Posted 11/21/2016 1:33 PM (GMT 0)
Hi and welcome to the forum. I'd expect your medications to start showing large improvements within a couple weeks, assuming it's the right dise and medication combination for you. You're only three days in, so be patient. As treating UC takes a lot of trial-and-error, there's no instant gratification fix that works for everyone. Your doctor may not get it right with the first treatment or sometimes even the second or third treatment. Rather, there's many individual solutions to UC that take a series of months to find remission.
Yes, many of us were perfectly healthy in our diet, exercised and were in great shape, and then *bam* chronic illness. Nobody knows what causes ulcerative colitis, so I wouldn't beat yourself up in looking for the why within your life in the weeks or months proceeding your diagnosis. A new UC diagnosis is quite a head-trip, and overwhelming with so much to learn in a hurry about an uncommon illness we've likely never heard of. We all go through a lot of emotions with a new diagnosis from anger, to denial (and this one can do you a lot of harm if you stop your maintenance treatment when you feel good or don't take UC seriously), to hopefully acceptance and adaptation. There's hope as most of us live mostly normal lives once our UC symptoms are under control with an appropriate maintenance treatment. And once you find that ideal maintenance treatment, it is essential that you keep it up indefinitely, whether you are feeling good or feeling bad.
I'd urge you to consider alternatives and traditional medications in tandem as that's what many of us do and some have seen results. I wouldn't write any treatment off, as that will work against you and limit your options and potentially your success and ability to control your UC symptoms. I understand some prefer a natural approach, but I don't want you to have the unrealistic expectation that everyone can control his/her UC symptoms without medications as for the majority of UC patients that isn't possible. As you'll find out, many of us react very differently to a particular treatment. What's one's miracle, does absolutely nothing for another, and even makes somebody else's symptoms much, much worse. So, you're going to find many contradictions when reading about UC especially within the naturals and diets. Some do see relief but it is going to take a lot of time and trial-and-error to find your custom solution, so don't take any one size-fits-all recommendation seriously. Take everything with a healthy dose of skepticism and make sure to measure your results as that's much better, as many things won't work for you and only a few things will.
You're going to find that a lot of treating a chronic illness has to do with weighing risks versus benefits. Benefit: Prednisone is a great emergency rescue medication that quickly (sometimes within a few days or a week) stops the worst of our uc symptoms. Risk: Prednisone is a medication with lots of annoying temporary side effects that many experience. Nothing can stop prednisone side effects completely. There's a few things you can do to limit or reduce the side effects a bit. You can limit your salt intake as salt appears to increase bloating, water retention, and moon face while on pred. Increase your calcium intake and potassium intake, and add some light exercise while on it. Pred increases your appetite insatiably so, and that can lead to weight gain; eat healthy and filling snacks and meals.
On the other hand, Salofalk is a 90 percent topical medication that is well tolerated by most without side effects. It is a mild anti-inflammatory medication that can be used long term for many, many years and is considered to be one of the safest classes of medications. Consider yourself lucky if this is all you need to control your UC, and keep up with it, so your UC doesn't spread, get more severe, and require the much stronger medications. You should ask for a rectal-route mesalamine enema (rowasa enema, salofalk enema, or pentasa enema), suppository (canasa), or foam to heal faster and produce the best results.
Living with a chronic illness like UC is going to make changes to our body, so it's best to set that vanity aside. We're prone to rapid weight loss and rapid weight gain. We can get moon face, acne, and have hair loss. It sucks, but being healthy is first and foremost and takes precedence. Try not to worry as much about how you look, rather focus on how healthy and good you feel.