About me

Symptoms, in brief

The symptoms I have (intestinal and extra-intestinal) are the following:

• A lot of mucus, pus and blood in my stools;
• Greasy stools;
• Feeling of malaise, lethargy and musculoskeletal pain (muscles and joints);
• Pain on lower back, both sides;
• Tiredness;
• Headaches and pain around my face and eyes;
• Vitamin B12 deficiency;
• Recurrent mouth ulcers;

Diagnosis and therapy

To get a diagnosis I had to have a few tests:

• Sigmoidoscopy;
• Colonoscopy;
• Biopsies;

The sigmoidoscopy was enough to say that I had Ulcerative Colitis; with the colonoscopy and the biopsies, the consultant (surgeon) was able to say for sure that I had Ulcerative Colitis rather than Chron's Disease.

As for the therapy, the consultant gave me three weeks' worth of Mesalazine and referred me to a gastroenterologist.

Here you can see a picture of the inflamed area in my colon:

When the consultant saw it, he said the colitis was very active.

Symptoms: the long story.

Everything started in August last year (2104), when after a day of binging on red meat, fish and wine I noticed some yellowish mucus in my stools, filaments, twisted around it. 'Odd', I thought, but that was the end of it, I wasn’t too worried about it, I had to go back partying!

And so I lost sight of it, I went on holiday, had a lot of fun and it wasn’t till November that I noticed (or rather looked) it again, I think because there was more mucus now. So I went to my GP but he said not to worry too much about it, as a bit of mucus was normal anyway, but being me, I was getting quite worried already so I decided to monitor the situation much more closely than I’d done in the past months. I created an Excel spreadsheet where I recorded every single day how many times I was going to the loo, if there was any mucus, any extra strange symptoms, if I had any “irritant food”, like coffee, alcohol, chocolate. You can find the spreadsheet here (I keep the one on my computer updated on a daily basis, this will be updated on a weekly basis).

In December/January 2015 things got worse, the mucus wasn't anymore just yellowish filaments, but it looked like dollops or blobs if you prefer. I didn't make much of it, other than getting more worried. So, as I came back from my New Year's break I went straight to my GP. He suggested to do a blood test to check for signs of infections, but there was none, it came pretty clean. So back to square one.

Between January and February things got significantly worse. I was feeling pretty ill, more often than usual: it felt like I was constantly on the verge of getting the flu, muscle pain, joint pain, feeling lethargic, general malaise, and more and more mouth ulcers. The mucus had also changed significantly: it wasn't just mucus anymore, it was really liquid, it was getting darker and often had dark tiny particles in it. I obviously went back to my GP, and he finally agreed to send me to the consultant for which I had to wait about two months. Now, needless to say in the two months between the referral and the consultant appointment, things got worse: the tiny particles in the mucus had disappeared, the quantity had increased significantly and were replaced by blood, a lot of it. The mucus was a constant presence even outside bowel movements: if I passed any air, I almost invariable passed mucus too, leading to annoying accidents. Finally I saw the consultant, she performed a Sigmoidoscopy and told me that I had colitis and that I needed a colonoscopy. But guess what? Another two months of wait, so, as I mentioned before, I went private and saw a good colorectal surgeon. I got everything done pretty quickly. Results: Ulcerative Colitis and no Chron's. Well, I suppose I should be happy about it. And after getting a few more weeks' worth of mesalazine, the consultant suggested I'd see a gastroenterologist.

And that's when my fight against colitis started.