Living with ulcerative colitis

It was June 2005. I knew something was wrong with me, but I didn't know what.

My girlfriend at the time and I were walking hand-in-hand not too far from where she grew up. She was telling me stories of the mischief her and her friends got into in high school. A really nice summer evening. Suddenly my intestines felt like they were carrying a 3-pood kettlebell. I suddenly felt chills and panic. It looked like I saw the grim reaper.

I let go of Christine's hand and started to speed up my walking. "Christine, I'm sorry but I really need to find a bathroom. Now...."

After 2 harrowing minutes and a lot of Hail Mary's said on my part, we arrived at a coffee shop and I made it to the bathroom. Relief, at least for the next hour or so, until the next urgency attack hit again and the cycle continued. This was my life for the past few weeks, and I was now always tired and now losing weight. And it was affecting all areas of my life. I was interviewing at the time, and it's hard to make a good impression when you are always running to the bathroom (looks kinda shady). I was also getting up at night from bed to run to the bathroom, interrupting my sleep, and interrupting moments when well, we were not sleeping.


"Mike, you really need to go to the doctor...." Christine said to me once, very exasperated.

I was hoping that this was just a bug that would eventually go away, but it did not. My life at the time was craziness. As I mentioned, I was interviewing. At my "job" at the time as a researcher at a university where I was paid on a month-to-month basis from grants that didn't always come in. So I didn't get paid every month. What was worse was that I was writing the research proposals to get these grants so that was stressing me out. (I should add that my employer was NOT the bad guy here. When I took the position I was only supposed to be there for 2 years while I looked for a more permanent academic position, which was my goal at the time. As nothing materialized in my job search, I was allowed to stay longer, but only under those terms. As well, beggars can't be choosers, I accepted. I had made mistakes in my search, and it was MY fault AND MY FAULT ALONE for doing a poor job in planning a backup plan. I've gotten MUCH smarter now, especially with my finances.) I really couldn't afford medical treatment. My credit card debt was getting out of control. I wondered if the way I was feeling was just stress with my money worries and whatnot. Also, my diet wasn't the best in the world either at the time because I couldn't afford good food.


In the meanwhile, I tried all sorts of remedies at Whole Foods and GNC, 30 bucks at a time. Not cheap but what else could I do. Eventually I had to break down and go to my parents for help (really hard for me as I was self-reliant for most of my adult life) and go to the hospital. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune condition. What is basically happening is that my immune system has these crazy conspiracy theories and thinks that there is an enemy in the inner lining of my lower intestine, so it attacks, creating a lot of painful inflammation. Unfortunately, the condition lasts a lifetime--periods where the disease is active in flares, and when it is in remission and there are little to no symptoms. And there is no cure short of taking the large intestine out. Thanks in part to treatment though, I have it mostly managed but not entirely.

To manage my UC now, I've tried some weird stuff and some actually seems to work, to some extent. I now eat ginger root and cinnamon bark straight. I probably down more enteric-coated fish oil than you do. Not because I'm weird or I'm trying to start a new fad, but instead because I am trying to manage the condition. The aforementioned are fairly powerful anti-inflammatories and they somewhat alleviate the flare. I'm not sure if they will help keep me in remission, but I am sure that they can't hurt. When I am having an urgency attack and a bathroom is a ways away, I visualize a stream of cool blue laser light flowing down my large intestine soothing everything. I also remind myself that it's just a muscle contraction and it will pass.


Sometimes I still have flares. Serious flares can be scary. It's a lot more than just a lot of running to the bathroom, it is basically the immune system waging war on the rest of the body, with the lower intestine being the epicenter of it all. Cramps, aches, and fatigue all over. I'm also talking losing 10 pounds in a week or two. And for some reason, it is mostly muscle in the legs. I've once lost 20% of my back squat in 10 days. When I am flaring these days, I force myself to do things like heavy squats and deadlifts like once a week to keep the muscle on, and that actually helps, but I stay sore for sometimes a week after. But I am lucky in that serious flares are rare for me.

What is rather sad is that the treatments now for UC aren't that good. At least they aren't for a lot of us. The weaker medicines don't really do anything for a lot of us, and the stronger medicines tend to be more like sledge-hammers that affect the entire body mainly by weakening the immune system (so it has less firepower to attack the lower intestine), as opposed to a scapula or a sniper that targets only the specific condition. The most powerful treatment for myself personally is a steroid called prednisone. Unfortunately, the drug doesn't target just the inflammation--it instead works on the entire body, and has some nasty long-term side effects. Here is hoping research helps come up with a cure.