Newly diagnosed with colitis

Hello all-
I have been diagnosed by the ER with colitis a week ago (doctor was very vague); dx by CT scan.

I have been researching the SCD diet, but I am waiting for the book.

The ER put me on Flagil and Cipro. I had severe pain and bleeding.
I have been reading all of your posts and you all are on steroids of some sort; does it seem right that I am only on Flagil and Cipro for colitis?

My pain has ended after the first day home; 3 days after being diagnosed, I am having small solid BMs, and I am only eating beef broth, dry toast, bananas, and peeled apples until I get started on the SCD diet.

Does this seem to be inline with colitis?

I have had lower left sided pain after eating fatty, oily foods for 20 years. I would have severe pain exactly 2 hours after eating the suspect food and then the pain would leave as soon as I evacuated everything in my colon. I have been taking enzyme pills to help with digestion of meat and cheeses. My colitis diagnosis happened 12 hours after eating some very good sharp cheddar cheese. In the past, cheese has been a problem, but this brand has not bothered me. This recent incident was different, because the pain was through out my lower GI area and did not go away after evacuating (only after pain medication).

I'm in my 50's, eat little fat and oily foods, and pretty healthy (was exercising before dx).

Thank you for any input and help.

Jen,

Welcome to the forum.

Glad you've found us.

Sorry about your recent diagnosis.

I agree with Andrina, if the meds are helping you, then they might be the right ones for now.

Not all doctors follow the prednisone route, and that's a good thing.

BTW, there are different types of colitis - not all colitis is ulcerative colitis (which is an auto-immune disease), and I sincerely hope you have regular colitis which can be treated successfully rather than this lifelong darned UC disease.

Because regular meds failed me, and I had to find my own way (I refused colon surgery and remicade as choices given by my GI), from my experience there are many things many doctors won't even tell you about that could have a significant impact on your symptoms: diet modification (SCD or Paleo), adding certain supplements, probiotics, and you'll be surprised at how much relief you can get from just playing around with those 3 factors.

Personally, I prefer Paleo to SCD because it is an anti-inflammatory diet, and many diseases are caused by inflammation.

I was able to control my UC into remission through various supplements, probiotics, diet modification, and LDN , low dose naltrexone.

For more info on the protocol which has put me into remission, please go to this link: https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=38&m=1666318 , and look at the 11th post.

I hope you feel better and let us know how we can help you.

Welcome to the forum.

Hi~
So far, I am hearing really great feedback Thank you for all your information.

I will keep taking the 2 meds. I have lost 10 lbs in a week (I had some to spare) and am really weak, but I think that is due to my diet being cut to a very low calorie intake.

Please continue to share, so I may learn. Also, I forgot to mention that I am unemployed and without insurance, so I am having to try to treat this independently. I am looking into applying at a low income clinic, hopefully, to get referred to a gastroenterologist to do a colonoscopy.

Do you think a colonoscopy will definitely diagnose me or would a sigmoidcolonoscopy be a better test?

thank you so much!
Hugs!

A sigmoidoscopy would certainly be able to detect inflammation in the rectum and sigmoid colon, and if that's more affordable then that is a good start, much better than working from the CT results only. A colonoscopy gives the DR a look at the whole colon, which is important in understanding the full extent of the inflammation.