Recently diagnosed with colitis

Following syptoms for weeks and colonoscopy yesterday, I have now been diagnosed with colitis and was given a box of patient-sample Lialda prescription to take until the follow-up appointment scheduled coming Monday. Until last evening, I had no idea about an ailment called colitis, but since then I have been reading up on it. For this appointment, I'm now preparing questions to ask my doctor and need some help and advice. Further, on my colonoscopy pictures, I have colitis listed on certain sections of my rectum, sigmoid, transverse colon and cecum, but not others. Nothing also on any sections of my ascending colon. Does this mean that I have pancolitis? My symptoms are blood in the stool and diarrhea/constipation. And when I have diarrhea, I'm going two or three times. No other symptoms. Is this good or bad? Also, he took some biopsy samples- why? Thanks, in advance, for your help. 

Pancolitis is inflammation of the entire large colon...I hope the meds work for you and you get into remission very quickly and stay there for a long time...I know it's overwhelming, especially when like you say, you've never even heard about colitis before, it was kinda the same for me when I got sick with crohn's (another form of IBD, inflammatory bowel disease), I had only heard the term crohn's but had no idea what it entailed, boy I sure found out the hard way...but hopefully the meds will work great for you...2-3 times of D with blood is not too bad, of course it's hard to rate what's good or bad for others, but as you read through the forum and learn that many go 10+ times a day then it'll give you a bit of a guideline...he would have taken biopsies for a couple of reasons, 1) to make sure there are no pre-cancerous cells and 2) to help determine/confirm UC.

Feel better soon, and educate yourself as much as possible to help you get somewhat of a handle on this dreaded disease.

:)

I agree with quincys suggestion that your areas of inflammation sound more like CD rather than UC since you have areas of no inflammation then another spot at the begining of the colon (cecum). Hopefully the biopsys will determine whether it is CD or UC and your meds will help you gain remission quickly.

Take Care

Welcome to the forum, although I'm sorry that you're here. I also wish you lots of luck with your treatment. Let us know what your doctor says on Monday.