I am officially in a flare.
At my last health update a month ago, I was doing mostly okay. That disappeared a week later. My bowel movements became less and less solid, and then turned to mush. A little blood showed up.
So I started back on two-a-day mesalamine pills. The blood came and went. I now haven't seen it for about a week.
However, the pain has returned. I now have the awful, awful pain while sitting on the toilet, as my bowels move things out. And then for about thirty minutes to two hours, I sit on the couch waiting for the after-pain in my stomach to stop. But even after it finally abates, the aching comes and goes throughout the day. I do feel better towards evening.
I've also had to put a small garbage can next to the toilet because I've come close to throwing up at the same time as pooping.
And, one of the worst symptoms to me, the urgency has returned to a point. Not as bad as at my worst, but enough that I now have to weigh leaving the house with the accessibility of the nearest bathrooms.
My normal follow-up G.I. appointment was today. After discussing with my doctor, if I do not see any improvement in the next few days, I will go back to four mesalamine pills a day. Assuming this will get me out of the flare, I will taper back down again, and try to get to one pill a day. My doctor told me he never wanted me to go completely off of the mesalamine, that he wanted me to taper down to one. I am sticking to what I heard, which was to taper completely off.
We've had miscommunication before about medicine dosage. Hopefully this one did not permanently derail my remission. While this bothers me about my doctor, I do like that he is not pushy about changing medications and that he seems pretty onboard with when I change something between appointments. I've heard some people complain about their doctors regarding those things.
So, I'll go up to the four mesalamine pills a day and cross my fingers that remission will follow within a few weeks.
Next update: September 2024, Up, Up, A Little
Previous update: July 2024: Good News and I'm-Not-Sure-What-To-Think News
© Colitis Senioritis 2024
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