What other Illnesses Do you Have?

I would love to know what other "fun" disease you all have? Would love to see if IBD'ers share similar health issues. Also, what medications you take for it.

For me...

1. I got hypothyroidism at age 14. It's been very correctable with 100mg of Levoxyl.
2. I also struggle with Depression & anxiety, been on an anti-depressent Celexa for 14-years and now just switched to Lexapro. However, looking to come off as soon as I'm in remission with Colitis.
3. Lastly, I have a potassium deficiency issue, docs are still trying to figure out if it's related to Colitis, or a rare kidney syndrome.

LPR and migraines. I forgot, I also deal with depression.

I've been trying to recover from OCD and an eating disorder for the last year and a half, which has been the source of many health issues for a while. Making my recovery day by day. The first year was really hard and I only just started to get the hang of it a few months ago.

None.

I do fight with these though:
Fatigue not a disease, just another symptom of UC and the meds.
Anxiety is directly proportional to my state of flare for the day.
Depressed feeling because I can't get out and do anything from fatigue or anxiety from UC.

If it weren't for UC, I would not have seen a doctor in the last 17 yrs.

It is hard to differentiate what illnesses are just a part of UC ! @banangirl - I seriously think I have neuropothy. I believe you're the one that responded to a predisone post I made a month ago. We seem to both have awful muscle/joint pains! I'm finally off it as of last week and I'm still having numbness. I see an endocrinologist tomorrow for my thyroid, def. bringing this issue up.

@tunnelvisonary - I should have mentioned that I too have had an ED. I'm in recovery now. I had Bulimia for 14 years. When I got UC, I just could not physically practice an ED anymore. In some ways you can say UC saved me from the illness. I agree with you, the ED made so many other illness worse, or even brought them on. Stay strong, you an do it! It gets easier everyday, I promise you that. And this is coming from someone who had it for 14 years and it was my entire life.

Depression. Bulimia. Borderline Personality.

Christ, I sound like a ball of joy and sunshine, don't I?

They're not related, though. Honestly, I think the UC came from the bulimia. The depression, I've always had, and the BPD was just luck of the draw, I guess. Interesting, though, that so many people here have listed depression. I was diagnosed with depression before even showing symptoms of UC, but what about everyone else? Did you guys get the depression before or after? I can understand how constant pain and fear of flair ups can induce depression.

Wow! Many of us have low thyroid. Very interesting. As for the depression issue at hand @Amandawastaken. I had depression/anxiety years before being diagnosed with UC.

I also believe my Bulimia had an impact on getting Ulcerative Colitis. Little research done on the subject, however it's not to far off to have that conclusion.

Trinity: Thank you so much for your kind words, recovery has not been fun at all, but it has been well worth it to get out of the ED hole. I was orthorexic which is an extreme fixation on foods that were deemed the "healthiest" in my mind. I was always researching and finding new reasons to be afraid of food and my diet was shrinking and shrinking. I would just start to avoid eating because my diet was so limited that I just didn't find it appealing.

My biggest fear when getting the UC diagnosis was feeling like I was forced to go down that road again. It crushed me initially, because I thought it meant that I would NEED to go down the road I had desperately been trying to get away from for a year and a half. I thought all my efforts and struggles were in vain. Fortunately, that has not been the case at all, and recovering from my ED and OCD remains my #1 priority.

I think the anorexia definitely played a role in getting to this point. My body was incredibly weak. Starvation can cause the immune system to act very funny, and recovery can make lots of things jump around. I got a gut infection that cleared up with a round of vanco and multiple infections eventually led me to taking a course of antibiotics that resulted in bloody stools for months.

But anyway, thank you for the words of encouragement, Trinity, I will keep them close! You make sure you never let the ED come back! :)

EDIT: To anyone reading, I don't mean to harp on diets to control your UC. Eating disorders are different from regular dieting because they are a psychological condition brought on by having a genetic predisposition to have an anxiety response triggered toward food in response to starvation (many EDs are developed during weight loss efforts for this reason). This response makes it difficult to just eat foods whenever you are hungry and the more you starve, the more cut off you feel from your hunger until it is unbareable for your body or you die. Recovery from an ED is like recovery from any other psychological condition and involves a lot of anxiety to eat food again, which you eventually overcome, hence "recovery".

If eating a certain way helps control your condition and improves the overall quality of life, that is awesome and you should keep doing what you are doing.

Post Edited (Tunnelvisionary) : 9/1/2014 11:53:34 PM (GMT-6)

Anorexia (recovered), depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder. All pre-UC.

Only mental problems, was perfectly physically healthy before UC.

UC is a pretty big deal though soy. I'm not thinking about my other issues as much as I do about UC

Nothing, really. I have thyroid nodules but they're just there - they don't affect my thyroid function.

I have extreme myopia, but I don't think that counts.

No other illness except for UC that I know of right now, but I'm sure as I get older the list will grow.

Ankylosing spondylitis, Hashimoto's, Meniere's disease. All came after the UC.