Kenvh, my symptoms are pretty similar to yours when I'm flaring. I get a lot of diarrhea (10, 20, sometimes even 30+ times per day). Abdominal pain, especially in the lower abdomen - feels like it's mainly in the colon. Lots of cramps, urgency, nausea. Dizziness and weakness, and fatigue. I get night sweats, sometimes I have blood in the stool, unintentional weight loss, being woken in the night with pain or urgency. I also have extra intestinal manifestations, in particular I have arthritis in both hips.
Yes, I definitely will get another calprotectin test done next time I flare. I don't want to test it again right away because I'm still on steroids from my flare that started last year in August - I'm on prednisone and having a hard time coming off of it. Budesonide worked well for me for multiple flares over the past few years but then it didn't work for my flare that started last year. I ended up being hospitalized back in August because I had lost 17 lbs in a month and I wasn't able to digest anything - even eating one banana sent me running to the bathroom 10+ times. It was the most severe flare I've ever had, and I think budesonide just wasn't strong enough for it. So at that point they hospitalized me for 5 days, they put me on IV steroids and a liquid elemental diet, and when I was discharged I did the liquid elemental diet for 2 weeks and went from IV steroids to oral prednisone. I'm doing a lot better now than I was but I'm still struggling to get off of pred. I had started at 40 mg and I'm down to 6.5 mg now so I'm getting there, slowly but surely.
Fitness update: I didn't lift weights at all but I did take several walks during the long weekend. I also did some yard work which was pretty exhausting. I'm hoping to get back into lifting weights at some point this week. It's looking like more rain for a good chunk of the week, so I'll try to get out for walks when the weather cooperates, but I might be stuck indoors for the most part. I might get my rowing machine out, it's a bit taxing on the abdominal muscles which can in turn make my guts unhappy, but it's usually okay as long as I don't overdo it. Sometimes I'll just do rowing for 20 minutes or so while I'm watching TV in the evenings, so I'm planning to start doing that again on days when it's rainy.
Carol, you'd be proud, I did a lot of sewing over the weekend.
A lot of it was just fixing things that needed repairing, which isn't very fun to sew so I had put it off and ended up with a rather large pile of stuff that needed repairs. So yesterday I sat myself down and just did a whole bunch of repairing. I hemmed a pashmina scarf that was fraying, I put patches in hubby's jeans that had holes, I fixed a couple of straps on tops and on a dress. I also made a couple of things new - I sewed hubby a new tote for grocery shopping, and I made myself a skirt. And I also went through my fabric and planned out what I'm going to sew next. Hubby's going to be out of town working at a convention for the entirety of this coming weekend, so I'll have a whole weekend to myself and I'm really looking forward to that. I'm going to do so much sewing and crocheting!
Hah, I'm such an introvert and I really look forward to having some alone time. I'm not going out, I'm not seeing friends nor family, I'm staying in and enjoying the blissful quiet. I surely will venture out to grocery shop and walk Lily, but that'll be about the only times I leave the house.