Flare induced anxiety

What's your morning routine, time you have from when you get up till you leave, breakfast, etc?

q

I had a lot of anxiety for about a year leading up to my diagnosis. I had always been a pretty laid back guy, nothing usually would cause me to get too worked up. To put it in perspective, I was voted most laid back in my senior year of high school (17 yrs ago). Then I started having a lot of anxiety. The oddest thing was that I became claustrophobic. I attributed it to work related stresses and was about to get counseling to try to overcome because I occasionally work in confined spaces and thought it would interfere with my work. That's when my first major flare hit me. After diagnosis, I was very worried about the disease for a while but I don't think I was any more anxious about it than anyone else. My anxiety was manifesting itself in things completely unrelated to my disease, if that makes any sense.

Now that I have found the medication/diet combo that I feel is really helping me the claustrophobia has all but disappeared. I also don't worry about my disease as much and have come to accept it. I am a huge proponent of adding diet changes into the mix with your meds. Eat the cleanest diet you can with as little processed food and sugar as humanly possible. It definitely gave me more energy and put me in a better mental state.

Uniform Charlie,

Many thanks for taking the time to reply. It may be a good idea for me to stop ruling out diet and thinking it has nothing to do with it. I have tried small dietary changes but nothing consistent and precise.

I feel I lack the motivation as before I was eating very clean Paleo and still ended up in the same way on the toilet daily. This only lasted around two weeks though so maybe I need to give it more time?

Thank you

Unfortunately, from what I've read, it's pretty common for us to have a lot of problems in the morning. My doctor tells me my inflammation is mild (no ulcers, but inflammation), and here's my morning:

Wake up 3 hours early at 4:30 am so I have time to "empty out." I drink a glass of water and a cup of coffee as soon as I get up to get things started.
At least 5 trips to the bathroom before I leave
Somewhere between 1/2 and 2 immodium an hour before I leave the house
I wear Depends under darkly colored, loose bottoms. Usually layered with underwear and shorts under a skirt. I always pack an emergency bag with a change of clothes.
Then I generally don't eat or drink anything throughout my work day. If I get light-headed, I might have something really small like a tablespoon of peanut butter.
I usually have 2 more bathroom trips with urgency. Then I eat when I get home and feel miserable for the rest of the night.

I take Klonopin for anxiety. Any place without immediate bathroom access, especially a bus, throws me into an immediate panic attack. I picked up an extra job so I could afford to make the commute by car.

I'm hoping that it isn't this bad for you, but what I'm saying is that you have to be proactive about demanding more or better care if you're suffering. If your maintenance meds don't work, or if you need to take anti anxiety meds in order to occasionally leave the house, like I do, then you have to firmly tell your doctors that. I think that so often, they have blinders on and fail to recognize that our test results don't matter if we have no quality of life.
Also, you may never get back to your pre-UC normal. You may have to get up a little early and make adjustments to your eating schedule, but you shouldn't need to sacrifice your entire life to work around the disease.

My guess and only a guess, is that maybe when you leave the house you are walking, this walking is what gets your bowels going, maybe take a short walk or just walk around the house in circles before leaving the house in the morning and see if that gets things moving. Since I have been in remission now for a couple of years I have noticed it helps me greatly as nowadays when I wake up I don't have to go immediately either, but I can't stand the thought of leaving the house for the day without it. So I get up and let my dog go out in the backyard and I join him as well. I don't have the time to go on a real walk but just walking around the backyard for 5 minutes usually gets the bowels moving and then I go back inside and do my thing.

What you describe is common. Uc is a terrible disease that make us housebound and feel isolated from our peers. It's harder because it's a young person's disease, so you're friends don't get it and you just want to be normal. Something many of us have felt, we can relate.

I'd be aggressive in your treatment. Remicade was the only uc medication to put my uc into remission (currently 1, normal, nonurgent bm a day), and I hope it does the same for you. I was steroid dependent at 20mgs before remicade and in a flare for a year.

If remicade doesn't work (it does work for roughly 60+ percent) then I'd get serious about surgery. As your young, need to put uc behind you, and 3 years of no relief is too much. It's your call but that's my feeling.

Regarding uc anxiety, try and find your escape, something you can do to get your mind off uc. It could be a hobby like reading, music, meditation, yoga, something to escape and relax. We all need to forget and get our stress levels down.

Try and keep your hopes up, have a plan, and whether it's remicade or something else then you'll beat uc

I wish I could say that diet will fix you but I can't. I have no idea if SCD is actually helping me or if its just placebo...or it could just be that my colitis isn't that bad to begin with. Give SCD a try. Its not too different from paleo so you should already be a pro. It gives you an out at 1 month if you see no results. I experienced real mental clarity after a couple weeks of it but we're all different. What rectal meds do you take? Rowasa helped me but it always made me have to go to the bathroom as soon as I woke up.

I've was diagnosed 20 years ago. I've tried every diet out there. Nothing helped. Last December I finally decided to try a Biologic and went straight to Entyvio. I just had my 8th infusion last week and I'm feeling almost 100%. If you're thinking about Remicade you might want to also look into Entyvio.

A quick update post.

After discussing with my GI I will be starting Adalimumab (Brand name Humira) within the next four weeks. I had a chest x-ray and the necessary blood checks before I can start.

I feel this is a huge step forward and hoping for the best. We discussed Remicade also but will try this biologic first as it is convenient to use at home.

A nurse will visit my home and show me how to inject the drug etc.

HAPPY!!