When I was ill with Ulcerative Colitis, and then when I went
through surgery, living with an ileostomy and deciding whether an internal
pouch was the right option for me or not, I wandered a lot around the net to
find more and more information about what I was going through. Reading about
other people's experiences helped me a lot through the bad times and make up my
mind when it came to surgery decisions. I also realised that IBD, ostomies and
internal pouches are still a bit of a taboo and people in general have very
misconceived ideas about them and maybe that’s why it is so hard for patients to
accept what happens to them. So, when I started this blog, I had in mind to
talk about Ulcerative Colitis, ostomies and internal pouches in an attempt to
create awareness, but then after surgery things went so well, fortunately, that
in the end there wasn’t really anything to talk about, which was amazing of
course.
Until now.
As I mentioned on my last post I was on a two-week holiday.
I went to Portugal, to spend some time with my family and friends and also had
a trip to Italy planned to go with my sisters. The trip to Italy went well
until the last couple of days when I started feeling very tired, nauseous and
going to the loo a lot more often. I got back to my parents' in Portugal
and the symptoms didn’t get any better. I thought that it could may be Pouchitis
but I was told the symptoms didn’t match up. After a visit to the doctor and
exams done, Pouchitis was confirmed. The days I thought of spending at the beach were
instead spent at home, mostly in bed on a very strict and boring diet. I have
been on antibiotics since last week but still not quite there yet. I managed to
get myself back to the UK (what an awful journey that was) but work will have
to wait until I get back to my usual self.
Pouchitis has always been one of my worst fears of living
with an internal pouch, I guess mainly because of being in some ways similar
to Ulcerative Colitis. It makes me feel like this will never really end and
in some ways it’s true.
For those that don’t know, Pouchitis is inflammation of the
ileal pouch and is usually treated with antibiotics. It seems that between 15%
to 50% of patients will get at least one bout of pouchitis in their lives, so
it’s not that surprising that I got it.
So for now I’ll be home nauseous and weak and losing more
and more weight until the antibiotics work their magic, and fingers crossed this is
the only bout of pouchitis I get :)
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