Frequent Bowel Movements

One of the biggest symptoms of colitis and also probably the worst, are the frequent bowel movements. At one point I remember having over 25 a day which when I look back on it is a staggering amount of times to shit in a day! The other thing is that they often happen more at night than in the day, or at least this was the case for me, which just leaves you even more exhausted than you were already from all the frequent bowel movements. When your food is moving though you that fast you start to lose a lot of weight quickly, and you really need to get to a doctor, because although Colitis symptoms can be controlled naturally, if it gets really out of control it can be life threatening in extreme cases if a toxic megacolon develops. If things are bad it’s best to go see the doc and get some steroids if needed just to get back to normal again as quickly as possible.

Finally after nearly four weeks in Hopital I was home, which was wonderful. I was looking forward to improving my diet and building my self up again. I was also keen to get started on research as to what had caused my Ulcerative Colitis. There was one initial problem, having been in a Hospital for 4 weeks in bed and being quite weak I was shocked to discover when I needed the loo and had to go upstairs that I couldn’t actually walk up stairs anymore ! My legs were so weak that I literally couldn’t lift up my feet to climb the stairs – I had to crawl ! Also my right foot was droopy – I was unable to lift my toes up. So the next day I went out for a walk to try to begin to build myself up again, and I fell over flat on my face. It was the foot that caused me to trip over and it also meant I couldn’t drive anywhere. I thought it was just lack of use causing it but I later discovered that the foot problem was in fact Toxic nerve damage caused by Ciclosporin. Fortunately I saw a very good osteopath who helped to get it moving and I was lucky that when the doctors found out they stopped the cyclosporin and it started to improve some more. Eventually it recovered but it took another month and half before my foot was fully functioning again, I was lucky that kind of thing can be permanent.