Anyone have Ulcerative Colitis?

I was diagnosed with UC a few days ago, trying to learn more about it. I understand the disease manifests itself differently for everyone, but if anyone has advice on what worked for them(or what didn’t), I’d appreciate the information. I’m hoping my case remains less severe, but it sounds as though it can end up being a brutal disease.

The doctors thought I had this until a few days ago, now it is officially full blown Chrons disease.

How did they diagnose it? Good luck, I hope you can keep it under control.

They did some blood work and junk. I have to go in for a colonoscopy come next week. Eff that junk. How did you find out about your UC?

Sorry to hear about both your cases. I was diagnosed with UC about 1.5 years ago. Had all the symptoms for awhile but thought it was just a stomach problem that would go away. Finally got to the point where I couldn’t eat anything, not even water, and keep it down. Lost 40 lbs (175 to 135 in just a few weeks).

In and out of the hospital for about a month, finally in the last time for 7 days until I could actually eat again. Was started on Prednisone and gradually lowered off after a few month, taking Asacol daily since original diagnosis along with rowasa enemas when needed.

I didnt work 5 months after getting out of the hospital and was lucky enough to just focus on getting better, being able to eat, and slowly got back into putting weight on and going to the gym again - def put things in perspective when 1 bodyweight squat was an accomplishment).

Eric Cressey’s Maximum Strength really helped me and over the next 4-5 months; was able to put all my weight back on and have kept it on since.

Over the last year I’ve just been monitoring my UC daily, reading everything I can on it, and trying to figure out what works best for me. Been eating a lot of poached eggs on potato bread, turkey sandwiches, seedless fruits and easily digestible vegetables - staying away from red meats, spicy foods, and stringy fruits/vegetables.

Flameout, Curcumin, Leucine, Rhodiola Rosea, Superfood, and Surge have seemed to help (was also taking Flameout, Surge, Metabolic Drive prior to the UC). A probiotic, greens powder supp have also helped. It’s hard to recommend any one specific thing cause symptoms and each person’s case seem to be so unique but I would say that if you try new things to add only one at a time to see how you react after a few weeks.

I just try to create the best digestive environment possible and will definitely see the results good or bad almost instantly. Eat slowly, try to relax when I eat, always aware of each food/drink I take in.

Other than that I just try to live my life. It helps me to plan out the next 3 hours to know what to eat or where I might be to avoid any surprises. Keeping stress levels under control really helps.

Talking with other people with UC helps me too (probably why I wrote this long post) and knowing that there are prof athletes with it helps too. David Garrard and Rolf Berniershka {sp} have it too.

Hope this has helped in any way. Please feel free to ask any questions if you want. Hope you feel better. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

[Had both the colonoscopy and endoscopy. Blood results and biopsy confirmed the UC.]

I’ve had crohn’s for 10 years, or what they called “Indeterminant crohn’s” which means they couldn’t really identify if it were crohn’s or colitis. they finally just started calling it just plain crohn’s like 4 or 5 years ago. Since 7th grade, I’ve been through the whole gamut of bullshit. Nothing ever worked for more than a month, and I’d done everything. Sulfasalzine, asacol, 6mp (imurine), remicaid (4 hour long infusions, twice a month), and the latest one I was on was Humira (subcutaneous injections, every two weeks). There were a shit ton more, but I can’t remember all of them. some of them were extraordinarily expensive, and none of them worked.

I’ve had just about every digestive test known to man, the barium swallow, radiological imaging of my tract, the one where they put die into your IV and watch whatever it is supposed to do, colonoscopy, endoscopy, the whole kit and kabootle. multiple hospital stays, sometimes exceeding 10 days, tons of complete bullshit diets, that also never worked (and I followed them to the letter).

about 2 or 3 years ago, I just up and quit. I stopped going to doctors and stopped all my meds cold turkey. I quit going to blood tests, and have really completely stopped going to doctors. I figured they had 9 years to dick around and try and figure some shit out, and failed. My turn.

I found a book called “Patient Heal thyself” (check it out, even if your disease is under control) its about Jordan Rubin, who is someone you should familiarize yourselves with if you got the disease. He basically had the same case as myself, doctors all over the world, tons of bogus “remedies” and nothing worked, until he took shit into his own hands.

