Stopped smoking and oh heck!! This is not good :-(

Hi folks, I'm a newbie and just got diagnosed with UC yesterday following a sigmoidoscopy exam.

A little background, I've been a 30 a day smoker for the past 20 years, over this period I've always had what I described as a "sensitive" tummy, no major issues, but frequent episodes of constipation and diarrhea and sometimes both at the same time. I do remember 1 issue about 20 years ago where I passed what looked like clear jelly, I now understand this was probably mucus, but it cleared up really quickly and I never thought anything more of it. During this time I've not had major pain, some of what I regarded as normal tummy aches etc, but nothing I thought necessary to see a doc about.

Anyway, in early February this year I decided to finally quit the evil weeds and give up smoking, the way I decided to go about this was to take up vaping (e-cigs), my kit arrived and immediately that was the end of the cigs. After two weeks whilst feeling proud of my achievement, I went to the bathroom and had a BM, from what I remember perfectly normal; then as I cleaned myself I was shocked to see the tissue completely covered in bright red blood, as there was no pain or any indication that anything was wrong this was quite a suprise. Had a few more BM's over the following couple of days and again no pain but a lot of blood, and now I was looking, the the BM was very loose, mucusy and bloody. So I went to se the doc who said it was probably just haemorrhoids. So a few more days passed and now the diarrhea was just liquid, very explosive and a lot of blood, sometimes BM's were just blood and mucus and I was going 11-15 times a day, I now had severe cramps and stomach pain constantly throughout the day.

This went on for a month and I started to feel really quite unwell so back to the docs and I was referred for a flexible sigmoidoscopy.

The examination reported

Quote: Colitis: probable UC. Appearance: increased vascular pattern and oedematous. Continuous extend at the rectum, at the sigmoid, in the decending colon and at the spienic flexture.

Sigmoidoscopy level reached: spienic flexure.

They also took 6 biopsy's which I as yet don't have the results for as all this happened yesterday.

They have prescribed 30mg Prednisolone daily for 2 weeks then reducing by 5mg a week and 4000mg Mesalazine daily.

What I'm wondering is, is it likely I've had this condition for the past 20 years and not known about it, and was it giving up the smoking that made it suddenly so bad, just seems odd it started 2 weeks after quitting.

Also I have seen a small improvement today already in the amount of blood loss, when the meds get this fully under control will that be the end of it or is it likely that the fact that I don't smoke anymore going to cause me ongoing problems with this.

It does seem to be affecting rather a lot of my colon, is this normal, is this in it's early stages or likely been spreading up the colon for some time, will it get any worse??

Sorry to ramble on, I have so many questions and know next to nothing about this condition, I'm a bit confused and still trying to get my head around it at the moment.

I gave up the cigs to improve my health, and I've never felt so ill.... seems like sods law has kicked in...

Congrats on the quitting smoking. Unfortunately this is something that I've heard of before on this forum that when someone quit smoking they flared really bad. Never having symptoms before. I myself quit smoking when I was pregnant with my daughter and I think I was slowly starting to get symptoms by the end of my pregnancy but held off on going to the doctor till about a year later. By then things were really bad. Hope your meds help even though I think the pred is a low dose...we usually see a start of 40mg sometimes even higher. I would also request some rectal meds from your GI.

Thanks folks for you're advise and support. I do feel the smoking was probably just masking the symptoms, I don't think it is just to do with the nicotine, I'm still taking that all be it in vapor form not smoke, although at a lower dose than when I was smoking. I will definitely not go back to smoking, I'm free of that and pleased about it. And as you say it has meant I now am getting proper treatment which can only be seen as a positive step.

I will keep vaping the nicotine until this is under control and then perhaps try and cut the nicotine, hopefully that won't cause another flare, I think it's going to be a bit of trial and error over the coming months to find a regime that works. I am quite positive about it, at least now I know why I've been feeling so rough and can look forward to getting the right treatment and getting well again soon.

I quit smoking about 14 years ago. I've had various gut symptoms my whole life and always thought I had IBS. I too wonder if I had a mild case of UC for years and it went undetected.

Congrats on quitting smoking. Although I know it can stop the symptoms of UC, in the long run I think the risks outweigh any benefits.

You're welcome....I hope you find remission soon and it lasts a long time...none of us should have to suffer with this horrid illness.

Same thing with me. It seemed to co-incide with me reducing my nic level on my ecigs, and when I went back up to 12mgs was when my flare ended.

Of course, it could have easily been the meds taking effect by then, who knows. I'm definitely not going back to cigs unless it comes to that or an operation.

me too!!!!!!!!
i gave them up last Jan and stated seeing blood in my stool in feb. love that im of the cancer sticks though. hate them so much now they make me gag. well done on giving them up. ive read on here that a few people have taken up the vapourising to help their uc. the nicotine is supposed to lesson symptoms. you're still getting the nicotene so who knows whats going on, sods law is right or here in eire we'd say Murphey's law!