Intro:
I’m 32 years old and first saw a GI doctor 7 years ago as I was concerned about blood in my stool. I was diagnosed with IBD at this time. a year ago I decided to see him again as the blood was back along with minor pain and fatigue. I was diagnosed at this time with UC and have had nothing but issues since.
My Ulcerative Colitis Medications:
I had taken Flagyl for inflammation and found this to work. I was taking multiple infusions of Prednisone while in the hospital and found this to help. I switched to 50mg of pills once a day by the time I left the hospital and slowly started to ween off it over the next month. I have also had 3 infusions of Remicade since and think it’s starting to work but only now that I started taking 40mg of Prednisone along with it last week. the Prednisone is definitely not fun as I am not a pleasure to be around but it seems to keep my inflammation in check along with the Remicade.
Now For my story:
I had a colonoscopy done along with a barium enema and was told the bleeding is from hemmoroids and sorry about your luck you have Ulcerative Colitis and this is for the rest of your life and there is no cure. my GI doctor prescibed Salofalk, a rectal enema. this only made me feel worse after trying it for 2 weeks. I was not given a very good explanation of what this disease was or what else can be done about it so I basically carried on with the fact I had a “bad gut” and just deal with it as I always had. Over the past year the blood was becoming more prominent and fatigue was becoming a major factor. the pain was also becoming a lot more severe in my lower left side. I play soccer and hockey and consider myself a pretty active person who has always been in shape, but this was really starting to affect all aspects of my life. I then gave a Naturopath a chance and after spending hundreds of dollars on different supplements I actually started to feel better. this went on for about six months and slowly stopped working. I was also a smoker and finally decided it was time to quit. What a mistake! After quiting smoking in the beginning of July I started a massive flare up and slowly started to become immobilized. I could not leave the house for any summer events or family time. the pain was too much and was going to the bathroom around 30 times a day. by the time I admitted myself to the hospital in mid-August I had lost over 20 pounds in two weeks and was very frail and pale. I spent over 3 weeks in the hospital and almost had emergency surgery when i arrived as my colon almost ruptured. at this time I was also diagnosed as Anemic. I am home now and am still not at work and am still experiencing pain and fatigue and am on Remicade and Prednisone. I have since changed to a great GI specialist out of St. Pauls Hospital in Vancouver, BC where I live.
My wife and I are now looking at all the different diet options as I am still trying to figure out all my “trigger” foods. the more we browse on-line the more confusing it gets as there are a lot of contradicting stories and foods. I realize everyone is different but some just doesn’t make sense. my major issue right now is getting over the Anemia as this seems to be really putting a damper on my life. I can deal with the pain and constant bowel movements but not having the energy to drive to the store and back is brutal. I need iron and am taking supplements but some of these diets say red meat is bad and some say it is good.
What is a diet that can work for someone who is Anemic and is recovering from a severe case of UC?