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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 8/12/2012 5:31 PM (GMT -5)
Hey everyone,

I'm a 22 year old male diagnosed with UC (pancolitis) in January 2012. Looking back now and reflecting on the months before and after I was diagnosed with UC, I am having "thoughts" that perhaps I may not have UC in the traditional sense. Of course, I'll be bringing all this up in my next GI appointment with the doctor, but I wanted to lay out my story here and get some opinions from you guys first!

The first time I had UC like symptoms was actually in 2010. I was in Vienna. That entire year I had been training very hard and eating extremely healthy (I'm a collegiate runner). And in Vienna, I really let myself go. I was drinking lots of beer (which have always given me diarrhea if i'm not careful) and eating cart food at 2AM in the morning three days a week. Lo and behold, 2 months into this lifestyle, I started seeing blood, mucus in the non-stop diarrhea. I came back to the States immediately. My doctor thought I had Traveler's Diarrhea and put me on Cipro and gave my hydrocortisone suppositories. She said there was an imbalance of healthy/bad bacteria in my GI tract. As any good patient, I took the meds and in less than a month, I was back to 100%.

A year later...

I went back to running and training, and I had a successful season. Summer of 2011 came. Now I was in off season and although I kept up the training I did not keep up the diet. After runs, I would head straight to McDonalds and get multiple Big Macs and smoothies. This became a routine... Fall came and because I decided to put Cross Country on hold that year, I maintained this lifestyle. I always convinced myself "I just ran 10 miles I can eat whatever I want..." By November, I was eating lots of candy/sweets and fast food. I said goodbye to all those vegetables/fruits I used to have so much of in my on-season diet. And the UC symptoms came back that December. It slowly appeared.

Unfortunately, I ignored it and since it was finals time I did not go make any appointments with any doctors. Long story short: I ended up in the hospital in pain. I was there for 4 days and was diagnosed with pancolitis via colonoscopy.

I've been recovering since then. For the past month, my BM have become regular (once a day at the SAME TIME) and I've been eating very healthy: nothing but carbs/protein/light vegetables.
But even though it has been regular, I still had urgency and I couldn't eat hard vegetables like cabbage/celery/etc. and I get bloating/gas all the time.

THAT all changed 5 days ago when I got myself some probiotics. I read online that Pearl Probiotics have helped people with IBS. I was skeptical but I tried it anyway. Day 1 was terrible; I had diarrhea and lots of gas. But I read that it was common to have an "adjustment" period. By day 3 I was feeling much, much better.

Now it has been almost a week. I can eat a lot more vegetables now (celery/cabbage/lettuce)! My BMs are solid and very regular (still once a day, same time every morning). No blood, no nothing. And the urgency has gone down considerably.

I've been told that ulcerative colitis happens irregardless of diet/lifestyle. But I suspect here that it was my terrible diet that caused this imbalance of bacteria in my gut and brought out this illness. The fact that this little bit of probiotics could help so much is just hard to believe. Just 1 billion CFU! If my case of "UC" turns out to be something I can control with a healthy diet and a little bit of probiotics, I would be extremely happy. *I would promise to never go back to my unhealthy diet ever again. Ever.*

I guess my question for anyone reading this is: was there a cause or suspected reason for your case of UC? Also, have you found any success with probiotics?

Thanks so much!!

Oh, as for medications, I've been on 3.6 grams of Liadla since March; that hasn't changed.
Posted 8/12/2012 5:54 PM (GMT -5)
"I've been told that ulcerative colitis happens irregardless of diet/lifestyle."

Oh hell no! Do not trust whoever told you this! You technically still "have" the disease, but there are many, many people who control their UC and remain in remission through certain diets and probiotics. From your description, it sounds exactly like ulcerative colitis. Especially if they scoped you - it's almost impossible that they would have misdiagnosed you as having ulcerative colitis if they got an up-close and personal look at your colon via colonoscopy; you can actually see the ulcerations along the lining of the colon. No other condition mimics this (except Crohn's, which is worse than UC). IBS can sometimes have similar symptoms, but it never causes inflammation, bleeding, or ulcers.

My UC was always very manageable for many years, but my worst couple of flares have always come after an extended time of extreme stress and taking really crappy care of myself (including eating fast food almost every day).

It sounds like you are fairly young, and this disease tends to start off easier to control in the beginning... and then usually progresses over the years until you need more serious treatments later in life. If you can control your symptoms through diet and probiotics then count yourself lucky - take it and run with it as long as you can, LOL.

The biggest thing you need to know about UC is that everybody responds differently to different treatments: what works wonders for one person might make someone else worse. There is no one treatment out there that works for everybody, so it's all about experimenting until you find something that works for you. And the golden rule of this disease is: If you find something that works, STICK WITH IT!!! Until it stops working.

Good luck, and let us know how the GI appointment goes.
Posted 8/12/2012 7:15 PM (GMT -5)
I wish that were the case since probiotics and digestive enzymes really help me!
Posted 8/12/2012 7:46 PM (GMT -5)

tx213 said...


I guess my question for anyone reading this is: was there a cause or suspected reason for your case of UC? Also, have you found any success with probiotics?

Thanks so much!!

Oh, as for medications, I've been on 3.6 grams of Liadla since March; that hasn't changed.

Hey good for you, for finding some success in supplementing with probiotics! I had the same reaction initially when I started VSL#3 (a probiotic made for Ulcerative Colitis) -no gas, no bloating for a few weeks, but then both started up again. Gas has since been controlled for me, but bloating I'm still figuring out.

That's so funny you would train and run like crazy and then go straight to McCdonalds! Lol, sounds like you need to keep a few Chocolate Milk's or protein shakes by your side to stop short on the cravings! I'm the same way, with sweets.

To answer your question, for me, colitis has been a weird experience. I've NEVER had a few symptoms that many experience (loss of appetite, accidents or bad,bad flare ups).

Instead, I've lost some weight, crave alot of sweets, and had lab testing done which determined yeast overgrowth/parasite, for the possible reason of my auto-immune. But yeast is hard to rid the body of, takes time.

Good luck to you, I'm also 22, trying to stay fit and taking the functional medicine route as much as possible. :)
Posted 8/13/2012 6:36 AM (GMT -5)
tx213, I find good control over my UC with diet. I still have a long way ahead of me but so far so good. I'm doing the so called SCD diet. It's quite similar to what you're doing. Once in a while I "cheat" on my diet, taking enzymes supplements. But mainly I'm staying with SCD. It helped me getting of steroids without seeing blood and mucus coming back.

Keep it up. All the best for you.
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