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Feel another flare-up coming on...

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 2/2/2011 7:33 AM (GMT 0)
I spent a month in the hospital last year with a bad flare up and had to quit my job, move back home for a few months and heal up. I got better, got myself together, came back, got a new job and am starting over again only to feel another flare up coming on. This difference between this time and last time is that last time I had no medication to stop the flare up in it's tracks. This time I have a stockpile of Asacol and suppositories. What I don't have is health insurance (yet) but I'll get that in the next month.

What should I do to prevent this flare up from becoming worse? I'm on 9 Asacol tablets per day. I'm going to start taking my suppositories immediately. That's the best I can do.

The reason I know it's another flare up is because I'm having urgency again. I haven't had urgency since I started having a flare up last year. I know that urgency means a flare up is coming on.

I don't have any blood in my stool yet but I know that will shortly follow.

Advice? I really don't want to have to bail on another job due to illness and start my life all over again...
Posted 2/2/2011 2:06 PM (GMT 0)
You can up your Asacol to 12 a day (max treatment dose) and you can do the supps up to 3 times a day. What about probiotics? Are you on these? You can also try a low fiber diet to help calm things down in there.
Posted 2/2/2011 7:35 PM (GMT 0)
Your options are to up the asacol, but I don't think you need to do that at this point since you are at 9.

Definitely do the suppositories at least twice daily...you can increase if you need to 3 daily if you haven't improved after a week.

I would suggest probiotics for sure.

Were you totally off the supps? It's always good to taper to a maintenance.

You would definitely be best to get the enemas after your insurance kicks in.

Keep us posted how you're doing.

q
Posted 2/3/2011 12:45 AM (GMT 0)
I was in a similar situation just recently.  Hadn't had any urgency (aka not flaring) since last March, and then towards the end of December I started getting urgency.  Seemed I was back into full flare mode within a week. 

This was my experience - not sure if it will work for you, but hopefully!  As soon as I started feeling urgency I started back on the nightly suppositories.  One per night, which might be a good bet for you since you don't want to run out before you have insurance again.  I also started taking 4 Lialda night again (equiv to 12 Asacol).

I had urgency and cramping for a few weeks, and then D with less urgency, and am just starting to feel like I'm going into remission.  All in all it's taken five weeks of nightly suppositories to start feeling normal again.

One thing to note - this was NOTHING compared to the flare I had last year when I didn't take medication as it was coming on.  Even though I had urgency this time, with the help of medication it was mostly in the morning.  I could leave the house at night without worrying about accidents.  I'm sure the Lialda helps, but I feel like the enemas do most of the work.

 

Good luck to you!

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