- Joined
- Nov 26, 2012
- Messages
- 24
This is a x-post from the MC thread.. sorry... "introduced" myself there...
Hello :::::waving::::: very informative site here. Let me introduce myself.
I'm 29 years old. Just dx'ed with lymphocytic colitis. A little background story.
I have always had a "sensitive stomach". Ever since I was a teen, I had loose stools. I remember being a teen at my boyfriend's house and hollaring at him to turn the music up since he had a bathroom adjoining his bedroom, lol. I never really thought much of it. You learn how to cope, what not to eat, or rather, what you shouldn't eat in order to avoid problems. I also had eczema really bad. Fast forward years of dealing with the same stuff. I got pregnant at 19 with my eldest daughter, now 9. Symptoms were completely gone. It was great. Of course they came back after I gave birth to her. In 2004 I started with some vicious foot pain, which was diagnosed as psoriatic arthritis a year later due to a +HLA-B27, +ANA, -RF, and dactylitis. Treated with a round of prednisone, and all was good. Now I know it wasn't PsA...A year later I was pregnant with #2, and again, symptoms went away. Of course, after that one was born, whoa! Symptoms came back, eczema, diarrhea, everything. A couple months after I weaned her (13 months old- 2008) I started with something interesting. Whenever I would get my cycle I would get excrutiating intestinal pain. It was like everything south of my diaphragm was on fire. My abdomen would be sensitive to the touch. Horrible diarrhea with it- in addition to what I was already experiencing. Went to OB/GYN, she said it was probably prostaglandins, and gave my OCP's. They helped, but it wasn't perfect. In early 2011, I began with RUQ pain after I ate. I work for a rheumatologist, and she told that your liver & gallbladder are in that area when I asked her what was "over there". I am no fool, put 2 and 2 together, and hightailed it to the GI. Long story short I had biliary dyskinesia, 0%EF, and got that bad boy removed. I was SO relieved. I thought that the gallbladder must have been the problem all along! Wrong. Nothing got better, still with the diarrhea. I lost about 8 pounds of bloat, and that was it.
I have been dealing with these symptoms for over half my life at this point. About early/mid-October this year things got rough. I started having 6-10 loose stools a day, and then on October 12th things got really bad. Copious, watery stools all day long. I knew I wasn't "sick". No fever. This was no GI bug. Everything I ate came right back out. And I was terribly thirsty. The more water I drank the more I moved my bowels. And I wasn't urinating. I knew something was terribly wrong. And the pain, oh the pain. It was terrible. That Monday at work we had lunch with a pharmaceutical rep- our Humira rep, ironically. I have known her for almost 5 years, and we have lunch together almost monthly. She knew when I didn't eat my brownie first, something was wrong, lol. I confessed to her & the doctor what was going on, and they strongly advised me to go to a GI, as she knew my past medical history with the "psoriatic arthritis", which is a diagnosis I threw out about 3 years ago. I ended up losing 12 pounds in those first 14 days. 10 days later I was in the office & the doctor agreed that I needed to be checked for IBD's based on my history & current symptoms. And, the gut pain during my cycle came back with a vengence. I had my scope on November 16th. I almost cancelled it because my symptoms weren't so much acute any more, but were more of the chronic type that I was accustomed to. I am glad I didn't! The scope came back clean and I have a follow up appointment with her on December 5th. I always keep a folder of important medical testing that could be helpful in the future- mainly radiology & lab results. I sent a release form from work today to my GI office requesting my labs, and they sent everything- including my path results that I hadn't seen. There were so many papers I almost missed it. I was more concerned with checking my kidney function results, etc. I happened to see the form at the back of the stack, and glanced over it and was like "WOAH!". The path came back as Lymphocytic Colitis! So, here I am.
I look forward to meeting with the doctor next week, and figuring out where we go from here. I am also planning on speaking with her regarding my 9 year old daughter, who has chronic diarrhea & abdominal pain. She was worked up at 2 at Children's in DC, but the sigmoidoscopy & EGD came back clean, so we just chalked it up to her coming from a small family, and her having "mommy's stomach".
Hello :::::waving::::: very informative site here. Let me introduce myself.
