My Battle With Ulcerative Colitis

I typically try not to post personal experiences here or post anything like that. I feel like my story and battle with ulcerative colitis can really help people so, I would like to share my battle with this.

You may not know what Ulcerative colitis is, it is a chronic immune disease. It is where your colon is inflamed and swollen and just completely filled with ulcers.

How Did I Get It?

This is kind of weird to explain. The doctors said I did nothing to cause this disease it just kind of showed up and started attacking me. Ulcerative colitis is commonly found in 20-year-old males. I was told it was pretty much luck of the draw.

I guess I had it for a few years before symptoms ever even started showing up. One day I started losing blood in my stool ( I thought it’s just hemorrhoid.) But it wasn’t the bleeding didn’t stop, I was barely eating, but spending over half of my day in the bathroom.

I ended up losing so much blood that I actually had a mini-stroke. On my brother's birthday. From here I had to stop working for a long while and move back in with my mom.

Kept Getting Worse

My symptoms kept getting worse and worse. I was seeing a specialist and they would prescribe me medication after medication. Nothing would work, I had to constantly end up in the hospital getting infusions.

It seemed like it was just too far gone. Several times I was told I don’t know how you are able to walk because your blood count is so low. I didn’t know either. I was in a horrible depression because I was doing what I was supposed to work but everything was going against me it seemed.

Time after time I was also told, I’m afraid if you don’t get admitted you won’t have time to save your life in a week's time. I was scared.

Had To Change What I Eat

When you have ulcerative colitis, you have to kind of watch what you eat. What you loved before may be one of your trigger foods that will cause a flare-up.

I never got my colon to relax it was always inflamed. No matter what I ate or did it never settled down.

Long Time

I had asked them to just take my colon out, that I was done with it but they wouldn’t listen to me. I fought it for over two years. All the doctors would want to do is colonoscopy after colonoscopy. I couldn’t get a job that well because I was constantly in the bathroom with a flare-up.

Constantly in fear of when symptoms would show up and make its presence known. I was always in pain with no energy. I stopped wanting to do anything because I was scared.

Well, just last week they finally took out my colon. I was very scared as it was basically my first surgery aside from one when I was a baby. I am thankful they did it and will update you in a few months on how things are going with that.