I will say that you guys are lucky to be bodybuilding, or at least lifting if you’re on this site. That means that you already should have a fairly decent knowledge of nutrition, and if you don’t, get one. DIET IS EVERYTHING with this curse. All the diets they will give you at the hospital are all bullshit. they are all loaded with simple sugars, which is inflammatory, and therefore does not help an inflammatory disease heal. Basically, eat like a caveman. eat meat, nuts, and fruits and vegetables. pretty much just don’t eat anything a caveman wouldn’t have. its that simple. supplement your diet with probiotics ESPECIALLY after a cycle of antibiotics, which will be common, as they will put you on flagyl for any reason (or no reason at all, it doesn’t matter).

Lifting really helped me recover from this. I don’t know why it did, or how, I just know it worked. Everytime I quit lifting, I’d start to get worse, slowly but surely. So I just started again, and never quit.

I could sit here and type about this for hours, and since I’ve already given you a short novel, I’d leave you with my advice:

LEARN! you MUST take responsibility for your own health. Learn everything you can about your body, and your digestive system. Learn everything you can about nutrition. If the doctors methods work, great! more power to you, but one day they may end up in a quagmire, and you better have some knowledge to fall back on.

Know your body. Certain things might just piss your colon off. I’ll use myself as an example, when I’m in remission, which I have been lately, I can eat any dairy product but milk. Ice cream, cheese, sour cream, butter, yogurt, whatever, But I cannot handle a glass of plain milk. (lactaid works) All you have to do is find foods don’t work, and put them on a “foods to never eat again, under any circumstances” list. so far, the only thing on my list after 10 years is turkey bacon.

Know your surroundings. by the time the next year comes to an end, you WILL know where EVERY bathroom in you home town is. It will get to a point where you will know which bathrooms are available in the area, and you may even prefer a certain one because it is typically cleaner. (sound dumb? 10 years with this shit changes you, man)

Bring a backpack. Everywhere I go, I have my backpack. it has a bunch of stuff in it, that I may or may not need on a daily basis, but I’ll tell you what it ALWAYS has in it: A change of pants and a fresh pair of boxers, and some baby wipes, and a trash bag.

So there you go guys. Hope I could be a little bit helpful. If you have any questions at all about the disease, how to deal with it, or even how to deal with it as a bodybuilder, lay them on me, I’d be more than happy to help you guys out.

I have had it for a few years. I lost about 25 pounds the first few months i had it, then my weight kind of stabilized. I had it for about 2 years before I went to the doctor which was stupid of me. I pretty much knew i had crohn’s or UC and since i knew there was no cure and everyone who suffered from it on the internet seemed to be so negative about the medications that it seemed pointless to pay a bunch of money for very little reward.

After about 2 years i had a really bad flare up which resulted in severe arthritis and enthesitis. The diarrhea i could handle, but the pain i couldn’t so i finally went to the doctor. I did a 10 day cycle of prednisone which worked amazingly well for me. Pain was almost totally gone after a few days and diarrhea was improving. They confirmed my diagnosis with a colonoscopy and prescribed asacol.

At first asacol didn’t help, and as soon as i got off prednisone, the pain, swelling and diarrhea came back so i went on a second cycle of prednisone (3 months this time, tapering down slow). My GI doc upped my asacol, and everything got better. This time after i got off prednisone my symptoms didn’t come back. Since then all i have had to take is asacol, and i am nearly normal again.

I can eat whatever i want most of the time, and have gained back the majority of the weight that i lost. I really wish i had started taking medicine earlier because it worked much better for me then i heard that it would and i wasted about 2 years looking anorexic, but i guess everyone is different.

One thing i have learned is that i absolutely cannot take ibuprofen. I blame advil for the major flare i had about a year ago. I had a little wrist and low back pain, so i took advil to cover up the pain. In the short term it worked, but i kept needing stronger and stronger doses to handle the pain because it was making my stomach worse and worse, until i couldn’t take it any more and had to go to the doctor.

I am very fortunate to have good insurance because there is no way i could afford to pay the $500 dollars a month my asacol actually costs. If you have good insurance and your life is being significantly affected I would definitely at least try asacol or whatever they prescribe. If your not having too bad of problems then maybe you can get by without. For me i am afraid if i stop taking asacol i will be back to having 10-20 bowel movements per day again instead of the 2-3 i have now.

