How do you make sense of erratic symptoms?

[greenjericho]

My symptoms tend to be all over the map these past few weeks.

For example, on Sunday night I had the worst abdominal pain I've expierenced in a while followed by a BM with way too more blood than I was comfortable coming out of my body. I was on the verge of waking up my roommate in the middle of the night and asking him to take me to the hospital. Naturally, I called my doctor on Monday morning, he ordered me a blood test, and we are awaiting the results to see wether or not I should be admitted to the hospital. I also notified my teachers that I will be needing some time off of school to deal with the flare.

The problem (not so much a problem) is that the rest of Monday I have felt fine. I have very mild pain in my abdomen and a bit of fatigue, but nothing compared to yesterday. If my doctor phones me tomorrow should l just tell him that it was a false alarm? If I come in to class tomorrow looking fine and healthy I feel like I will lose the trust of my teachers and that they will think that I was just lying to them about having to go the hospital.

I guess, I am just having trouble dealing with the inconsistency of symptoms. Does anyone else have days where they feel like they are going to die followed by days where they feel completely normal? How do you keep a consistent schedule when the symptoms are so erratic and unpredictable? How do you communicate with your peers that the disease behaves in this way?

Any advice is appreciated

 

[Cat-a-Tonic]

For me, I've been journaling everything and that helps to make some sense of it. There are still times when symptoms seem to come on completely randomly, but usually I can trace it back to something I ate or a time of high stress or whatever. I journal everything I eat, how many bowel movements and what consistency, my weight, any other symptoms I have such as nausea, pain, etc and any meds that I take for those symptoms (like if I take a zofran for the nausea or imodium for the diarrhea, I make a note of what I took and what dosage). It's a little tedious writing everything down, but it is really helpful. If you're consistent with journaling, it should be helpful in figuring some things out. Good luck!

 

[ronroush7]

See what your doctor has to say before telling him it was a false alarm.

 

[greenjericho]

Thanks Tonic, journaling will definitely help me make sense of these symptoms, I'm gonna buy a journal just for that today.

And I agree ron, I will see what he has to say once he looks at the bloodtest before I mention anything.