NCOT popping in.
The IRA (ileorectal anastomosis) is a better procedure for those who don't have IBD, e.g. FAP patients. But if you have IBD, it's just a disaster waiting to happen. When I had the stoma, I passed mucus from my rectum daily, blood occasionally, and suffered from rectal discomfort (albeit not severely). I had a sigmoidoscopy which showed colitis. The biopsies were supposedly negative for Crohn's and it was diagnosed as diversion colitis, but now I wonder about
that, considering how quickly the Crohn's came back after reversal.
My only worry in your case is that 'rectal sparing' (as the jargon has it) is a sign of Crohn's colitis than UC. UC virtually always affects the rectum and then spreads upwards: with Crohn's it tends to be the other way round. (But that said, rectal meds can sometimes heal the rectum whilst leaving colitis elsewhere.) I am not saying you have Crohn's, however; far from it. One other possibility is that you have indeterminate colitis which is somewhere in between UC and Crohn's colitis. But most IC cases are closer to UC than Crohn's and therefore it's (usually) okay to have a j-pouch if you have IC.
This may be too long and technical, I dunno, but here is an article about
IC if you're interested:
/www.nature.com/articles/modpathol2014131