I am going on 15 years now with UC, diagnosed in 1995. I remember I started getting symptoms in December of 94, when we were preparing to play Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl. I had lots of blood in the stool, and bad stomach pain. Started off with Asulfasalazine, then Asacol, then prednisone, then Methotrexate, then Cyclosporin, then 6-MP. Then it was time for me to have some intestine removed. Nothing else worked, and I was very sick. Its a really fucked up illness, since no specific cause has been determined, and I have yet to see any medication help it realistically. I have had a total of 14 surgeries since 96. I think you just gotta find a way to live with it, and get through it.

Wow, thanks for the responses. Did any of your cases get worse over time? It seems like I have a very minor case, seeing as my symptoms are just bloody stools. I thought it was nothing for the few month or so, but finally decided it should be checked out.

During my colonoscopy my doctor biopsied an imflamed area and removed a polyp(which turned out pre-cancerous, very rare for a 21 year old). I’m paying more attention to reactions I have from food, hoping to find any that may cause flareups. I appreciate all the advice. My goal is to understand as much as I can about the disease to take all the right steps to prevent the UC from spreading to the rest of the colon.

I’m taking Apriso at the moment, which is supposed to reduce imflamation. I’m of the opinion diet is going to be the key factor in obtaining remission, and the remaining in remission. I wish all of you the best of luck.

well you are already miles ahead of anyone who is counting on doctors. Keep you diet in check, find out what does and doesn’t work for you, and you should be able to avoid the doctors office altogether. which, in my mind, is a good thing.

also, damn maximus? 14 surgeries? that sucks. makes me glad I’ve never had to get cut over this stupid disease, worst I’ve had was a mickey button.

[quote]WannabeBigBoy wrote:
Wow, thanks for the responses. Did any of your cases get worse over time? It seems like I have a very minor case, seeing as my symptoms are just bloody stools. I thought it was nothing for the few month or so, but finally decided it should be checked out.

Yeah, I would say that things got worse. Looking back I had symptoms of UC (bloody stool)for 2-3 years before I was actually diagnosed with UC. Originally thought that the blood was just from doing heavier squats/deadlifts at the time since I didn’t have other stomach problems. Moved to NYC for a couple of years and continued to have the blood off and on. Had a colonoscopy but that doctor didn’t find anything.
I agree with the advice to watch what you eat and how you react. You will be your best advocate for your own health. The doctors/dietician told me to eat the same foods that I had been eating before I got sick. Research, read, post things here and just be aware of what works. All the best in getting out in front of this thing. It is a daily/hourly awareness for me but I’m trying to not be it’s victim or let it prevent me from living. Also, control stress! Probably the biggest factor for me in regards to an flare up.

Also, anyone else have any problems with taking Metabolic Drive? I had been taking it for the last few years, just stopped last week and noticed an improvement in stomach pain and stool quality. I know its high quality stuff but it just might not have been the best for me. Thanks to everyone else for posting.
Reading about what everyone else has gone through really helps. Best of health to everyone in 2010

I had a colonoscopy and esophagogastroduodenoscopy in December. Scoped both ends at one time. Removed tummor from stomach and small polyp deep on other end. Biopsy showed microscopic colitis. It took some weeks to get some strength back.

Now (March/April) I had a flare up and you could see blood in the diarhea. Lost 10 lbs in a couple of days. I was at the gym and normally walk on the treadmill to warm up (15 deg angle at 2.2 speed for 15 min) by the time I got to 6 min I thought “I am not going to make it to 15 min”. I managed somehow and stood around panting for about 30 min afterwards. I did some single arm dumbell presses and had to hold onto the Smith machine afterwards and suck air. I had a Sigmoidoscopy done and it took the GI doc all of 3 seconds to say I had full blown ulcerative colitis he could see the inflamation and the ulcers.

Just before the flare up I hit an easy PR in the deadlift (helps if that day’s training partner has a Westside Barbell t-shirt on). I was also near a max on bench. Not bad for 51 yr old.

I must have lost a lot of blood to the porcelain god…

Any ideas on how to workout with low blood. It is killing me mentally.