New to UC - Need Advice

Hi All. No feeling so money right now. Thanks for reading and thanks for the help / support.

I was diagnosed 1.5 years ago right before the birth of my son. I'm 37. I have no BM challenges or urgency, ever. Only blood on stool. I was put on Rowasa enemas and Lialda. The two together put me into remission after about 2-4 months. I went off of the enema and stayed on the pills. Everything was quiet for 7-8 mos. If I saw a touch of blood, I would use an enema and it would go away immediately. Two months ago, the bleeding started again seaming a bit heavier than I would expect. I am having trouble getting it to go away again. Been doing morning and night enemas as well as staying on the pills (4 x 1gm pills per day). I'm beginning to think that the meds no longer work. Yesterday, my Dr. prescribed me a Rowasa enema that has a small steroid added to it. I start that tomorrow. If no changes in 2 weeks, I get scoped again (yea!).

What I am looking for from this post are your thoughts, your advice on what I am experiencing in regards to the meds not working and the sudden relapse. Thanks.

-- moneymike

Thanks for the reply. Stress is high. I know it and I feel it and I am certain is a major factor. I am doing several things for this including working less, getting massages, and just trying to chill the f-out. As for diet, what foods do you avoid that help you get better? I know it may not be the same for me. I am not eating badly, I always eat well, but I am eating what I want and not eliminating things. Wondering what works for you so that I might take a closer look at what I am doing. Thanks.

That's a little different than the average story. I'm assuming you really do have UC. They must have caught yours early as most everyone has had BM challenges, urgency, blood, and diarrhea. The only advice I can give you is to keep nipping it in the bud before more damage is done to your colon. It is a very hard organ to heal since it is used constantly. Keeping stress under control can be very important. You may want to see if there is a hormone connection. Diet is trial and error. Many have had improvements using natural things. High dose probiotics often help. Good luck.

My diet changes were that I stopped eating fast foods and cut out a lot of dairy. Then I stopped eating a lot processed foods and foods with a lot of preservatives... that did help me. I look for more gluten free stuff and the packages that say no preservatives.. and more and more companies are coming out with preservative free stuff so it gets easier to find foods that are good but that won't cause you so much trouble... even TV Dinner types of foods are preservative free.
Good Luck!

Thank you.

I "started" like you, symptom wise, and attributed it to internal hemorrhoids... It blew up in the spring of 2011 with full blown D and the rest..

What ever you do, dont get off the maintenance meds (Im on asacol).. Cant speak for Lialda but its similar. Tapering the meds upon remission gave me this flare Im still trying to quell a year later.

I would investigate foods.. its a long learning process individually, but can make a difference. Its worth it to keep a *diligent detailed* food journal of *everything* you eat and drink- and your bms/other symptoms, daily.

There are many other threads here that follow up on various theories that may or may not pertain to you, welcome to your new homework.

What Im saying is, there may be certain foods to avoid, and certain dietary or supplemental things that can help keep things at bay. For you as an individual. Use them wisely and after research because the supplement world is a bottomless pit in which you throw money.

A few that may be worth lookin into:
L-threonine, methylfolate (as opposed to folic acid), curcumin. There are others also.

You can get things like gluten intolerance ruled out with simple tests also.

The goal is indefinite remission, and quelling conflagration. Once it gets bad, it seems to spiral from there, so even during good times, dont turn your back on it.

good luck.