflammatory bowel disease disease. Two cannabinoids found in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), possess anti-inflammatory effects, offer pain relief, reduce nausea and stimulate appetite...
patients reported an improvement in abdominal pain (83.9%), abdominal cramping (76.8%), joint pain (48.2%), and diarrhea (28.6%)

I am sorry you're stressing. I do not know what you should do, but probably not a bad idea to get checked out. A few days without anything outputting is strange for sure. If you have any pain, you definitely need to get checked out. I never take any type of laxative because, well, I was always going to the toilet, but I also feared for what would happen. I also wouldn't take anything to slow things. I just figured things were bad, and all that was a mask, it wasn't going to make me better, even if I got temporary symptom reduction, that's all I would get.I wanted a long-term solution. I know 6mp/imuran can be great long-term medications. Maybe it's time to look into one of those. Otherwise, you could try some of the alternative options, like nopal, curcurmin, nicotine, VSL#3, mmj, FT, Helminth therapy, diet (I know you've tried a lot of dietary changes already), I've seen some here having luck with other nontraditional things, like terramin. It's just a matter of how poorly you feel and how long you are willing to wait for a response vs. how dead-set you are against heavy duty immune altering drugs. Though, nothing guarantees a quick response - 6mp/imuran can take months.

Resuming smoking has a good chance of inducing remission seeing as you're a former smoker, but you'll need to keep it up for a while. I researched this heavily some time ago and tried smoking four a day but as a never-smoker it didn't do anything for me. I was fully prepared to become a smoker had it worked. I wish it had! Good luck.

I've read about so many different "functional medicine practitioners" and how they heal people with diet and foods and supplements. I, too, was and am still a bit skeptical about this. In fact, I purchased the new book by Anthony William, "MEDICAL MEDIUM" and in the book he talks about the various "mystery illnesses" out there that doctors put a label on calling them "autoimmune" diseases and that they are incurable, but just able to be put into remission. Anthony William teaches that they ARE definitely curable and with following certain protocol for healing the gut, shingles and EBV viruses, using foods and supplements, this can be accomplished without the use of drugs which can actually harm us more, per everything he says. In addition, he speaks of various foods that actually "feed" the viruses in our systems.

He goes into great detail regarding the Shingles virus and how it is responsible for the ulcerations in our colon as well as on other parts of our bodies. Some of this is fascinating reading. Some may buy into this and others may not. He talks of the traditional medical community not being aware of what he says in his book and that medical research still has a few decades to actually discover a lot of what is contained in his book.

Having said all this, I did try going on some of his protocol for my UC, but had started in a flare once again back in early Feb this year, and thought I'd try to squelch this on my own following the protocol. However, as AW says in his book, the longer your body has been harboring many of these viruses it may take one month for each year you've been sick to rid your body of the toxins in your body causing the disease. So, finally seeing very little to no results happening, I went to my gastro doctor in late April and was put on the Steroids to try to stop the bleeding, diarrhea and urgency. Still on them and seeing some results, but won't know more til my colonoscopy is one on June 21st.

Would love to be able to heal this with just foods and supplements, but right now need to get this flare under control so I will need to rely on the meds for now.

@Poppie - Glad you managed to go. I used to have occasional bouts of severe constipation where I couldn't go for several days, and it was absolutely miserable - I longed for the diarrhoea to return!

Update...I have had to abandon the smoking, as although it was working well I started to feel quite ill afterward. Cigarettes contain salicylates which is probably why I couldn't continue.

NSSG I'm actually considering going to the doctors, I feel quite ill.

My situation is that I have been on a special restricted diet with a professional dietician for the last ten days, we are Skyping each other.. Australia is a little bit more advanced with regard to the sort of food problems I am currently experiencing. I have been eating a very restricted diet in order to cleanse my body from salicylates/oxalates/histamines/ammines/sulfites etc, then, on Tuesday of next week we start to introduce different foods which will enable me to know for certain exactly what my triggers are, because without doing the elimination diet I will never know what to avoid.

For the last three nights I have woken up wet through, soaked, on top of that I can hardly walk!!! Yes no exaggeration, I am told by my support group for salicylates that it is likely a food I have over indulged in (like potatoes) and that is true, I have had a lot of them recently, breakfast, lunch, dinner, because there are only about 10 foods I can eat now, and I thought potatoes was one of them. So I have pain in every joint, my knee looks swollen, my thumb hurts, my back hurts, my ankle hurts and my elbow and weirdly I am having some kind of strange contractions under my left rib that resonates around my back, I cant think of the correct word to describe the pain, but it does seem like a contraction every now and now, I dont believe it is my kidneys as I have pain all over my body in separate areas.

On top of this I am worried that it might not be food that has caused this but my UC, arthritis, I dont know, It could possibly be both. I am ringing my GI for an appointment in the morning.

Whats your best guess? any ideas at all? Thanks