Yeah, they tested me for c diff, salmonella, campylobacter, basically all of the major bacterial infections. All negative. I can ask my GP about it tomorrow. The diarrhea has slowed significantly (today I'm up to 4 times) and far less watery. But it is still there. And it is disconcerting that I'm not more improved on 4 days of IV steroids and 4 days of 40 mg pred. Either it's the most stubborn flare ever or it's something else/more going on.
I'm sure that Lialda isn't the best maintenance med for me and I do probably need something stronger. That's a road block that I've run into from being undiagnosed, though. My GI is fairly confident that I have IBD, but he is also hesitant to use the heavy duty meds on a technically undiagnosed person, so mesalamine is basically all he's willing to offer me for maintenance. I don't know if I can convince him that I need something stronger now that I've had this flare. I can try.
I've had a symptom which is interesting. So back in 2009 when I first got sick, that's when I first started having migraines. Never had them before in my life. And they'd always start with an aura, always on the right side, and then the head pain and nausea would start maybe 15-20 minutes later (it was never super severe head pain or nausea, it was always tolerable) and also sensitivity to light & sound. My GI put me on amitriptyline 25 mg and that basically stopped the migraines, I'd get maybe 1 every couple of years (rather than 1-2 per month).
So, fast forward to this year. I went to Japan in April and I got a migraine aura my first full day there - but no head pain, no nausea, no actual migraine following the aura. I figured it was just because the timing of my amitriptyline was messed up (I take it at bedtime but bedtime in Japan is 14 hours different than what it is in the US). Well, just last week, in the hospital on Friday a few hours before being discharged, I had another aura, but once again no actual migraine accompanying it. Today, I've had 2 auras which I've never had before. That's super weird. I had one on the left side a few hours ago, and just now I had one on the right side. I don't know what's causing this - I presume it's a flare thing since migraines came into my life along with IBD? Or maybe it's that my body is getting a ratio of vitamins that it's not used to from the Vivonex and that's doing it? Or is it the pred? I really have no idea. Nothing in this flare makes any sense to me, I'm just lost.