Left Side / Back pain - UC or nah?

Hi all! UC messes with my mind so much that I don't know whether I'm having UC-related problems or whether this is just something else altogether.

I'm having pain that appears to not be muscular -- doesn't respond to changes in position or stretching, and it's past the 3-day threshold that I assume for any muscular pain. Left side (and I have left sided UC), residing right about the bottom of my rib cage, and it is also painful at the same elevation on the left side of my back. This started on Sunday and honestly even though it changes a bit from moment to moment, it doesn't seem overall to be getting better or worse.

When it spikes, I get nausea. I don't know whether this is nausea caused by pain or whether the nausea and the pain are separate symptoms. Also, I think I'm getting spasms on my left side, like right under my rib cage. I get fluttery sensations several times a day. This started yesterday.

I'm flaring and I've been trying various things to help with that. Aside from maintaining my 4.8 g mesalamine (generic for Lialda), I also used Canasa suppositories during the day and steroid enemas at night. A few weeks ago, I went onto prednisone for the first time in years because it was just not getting better. I went up to 60 mg pred for about 10 days to get the frequency/urgency under control, and that worked (I'm down from 15 to 20x per day to more like 5 to 8x, but I'm still getting intermittent bleeding. Prior to the prednisone, I was having regular but not excessive bright red bleeding, but now I'm getting dark blood (not a *lot*) about every other day. In the last several days, my stool has been noticeably darker than normal, and I think (*think* but don't *know*) that it is borderline on the "tarry" or "coffee ground" look.

I have an appointment to see my GI (who I adore -- I just switched over to her about 6 months ago) on 7/15. I emailed her this morning and got an out of office response -- she'll be back on 6/24.

So here are my questions -- Does this sound UC related to you? Would you bother trying to contact the stand-in GI today or just wait until Monday for the real doctor? What do you do for pain that doesn't respond to heat, cold, change in position, stretching, or tylenol?

iPoop, during my first year with UC, I had the best side effects ever. I was getting spasms in my colon that were causing orgasms. It was so messed up. On the one hand, TOO WEIRD. On the other hand, WHY NOT. I got some anti-spasmodics at the time and just went back to regular UC and have always kind of regretted it ****.

So my gut feeling is to wait until next week and see what my lovely GI says when she returns, unless the bleeding intensifies dramatically. Does that seem sound or am I losing my mind on the prednisone?

Oh, I also meant to say that 1.5 years before I got UC, I had unexplained severe lower back pain (and gut pain, I think...can't remember now for certain). It hurt so bad, I could barely walk. It seemed to hurt worse sometimes after I ate. I took tons of Aleve for it, but I don't think that even helped much. Anyway, I saw several doctors for it and no one ever figured out what was wrong. I remember getting an x-ray and an abdominal ultrasound and them seeing nothing. It eventually went away on its own after a couple months. I never had another problem until I got UC 1.5 years later. I kind of doubt it was related, but I always have wondered.