How likely is that Proctitis will spread?

Sorry Qwerty but we can't possibly know :( Some can have Proctitis their entire life with no spread and some can have Proctitis for a few months and have it spread to Pancolitis.

Pinkpaperclip, when they perform surgery for people with Uc, they do not leave any of the large intestine for the very fact that it will just attack the remaining portion. That is why they take out the whole thing in surgery.

Red_34 said...
Pinkpaperclip, when they perform surgery for people with Uc, they do not leave any of the large intestine for the very fact that it will just attack the remaining portion. That is why they take out the whole thing in surgery.

Oh! Maybe it's different in Québec? Here they try to remove the sick part at first, they won't remove everything if you have good parts left in your guts...

Well that's what I read in the documents my GI gave me when I was diagnosed.. Maybe it's the theorical approach and then you get into surgery and they remove the whole thing without even telling you.. I mean when I went for my colonoscopy they had me set up for a gastroscopy! I told the nurse "why do you have to check both ends today??" lol

I've had proctosigmoiditis since 2001, and it's never advanced. For five years, I was one sick girl. I was going anywhere from 15-30 times a day, bleeding every day and feeling like everything I ate turned into Brillo pads in my colon. My GI said I was one of his hardest patients to get into remission.

How hard the disease is to control or how sick you feel isn't necessarily linked to the location. It does seem to me, just through my readings here, that people with pancolitis may have more trouble with weight loss and severe pain, but I'm not even sure of that.

And the recommended surgery for UC is total removal of the colon. People with Crohn's do have partial resections, removing only the affected part of the GI tract.

It's funny how it affects us differently, isn't it? I didn't have pain for about the first year, then started having more, but it never got to be severe. Others have debilitating pain. My theory is that it has to do with how much the inflammation stretches areas that are rich in pain nerves, such as the omentum (the thin membrane that attaches to the colon throughout and helps hold it in place.)

     Fruitgirl, my symptoms are very similar to yours.  I was diagnosed with UC in October of 1998.  Thank God, it has never traveled past the rectum, although the CT scan showed inflamation throughout the colon when I was admitted to the hospital last May.  However, six days later, when they performed the colonoscopy, low and behold, there was only ulcerations in the rectum and NOT throughout the colon.  Weird huh?

     My GI doctor explained to me that even though the UC is confined to my rectum, it can make me feel miserable and how right he is.  The UC in the rectum is supposedly the easiest to treat too.  I find the Cort enemas help immensely.  At the moment I am in remission...I say at the moment because I never know when a flare will start.  Usually this time of year is my worse, but keeping my fingers crossed for now.  As soon as my rectum feels a little funky...spastic or whatever, I stick one of those cort enemas up there to let it know who is boss.  This seems to help.

     I went to a GI surgeon last summer and he was of the opinion that the 6MP is helping in keeping the UC confined to the rectal area.  Eh, who knows?