Sister recently diagnosed (I was diagnosed 20+ years ago)

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this site and just stumbled upon it when doing a bit of online research. Just wanted to see if there are others out there who have UC, just like their sibling. I was diagnosed at 11 years old and my sister, who is 29, was diagnosed over the summer. It's been a surreal experience for the both of us. She was so young when I was diagnosed (she was 7) that she really didn't know much about it. Now she probably knows more than me. But it is great to have someone who we each trust that we can talk to about it all. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Also, because of this diagnosis, we've decided to start a blog chronicling our lives with ulcerative colitis/IBD and hopefully giving others the opportunity to find someone to talk to. Come check us out at www.gottago-IBD.com. Shameless plug, I know. But we really want to help people and we've found that there aren't really any ulcerative colitis blogs out there - Chron's seems to dominate.

That sucks. Do you have any ancestors with troubles?

My mom had UC and I have crohn's...it's unknown how IBD can pass through family but it's not uncommon by any means...ironically I got sick with my CD before my mom got sick with her UC (I was in my early 20's and she was in her mid 60's) but the bottom line is, I did get it as a result of her having it (genetically) it's just a matter of when one's IBD gets triggered and hers happend to get triggered after mine. None of my other siblings have it...yet, and may or may not ever get it...it's quite the puzzle this IBD thing.

It was nice in the sense to have someone in the family that had a complete understanding of how miserable living with IBD is, but at the same time sucked to have to share it with anyone, too bad it exists but what can you do....bittersweet I guess you could say.

Yep, my brother has UC - or had it. He had the J-pouch I think in 1995 or around there. He was diagnosed I think in 1993 and I was diagnosed just a year after that when I started having symptoms as well.  While he pretty much never had remission from the time he was diagnosed, I had a 10 year remission and have mostly had small flares other than my very first flare and the one I am trying to get over now. 

I do remember when I was diagnosed, he would call me all the time. I guess we felt like we were the only two people that understood what the other was going through.  Certainly nobody in our family really understood what it was all about at the time. 

Back when we were diagnosed they were still trying to determine if it was a hereditary thing. Now they know that there is a relation. Things sure have changed!

oh boy, it's the shiiity sisters


this crap sucks - sorry -

I would be interested in finding out if there is a difference between having UC and then having kids or having kids first and then getting UC later on (for children who come down with UC and one of their parents have UC). I'm hoping that, in my case anyway, my kids have a better chance of never coming down with it because my UC didn't develop until after I already had kids. I don't think there are any studies on this.