Taking my Ulcerative Colitis (UC) seriously.

I would be lying to the world if I said that my life has been great or even "just ok" since April of 2008.  UC has changed my body and my life to such an extent that to deal with it I mostly force the reality of my situation out of my mind.  I've delayed with starting this Blog about my UC story because of this very fact, but I'm compelled right now to write about my experience and fight to share it with others.  Not just with my friends and family, but hopefully with others that are also fighting against UC or other inflammatory bowel diseases.  My hope is that others will be able to have a better understanding of this disease and that maybe some can find support through my fight.

Hopefully at this stage of my recovery I'm more towards the end of the tunnel.  Rather than talking about the last year and a half, I'll interlace the past through out my posts to give a full picture.  For those whom are unfamiliar with UC I suggest going to this link: www.mayoclinic.com/health/ulcerative-colitis/DS00598 there you'll get a better idea of the disease. Short answer is however: inflammation of the large intestine (colon), add pain, cramping, explosive mucusy diarrhea butt and you got UC.

This past week I entered into a new study drug group with my GI Clinic.  Which means I get a novel drug for UC and all the office visits and subsequent colonoscopy on the study's tab.  A small perk too is they actually compensate me like $45 bucks each office visit.  This new drug is called Vedolizamab and I get it by infusion once a month.  This week last Wednesday (Nov. 11) was my first infusion and I'm very hopefully that this will end the voracious inflammation inside me.  The good news is that others in this same study have seen wonderful improvements in just 4 weeks of there first dose.  It's just been 4 days for me so I still have to wait to see how my body response.

I'm going to monitor my weight and post this.  Before UC ravished my body I was a constant 205 lbs, now I'm 155.7lbs (Nov. 11).  I should begin to keep more weight on as I get better, but if drops it means I'm getting worse.