Hello! I'm new to the forum and to the world of IBD and I guess here is the place to introduce myself.
I'm an 18 year old college student, and I've never had great digestive health. My paternal grandmother and my uncle both have Crohn's and I've followed the specific growth pattern of that side of the family to the letter, so I've always wondered if I might find that I had a similar problem.
This summer I was vacationing with my family when I started to have diarrhea and occasional vomiting. We thought it was just a stomach bug but it got worse over the next 24 hours and I started seeing blood in the stool. I went to a clinic there and they gave me anti-vomiting medication, told me to stay hydrated and go home to be checked out by my primary care physician (still a pediatrician).
By the time I got to see my pediatrician and she ordered blood tests , about a week had gone by, with no sign of diarrhea slowing. My tests came in with critically low potassium, and the nurse called to tell my parents to take me to the ER. The hospital admitted me that night and I was there for five days (the first hospital stay of my life!) and I had a colonoscopy on the second day which showed that I have ulcerative colitis through my entire colon.
To make a long story full of needles and clear liquids short, I was back at home, on a low-residue diet and doing well when I suddenly took a turn for the worse. I ended up back at the hospital for blood and fecal testing and they determined that I had contracted C. Diff while I was at the hospital. Now, a week later, I'm finally coming off the antibiotics, starting probiotics, and still on anti-inflammatories and steroids. I'm starting to feel more like myself again, but because of all this I've had to take a medical leave of absence from school and skip the semester. Due to a long and lovely history of depression and an association of that depression with my hometown, this is less than ideal.
Now that I'm starting to get past the initial flare, I'm trying to figure out how this is going to affect me in the long term. In the short term, I'm just bored of eating bland food! Does anyone have ideas for perking up the fish/bread/cheese diet? I seem to be tolerating milk products well and although I used to be a vegetarian, I'm lightening up on that in an effort to get enough protein without high-fiber beans.
I'm an 18 year old college student, and I've never had great digestive health. My paternal grandmother and my uncle both have Crohn's and I've followed the specific growth pattern of that side of the family to the letter, so I've always wondered if I might find that I had a similar problem.
This summer I was vacationing with my family when I started to have diarrhea and occasional vomiting. We thought it was just a stomach bug but it got worse over the next 24 hours and I started seeing blood in the stool. I went to a clinic there and they gave me anti-vomiting medication, told me to stay hydrated and go home to be checked out by my primary care physician (still a pediatrician).
By the time I got to see my pediatrician and she ordered blood tests , about a week had gone by, with no sign of diarrhea slowing. My tests came in with critically low potassium, and the nurse called to tell my parents to take me to the ER. The hospital admitted me that night and I was there for five days (the first hospital stay of my life!) and I had a colonoscopy on the second day which showed that I have ulcerative colitis through my entire colon.
To make a long story full of needles and clear liquids short, I was back at home, on a low-residue diet and doing well when I suddenly took a turn for the worse. I ended up back at the hospital for blood and fecal testing and they determined that I had contracted C. Diff while I was at the hospital. Now, a week later, I'm finally coming off the antibiotics, starting probiotics, and still on anti-inflammatories and steroids. I'm starting to feel more like myself again, but because of all this I've had to take a medical leave of absence from school and skip the semester. Due to a long and lovely history of depression and an association of that depression with my hometown, this is less than ideal.
Now that I'm starting to get past the initial flare, I'm trying to figure out how this is going to affect me in the long term. In the short term, I'm just bored of eating bland food! Does anyone have ideas for perking up the fish/bread/cheese diet? I seem to be tolerating milk products well and although I used to be a vegetarian, I'm lightening up on that in an effort to get enough protein without high-fiber beans.
