Hey everyone I'm new here. I was hoping to keep this short but medical histories are hard to condense. Basically, I was diagnosed with UC/Crohn's but the symptoms don't really add up for me.
I was diagnosed with UC (or some type of IBD) in May 2007 by my local GI doctor and put on Asacol. In July 2007 I was experiencing severe pain in my front-right abdomen and after going to the Mayo Clinic I was diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC) in the liver and an "indeterminate IBD" that was in remission. I was kept on Asacol and given Ursodiol for the liver. Within months the Ursodiol completely reversed my liver condition and my liver enzymes went back to normal limits. Between 2007 and 2009 I was also very active in Taekwondo in addition to taking my meds and I felt pretty good aside from some occasional heartburn.
Around April/May 2011 I was experiencing severe pain in my front-right abdomen again and it ended up being gall-stones stuck in a diseased gall-bladder, so I had that taken out ASAP. A month later I was in California for a two-month intensive foreign language program and I felt fine, aside from being gassy after meals. On the positive side I could pass the gas easily and my bowel movements were quite regular.
In May-July 2012 I was in Japan for another language program for a month, still on my medication, but I felt better than I ever have. It was probably the food and daily walking, but my bowel movements were very regular, I experienced no pain and only had heartburn once (probably wasn't used to the soft-boiled eggs in ramen at first).
After going to Japan, in August, I had something that I would call a "flare up" but it wasn't really a typical nightmare flare up. Come to think of it, I have never really had a flare up at all until then. 30 minutes to an hour after eating lunch I would have emergency bowel movements that weren't quite diarrhea but weren't normal either. No pain, no bleeding, just emergency evacuations. Then they stopped. For all I know I could have just had difficulty re-adjusting to American food.
During this psuedo-flare-up I was also having severe, debilitating heartburn that felt like an alien trying to claw its way out of my chest. This, I discovered, was actually the Asacol! I stopped taking Asacol for a few weeks and had no heartburn. None. Tried Asacol again and 10 minutes after my first dose the alien came back. I tried talking to my GI doctor about all this and he just tried switching me to Apriso, which is practically the same thing as Asacol and will probably give me the same heartburn if I took it, which I won't because I can't afford the $320 per month price tag anyway.
In conclusion, I have been off Asacol for 5 months, I have been off of Ursodiol for about the same if not a little more, and I've been taking probiotic, eating a carton of yogurt every day, and adding more organic vegetables to my diet, and nothing seems to be wrong with me. I eat lots of Korean food, which is loaded with red chili pepper powder/paste, and it doesn't bother my stomach at all. My tongue is still having trouble though
I also noticed that when on Asacol I would rarely get gas and when I did, it would be trapped and cause acute pain. Now that I'm off Asacol I get gas on a fairly normal basis and it just passes without any effort.
My liver enzymes are normal as of last week. The only "symptoms" I have that could possibly be associated with UC/Crohn's are bloating, fatigue, and irregular bowel movements (one every two to three days). My stool is normal, so I think these "symptoms" are more a product of my current lifestyle (work online, classes online, don't really leave my computer chair). If I manage the motivation to get some regular exercise I'm sure all of those will get back to normal.
Looking back to 2007, and even before then, I have never had any issues with bloody stool, constant diarrhea, going to the bathroom multiple times a day, or any of the other tell-tale symptoms of IBD. The only sypmtom I really had was abdominal pain. So in the end, how feasible is it that I was completely misdiagnosed? Could my gall-bladder have been diseased from the beginning, causing my whole gut to go off to the point where it appeared as though I had IBD? Or do I just have a very mild case of IBD?
I was diagnosed with UC (or some type of IBD) in May 2007 by my local GI doctor and put on Asacol. In July 2007 I was experiencing severe pain in my front-right abdomen and after going to the Mayo Clinic I was diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC) in the liver and an "indeterminate IBD" that was in remission. I was kept on Asacol and given Ursodiol for the liver. Within months the Ursodiol completely reversed my liver condition and my liver enzymes went back to normal limits. Between 2007 and 2009 I was also very active in Taekwondo in addition to taking my meds and I felt pretty good aside from some occasional heartburn.
Around April/May 2011 I was experiencing severe pain in my front-right abdomen again and it ended up being gall-stones stuck in a diseased gall-bladder, so I had that taken out ASAP. A month later I was in California for a two-month intensive foreign language program and I felt fine, aside from being gassy after meals. On the positive side I could pass the gas easily and my bowel movements were quite regular.
In May-July 2012 I was in Japan for another language program for a month, still on my medication, but I felt better than I ever have. It was probably the food and daily walking, but my bowel movements were very regular, I experienced no pain and only had heartburn once (probably wasn't used to the soft-boiled eggs in ramen at first).
After going to Japan, in August, I had something that I would call a "flare up" but it wasn't really a typical nightmare flare up. Come to think of it, I have never really had a flare up at all until then. 30 minutes to an hour after eating lunch I would have emergency bowel movements that weren't quite diarrhea but weren't normal either. No pain, no bleeding, just emergency evacuations. Then they stopped. For all I know I could have just had difficulty re-adjusting to American food.
During this psuedo-flare-up I was also having severe, debilitating heartburn that felt like an alien trying to claw its way out of my chest. This, I discovered, was actually the Asacol! I stopped taking Asacol for a few weeks and had no heartburn. None. Tried Asacol again and 10 minutes after my first dose the alien came back. I tried talking to my GI doctor about all this and he just tried switching me to Apriso, which is practically the same thing as Asacol and will probably give me the same heartburn if I took it, which I won't because I can't afford the $320 per month price tag anyway.
In conclusion, I have been off Asacol for 5 months, I have been off of Ursodiol for about the same if not a little more, and I've been taking probiotic, eating a carton of yogurt every day, and adding more organic vegetables to my diet, and nothing seems to be wrong with me. I eat lots of Korean food, which is loaded with red chili pepper powder/paste, and it doesn't bother my stomach at all. My tongue is still having trouble though
I also noticed that when on Asacol I would rarely get gas and when I did, it would be trapped and cause acute pain. Now that I'm off Asacol I get gas on a fairly normal basis and it just passes without any effort. My liver enzymes are normal as of last week. The only "symptoms" I have that could possibly be associated with UC/Crohn's are bloating, fatigue, and irregular bowel movements (one every two to three days). My stool is normal, so I think these "symptoms" are more a product of my current lifestyle (work online, classes online, don't really leave my computer chair). If I manage the motivation to get some regular exercise I'm sure all of those will get back to normal.
Looking back to 2007, and even before then, I have never had any issues with bloody stool, constant diarrhea, going to the bathroom multiple times a day, or any of the other tell-tale symptoms of IBD. The only sypmtom I really had was abdominal pain. So in the end, how feasible is it that I was completely misdiagnosed? Could my gall-bladder have been diseased from the beginning, causing my whole gut to go off to the point where it appeared as though I had IBD? Or do I just have a very mild case of IBD?
