A Shout Out to Everyone with an IBD

A few times when my SIBO symptoms have been really bad, I've sat there and told myself "Hey, it could be worse. There are a lot nastier illnesses out there." While this doesn't really make you feel much better at the time, it is definitely true.

A lot of the discussion boards and forums I am a member of are filled with people whose IBD has impacted their life in so many terrible ways - months bedridden, trips to hospital, surgery to remove parts of their digestive tract and so on. As much as SIBO sucks, it could be worse.

The past couple of days I've had quite a bit of pain in my intestines. I'm not really sure what the cause might be as I am eating only safe foods, and haven't introduced any new supplements. But the pain has been bad....like keep me up at night bad. And then a couple of days ago I started bleeding. Now this is something pretty new for me - I've had a few spots of blood here and there, but never anything major and it always went away quickly. This time, things weren't so simple. The bleeding just got worse and worse until yesterday the toilet bowl was just filled with blood. Strangely enough, the BMs seemed 'good' - bristol 4's and 5's.

I thought about taking today off work to go to the doctor, but decided I'd give it a day or so to see if it clears up on its own. I am sick of handing over money to doctors who I know probably wont be much help.

Anyway, this little episode got me thinking. Here I am, having a slight freak-out at a couple of days of bleeding when so many people with Crohn's or UC have this as a constant symptom that sometimes takes months to clear up even on SCD. Its not an easy thing for people to see blood where it shouldn't be, so I can only imagine how disheartening it must be to have this as one of your symptoms day-in-day-out.

So I guess this post is just a little shout out to anyone with an IBD who has to put up with crappy things like this happening to them on a regular basis. If you are one of these people, I'm sending you virtual hugs and hoping that eventually you find the thing that works for you to beat your disease.

Until then, we can all be there to support each other.


Much love xx