What Were You Doing In Your Life At the Time of UC?

I was the happiest I have ever been in my life. I finished the final editing on my third published book. I was recently married and had adopted my two step-sons. I was 6 months pregnant with what the ob/gyn thought was twin girls from the ultra-sound but it turned out to be an 11 lb 10 oz boy with feet so big they could not fit the whole foot on the birth certificate. Went into remission as soon as he was born. Next flare was also when I was pregnant. That flare also stopped as soon as my son was born. Final flare before colon removal was during perimenopause.

I started having symptoms shortly after having my first baby. I waited almost a year to go to the doctor as well. I was a very nervous first time mother, and initially, I chalked up my symptoms up to that.

I was doing my normal routine that I always do. Go to work, come home. Then all of a sudden, BAM. The symptoms started.

garylouisville said...
I wonder if the fall/winter correlation has a lot to do with infections and antibiotics.

That's what I figured happened with me. During college I was always getting sick. And over the years I was always given antibiotics. I didn't get sick when I was on Imuran. Now I'm on LDN, I haven't been sick. But, I haven't gone out a lot.

I was finishing law school. I thought law school was a good time to try accutane, blah. My last semester I had a bad intestinal bug and things were never right after that.

Wow interesting to read all these stories. i had just had my son. I was diagnosed in March. However prior to that 'real' flare-up it turns out i had two other flare-ups before. Both the earlier ones cleared out on their own. The very first one was from end of january till beginning of march 2007. Had i gone for a colonoscopy that first time i would have probably been diagnosed near valentine's day too. All my flare-ups conincided with times of great stress. The very first one (in 2007) was during a breakup as well, and was following a bout of food poisoning. Oh and i live in Australia; so that was right in the middle of summer!

Mid/late 20's, best shape physically and financially of my life

that changed in about 90 days...sigh

I'd had my son (first baby) about four weeks before I really started noticing symptoms. However, I sometimes wonder if I was mildly flaring through the end of the pregnancy, because I was NEVER constipated (if anything, ran a bit looser than normal) and had him three weeks early.

What I've learned from this thread so far:

To prevent UC, don't have babies, don't ever have a break-up, skip the month of February, do not have a stressful job, don't take antibiotics and live in a mold-free environment. Seems easy enough. :)

Interesting responses...

I had acid reflux in my teens (probably due to poor diet), and my mom got me Prilosec for a week or two. When I was about 17-18 I had emotional stress and anxiety just from friendships and school, IBS symptoms started and I can see in pictures without my shirt on my gut was protruding a tiny tiny bit.

IBS disappeared in college when I started using a recreational drug and drink alcohol. I had food poisoning from McDonalds in 2010, right after the premier of Alice In Wonderland in theaters. Went to the hospital and they put me on Morphine to get rid of the pain, which is indescribable to this day.

It was gone in a heartbeat. A year later after relationships and friendships took a toll on my emotions, I went my separate ways in 2011, stopped drinking alcohol/using recreational drug and started noticing IBS symptoms coming back full force. After a stressful breakup in the summer, I noticed blood and got myself checked out by a student nurse and GI who ruled it hemorrhoids. Suppositories and creams were given, with no help. I was really bummed at that time, knowing I had to stop weight lifting because of hemmorrhoids, and that there was no cure.

Still, I was going to the bathroom three times a day in a perfect pattern. The GI wanted to rule out polyps and what not in a colonoscopy, and I bolted out of that office and into an acupuncturists office, who did testing, gave me plant herbs (with no help), and eventually benefiber, which made my symptoms EXPLODE! This was July '11. I finally went for a colonoscopy in september.

The light just never came on that I could potentially have something wrong with me. Everyone around me always said how handsome and healthy and slim/toned I looked and was as a person. I've never heard of any such Inflammatory bowel disease like crohns or colitis. Even when they were just IBS symptoms, my only knowledge of treatment were measly pepto bismol tablets.

That was then, here is now.

I got UC in the middle of a perfect storm of physical problems: undiagnosed fibroid tumor causing blood loss and anemia, beginning menopause then diagnosed with ulcerative proctitis that developed into UC.

Up until age 46 I had very few physical issues, was a vegetarian, very active in sports and gym. I'd rate my physical/mental condition as a 9 on a 10 scale compared to most people.

Stress? Yes, our car stolen (recovered but still..), dealing with in-laws (cousins) to sell a family property which went on for years (successful result for all). And my dog was attacked by a friends dog and died after a year of poor health. I was in the middle of the assault and got bitten requiring antibiotics.

I do not believe stress alone was responsible for my UC. I believe it took multiple frontal assaults to weaken my body to the point that UC became possible. I think antibiotics are part of the picture resulting in "bad" bacteria that dominated the good bacteria. I also think artificial sweeteners play a role is suppressing good bacteria, I drank Diet Coke like water back then.

The flare that was eventually diagnosed as UC started for me in February (darn February!). I had had strep throat four or five times that winter and the last time I had to have a "double strength" course of azithromycin to knock it out. The label on the pill bottle said "May cause diarrhea weeks or months after taking" which I thought was so *funny* that I took a picture of it and texted it to one of my friends!! Little did I know...

At the time I was training (weightlifting) really intensely, drinking whole chocolate milk and whey protein every day post workout, and dealing with pretty bad relationship-related stress.

My GI thinks that my flares (I had little mysterious flares, some of just extraintestinal symptoms, that always resolved on their own too quickly to be diagnosed with anything for a few years before I was actually diagnosed) correspond to changes in season. I'm not sure I'm convinced.