My GI Origin Story

(Be forewarned that there is a lot of frank language about GI functions!)

As a teenager, the only GI problem I noticed was that I hated wearing anything that had a tight waistband because I would feel like I couldn’t digest food or water and would become very gassy. (It is important to also know that I started smoking when I was 14 years old – the relevance of this will become quickly apparent.) The true GI problems did not really reveal themselves until I was well into adulthood.

Remission

In 2004, I went through a big shift. I divorced, stopped smoking, and decided to move across the country from the District of Columbia to Seattle. In the months leading up to the move, I noticed a lot of GI symptoms – intense gas build up, diarrhea, bloody diarrhea, puffiness in my body – all in reaction to eating. I initially seemed to be sensitive to only one type of food, but then quickly became reactive to all food.

I started to see a Naturopathic Doctor. She diagnosed me with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and said that for some people, cigarette smoking keeps UC in remission. This explained why my sudden flare was timed with my smoking cessation. She also said that my food sensitivities had cascaded on me due to systemic inflammation. After calming down my system and going on an elimination diet, we were able to figure out that my only sensitivities were gluten and dairy.

We worked together for more than a year and my symptoms improved, but I was definitely not thriving.

I made the hard choice to start smoking again in order to go back into remission. Fortunately, it worked!

Relapse

Around 2014, I was again sick of smoking, so I quit, with the hope that maybe the UC would stay in remission.

It did not.

I tried smoking again, but this time it did not help me back into remission. I discontinued smoking and I started on oral medications and suppositories.

The treatment kept my symptoms fairly stable for a while; however, due to a series of severe stressors, my symptoms again escalated.

2016

It was Spring 2016 and I was experiencing a strong UC flare. What does that actually mean? Every time I ate or drank, I would immediately have to get to a toilet. After having a bowel movement, my heart would sink when I would look in the toilet: diarrhea with chunks of food and increasing amounts of blood. Not only was my body eliminating food before I could absorb any nutrients from it, but I was also losing a lot of blood.

I went to my GI doctor and we moved from oral medication to a biologic medication (used to modulate your immune system) that was administered intramuscularly (IM). However, symptoms continued to worsen.

I went back to my doctor and they ran bloodwork. The results were not good.

Here is a partial snapshot: white blood cell count was way high (body was fighting infection), red blood cell count was way low (body was losing blood), platelet level was 678 (normal range is 150-379, meaning that my body was busy attempting to clot areas where there was bleeding), inflammatory markers were way high (high levels of inflammation), and every single electrolyte was abnormal (these were the most serious results because when electrolytes are abnormal, your body can quickly shut down).

Of course, I was then admitted and given multiple blood transfusions and a lot of fluids. When the doctor talked about discharge, I ignored the misgivings in the back of my mind and agreed with the doctor. I discharged after having been at the hospital for less than a week.

Back at Home

For the next two weeks, I quickly went downhill. I stopped eating and barely drank because both made me feel horrible. Unfortunately, the less I drank, the more dizzy and nauseas I became, which made me really not want to eat or drink. Also, despite not eating or drinking, my body was getting bigger and bigger, in a really abnormal way (i.e., like filling a water balloon instead of stuffing a pillowcase). I was gaining water weight and had stretch marks all over my body. All of the water was below my chest and my feet were so big that I could not fit them into slippers. Somehow, during all of this, I rationalized to myself and to others that I was doing fine and did not need to go to the doctor.

I stayed curled up in the corner of my couch – and amazingly developed bed sores. The only thing I did every day was take care of my cats – food, water, litter box.

One day, though, I found myself unable to take care of the cats because I could not get up. I contacted my doctor and they asked if I needed an ambulance and I said no. Despite the severity of the situation, I still could not accept how helpless I really was. I had a friend come get me and when we arrived at the clinic, she had to get a wheelchair because I was too dizzy and too weak to walk. Once I was with my doctor, they tried to administer the intramuscular medication, but when they pulled the needle out of my thigh, water came pouring out of my leg (along with the medication).

I was then admitted back to the hospital.

It turned out that during those two weeks between hospitalizations, I had gained about 60 pounds in water, but lost 30 pounds of fat/muscle/blood. Once I was able to shed the excess water, they found that I was only 90 pounds, which I had not weighed since grade school. Multiple organs were malfunctioning and I had lost a lot of blood. One side effect of my malnutrition was an inability to balance fluids; thus, leading to the water weight gain.

When I discharged, I was much more stable, but still only weighed 98 pounds and my blood pressure was 92/50.

Recovery

Over the course of the next six months, my body let me know that it had expected me to die. All cellular regeneration stopped – my nails and hair stopped growing, my skin was flaking off all over my body, and my period stopped. To top it off, I was struggling with food aversion, my hair started to fall out, and my blood pressure waxed and waned; at its worse it was 70/60.

In the end, it took about two years to recover and for all my body processes to return to normal. I am happy to say that I have been in remission for the last couple of years.

I wish I had known about hypnotherapy treatment for GI disorders back then. Looking back, I can see how my own way of thinking and anxiety about the situation contributed to the worsening situation.

The takeaway lessons for me?

1.        I am a poor judgment of my own medical needs when I am sick!

2.        Being rational about my illness may help me feel like I’m in control during the short-term, but does not help me move forward.

3.        Acceptance of the reality of a situation is needed in order to let go of control and reconnect with what I actually need.

4.        If I can be truthfully mindful about my current state, I would then be able to make better decisions for myself.

The biggest takeaway for me, and I hope for you, is that no matter how independent we are or how insightful we may be, all of us sometimes need help. During those times when we feel trapped or limited in our choices, there may be options available to us that we are not even considering.