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Hello everyone newly diagnosed with ulcerative colitis

Hey I'm 18 years old I found out less than a month ago I have ulcerative colitis. After spending a month complaining of blood in my stools and pain I headed off to the doctors only to be told "its a cut causing the blood" nothing to worry about. They said the cause of diarrhoea will just be a tummy bug that will pass. It didn't pass, my bowel movements kept getting worse so did the pain. So off I went back to the doctors, this time around they thought it was a parasite. After stool tests came back clear but blood tests didn't I had my first colonoscopy which was originally just meant to be a flexi sigmoidoscopy. The nurse tired to convince me to have this with no sedation. There was no way anyone was putting anything up there with me wide awake so I insisted on having sedation, which luckily I did because the doctor ended up preforming a colonoscopy. He later said I really must have been going over ten times a day because I didn't have the usual laxatives they give you to take the day before.

They put me on Pentasa 8 pills a day, which didn't help if anything made me feel worse. I am currently still on the Pentasa and 20 mg of Prednisone. I'm currently feeling a wee bit funny I guess you could say on the Prednisone but my bowel movements are definitely decreasing but the other side effects aren't that much fun. I've been getting quite a bit of joint pain, trouble sleeping, shaky hands. Not sure how long I will be on the Prednisone for but hopefully not much longer.

I'm so glad to have found this forum and know I'm not alone! :)
 
Welcome to the forum! I'm sorry to hear that you were diagnosed with UC but at least you have a clear answer instead of still searching for a diagnosis. On prednisone you are going to feel weird. I don't know if you have looked up any side effects but some of the more common ones are cloudy head, what I like to call it when you can't get your thoughts straight, puffy face, weight gain, etc. But it is different for everyone. I am on Pentasa too at the moment and I can say that it helped me when I first was put on it but now it is just pills that I take it really has no effect on me. It stopped taking effect after like 2 months I was on it so you may be experiencing the same thing.
The best advice I can give you right now is that the thing that is probably going to help you the most is changing your diet. It may be a big change to make but small ones at first really do help.
I hope you find all the answers you need on this site and that you are feeling better!
 
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