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Update: No Colon Cancer! Colitis Instead...
powerss
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
We've learned that my father has never had a colonoscopy (he's 65) and he has symptoms (outward) of colon cancer. He's in the hospital, but nothing's been confirmed yet at all. In fact, me and my mother are the only ones considering it. However, I'm very worried. I'm sure I'll be making other threads; but, this one I want to know if anyone has any experience with family members having colon cancer; what specific symptoms, if they passed, if they were treated, what stages they were in, et cetera.
Thank you guys so much.
Old post above. Now, after the Colonoscopy, no cancer! Yay! But we learned he has colitis - any experiences..?
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However, he was given lomopril (anti-diarrheal) and ciproflaxin (antibiotic) and has shown no signs of improvement.
I'm bracing for the worst.
In all the news that has come and gone over those three years, the best thing I can advise you to do is only take what is confirmed to be truth. Might have X is not the same as does have X, even if it's an awfully big chance. It's too easy to get yourself worked up over possibilities, especially since there are many of them.
It difficult at first, but you'll need to get yourself into this mentality if you want to stay sane. "Bracing for the worst" is kind of a a good idea, but that can lead to pessimism, and that's definetly not a good idea. Just take what you definetly know right now and deal with that.
Jeez.
Makershot is right -- your assumptions here are going to cause you tons of stress. I understand that without a solid diagnosis, the mind thinks up all sorts of worst-case scenarios; but you should really try to avoid it. There are hundreds of reasons why your dad could have this problem, and colorectal cancer is at the bottom of that list. The fact that there's no blood in his stool points away from cancer.
The antibiotics take time to work. You should sit down with one of the docs and talk about your concerns, they can reassure you better than we can.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Basically, you have two types. Steroid dependent and steroid independent. If it's the latter, you can keep away from flare ups by sticking to non-steroid medications and only using prednisone if you get a really bad flare-up. If it's the former, then you have problems.
Prednisone, the steroid used to treat dependent colitis, causes a ton of problems down the line, and it is an overall nasty drug for side effects. If it looks like your dad has steroid dependent colitis, be sure to check for Crohn's symptoms and try Crohn's treatments. Otherwise, the only way to deal with dependent colitis is via a colectomy and either a j-pouch or a exterior bag, but we'll cross that bridge if we need to.
Personally, I found Cipro to be among the best drugs for my colitis and I still depend on it today, with my Crohn's sans colon.
Get a heating pad, those things do wonders for the stomach cramps. Get a sitz bath too, useful for flareups with the area around the anas gets raw.
Milk can sometimes cause problems with colitis folk, so he might want to avoid milk for a while just to see if that improves his symptoms.
If you have any specific questions, I'm here to help. The majority of my time under colitis was with flare-ups (so I'm not the one to ask how to live with remissions), and I have a little more experience thusfar with Crohn's and/or living without a colon, but I've done my fair share of research on the topic.
Should he avoid red meat? Spicy things? Caffine, obviously - what about decaf coffee? All alcohol, or is wine ok?
Thanks a lot.
And colitis is persistent, it will never be cured unless you remove the colon, and even then it can degenerate into Crohn's. You have remissions where you show no real symptoms and flare-ups where you have dehabilitating pain. Some people can go years without getting a flare-up.
Abdominal pains can be common in the beginning, and will show themself when he has a flareup, as time goes by and he learns what to eat/not eat and the medicin takes effect it will be alright most of the time.
Now from what ive heard, what causes a flareup is different from person to person, the doc should recommend that he keeps a list and write down whatever he eats/drinks so that if he does have a flareup, he can check the list and see if there is a pattern. As for alcohol, i still drink and i dont notice anything from the alcohol other than the normal hangover stomache.
Munkus Beaver is spot on about the persistens of it, its a chronic disease and will only go away with a removal of the colon. There are two different forms of colitis, Crohns and ulceritive, the difference is what parts of your digestion system is affected. Crohns affects the whole system, mouth to anus, ulceritive only the colon (as far as i know atleast), some docs ive talked to will go with a Crohns diagnose "just to be sure".
As for medicin to ask about, prednisolon is a bitch, mood swings and weight gain galore. Ive been on a immuno supressant (sp?) drug for the past few years and its done wonders for me, but this also varies from person to person. drug is called Imurel (azathioprinum) and is usualy given to people who have had organ transplants from what ive figured out.