New to this

Hi everyone *waves*

So I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in April. Out of nowhere it seemed, a sudden, serious flare threw my life into disarray. I had to cancel my plans to attend an Ivy league for law school on a near full ride due to being too sick and I've been in a weird state emotionally and physically ever since (honestly, and I'm sure this is somewhat normal, I'm a bit depressed from this illness). I'm looking for advice from all of you knowledgeable patients of this hard disease.

I took uceris for three months and it did kick me out of the flare. In fact, the first flare (which put me in the ER from severe cramping and bleeding) was kicked out by antibiotic treatment (flagyl and cipro) because they thought it was bacterial. However, I started to become symptomatic again with intestinal pain and diarrhea a week after so I was eventually pointed towards a GI who then gave me the uceris (though I haven't noticeably bled at all since that first flare - largely just terribly formed stool and diarrhea). My original calprotectin stool sample came back above 2000 but my latest one after taking uceris for three months and then transitioning to apriso has gone to completely normal levels. I am theoretically in full remission.

However, I still get occasional weird pains here and there and my stools are just not very good. My GI has resisted my interest in enemas and suppositories because my colonoscopy had come back as being very widespread and severe pancolitis - he seems to think enemas are no good for pancolitis. I keep hearing from people on this site (I have stalked it since I got sick) that they really help them though so I'm interested. I feel far more anxiety than I ever did before (an impending sense of doom) and even though I'm grateful that my case has seemed so far to be better than a lot of others I want to be doing everything I can to live as much of a normal life as is possible anymore.

I am taking 4 apriso pills daily. I also supplement with ginger juice, psyllium husk (added seed lately), vitamin d with calcium pills, and omegas (I have been doing something very dumb that I only yesterday realized: I had been taking the psyllium with my apriso and ginger and then found out it absorbs meds so that could also be diminishing their effectiveness - I stopped that today).

Edit: Oh I also home make my own SCD legal (I'm not on SCD tho) cashew yogurt (weird dairy allergy). I do feel like my routine has been good at keeping things minimal as I have only about 1 to 2 bms most days they're just never very normal looking and tonight's was pretty disastrous looking

Thanks for your help

Post Edited (ParisConstantinople) : 9/20/2017 8:24:51 PM (GMT-6)

it is true enemas are no good for pancolitis. but they do treat the bit near the rectum where the oral tablets do not do so well. if you get urgency or bleeding, revisit the rectals. Otherwise keep up with the oral.

I hope you deferred you law school admission instead of surrendering.

good luck with remission

Although you have pan colitis, if you use both oral and rectal meds they should help somewhat and help heal atleast the rectum, sigmoid and descending colon up to the splenic flexure. Keeping the inflammation at bay in these areas of the colon will help with the urgencies/tenesmus.

I wanted to address your anxiety and depression comments. These feelings are 100% normal with any lifelong disease. As Flowersgal stated, there are also physical and chemical processes at work within our guts that can affect our moods. My first flare was preceded by a two month long period of anxiety which included a sudden fear of confined spaces, which I had never experienced. Anxiety and depression have been with me on and off ever since my diagnosis. You are not "crazy."

I may be butchering this by going off memory, but the way my GP explained it is that most of our serotonin is found in the gut. Serotonin controls a lot of things including our mood. We also have bacteria in the gut that can stimulate GABA receptors in the brain. Along with IBD comes gut dysbiosis. It is no coincidence that people with intestinal problems are prone to anxiety and depression and those with mental health issues are prone to digestive problems. For me, the mental side of this disease has been equally, if not more challenging than the physical symptoms. You are not alone.