I'm 29 years old. Just dx'ed with lymphocytic colitis. A little background story.
I have always had a "sensitive stomach". Ever since I was a teen, I had loose stools. I remember being a teen at my boyfriend's house and hollaring at him to turn the music up since he had a bathroom adjoining his bedroom, lol. I never really thought much of it. You learn how to cope, what not to eat, or rather, what you shouldn't eat in order to avoid problems. I also had eczema really bad. Fast forward years of dealing with the same stuff. I got pregnant at 19 with my eldest daughter, now 9. Symptoms were completely gone. It was great. Of course they came back after I gave birth to her. In 2004 I started with some vicious foot pain, which was diagnosed as psoriatic arthritis a year later due to a +HLA-B27, +ANA, -RF, and dactylitis. Treated with a round of prednisone, and all was good. Now I know it wasn't PsA...A year later I was pregnant with #2, and again, symptoms went away. Of course, after that one was born, whoa! Symptoms came back, eczema, diarrhea, everything. A couple months after I weaned her (13 months old- 2008) I started with something interesting. Whenever I would get my cycle I would get excrutiating intestinal pain. It was like everything south of my diaphragm was on fire. My abdomen would be sensitive to the touch. Horrible diarrhea with it- in addition to what I was already experiencing. Went to OB/GYN, she said it was probably prostaglandins, and gave my OCP's. They helped, but it wasn't perfect. In early 2011, I began with RUQ pain after I ate. I work for a rheumatologist, and she told that your liver & gallbladder are in that area when I asked her what was "over there". I am no fool, put 2 and 2 together, and hightailed it to the GI. Long story short I had biliary dyskinesia, 0%EF, and got that bad boy removed. I was SO relieved. I thought that the gallbladder must have been the problem all along! Wrong. Nothing got better, still with the diarrhea. I lost about 8 pounds of bloat, and that was it.
I have been dealing with these symptoms for over half my life at this point. About early/mid-October this year things got rough. I started having 6-10 loose stools a day, and then on October 12th things got really bad. Copious, watery stools all day long. I knew I wasn't "sick". No fever. This was no GI bug. Everything I ate came right back out. And I was terribly thirsty. The more water I drank the more I moved my bowels. And I wasn't urinating. I knew something was terribly wrong. And the pain, oh the pain. It was terrible. That Monday at work we had lunch with a pharmaceutical rep- our Humira rep, ironically. I have known her for almost 5 years, and we have lunch together almost monthly. She knew when I didn't eat my brownie first, something was wrong, lol. I confessed to her & the doctor what was going on, and they strongly advised me to go to a GI, as she knew my past medical history with the "psoriatic arthritis", which is a diagnosis I threw out about 3 years ago. I ended up losing 12 pounds in those first 14 days. 10 days later I was in the office & the doctor agreed that I needed to be checked for IBD's based on my history & current symptoms. And, the gut pain during my cycle came back with a vengence. I had my scope on November 16th. I almost cancelled it because my symptoms weren't so much acute any more, but were more of the chronic type that I was accustomed to. I am glad I didn't! The scope came back clean and I have a follow up appointment with her on December 5th. I always keep a folder of important medical testing that could be helpful in the future- mainly radiology & lab results. I sent a release form from work today to my GI office requesting my labs, and they sent everything- including my path results that I hadn't seen. There were so many papers I almost missed it. I was more concerned with checking my kidney function results, etc. I happened to see the form at the back of the stack, and glanced over it and was like "WOAH!". The path came back as Lymphocytic Colitis! So, here I am.
I look forward to meeting with the doctor next week, and figuring out where we go from here. I am also planning on speaking with her regarding my 9 year old daughter, who has chronic diarrhea & abdominal pain. She was worked up at 2 at Children's in DC, but the sigmoidoscopy & EGD came back clean, so we just chalked it up to her coming from a small family, and her having "mommy's stomach".
It is good to have you hear. I am sorry to hear about all the pain and trouble you have been having and no idea what in the world was going on with yourself. It is always better to have a diagnosis than tons of mysterious symptoms and now like you say you can go and meet with your doctor and figure out what you need to do to stay healthy.
