Hey everyone, I'm a one year poucher who's just turned 20 a couple of weeks ago! I'm always on this site as I find it extremely helpful to ease my fears! I'm writing because I seem to have hit a bump with my pouch I started with increased urgency and some blood on the tp that led to it getting into the actually stools. My doctor took some blood work (very malnourished!) and stool tests which have yet to arrive. I have an appointment tomorrow and I just hope I can get to the bottom of this. My doc put me on flagyl 500 mg twice a day and a mesalamine enema before bed. My frequency has gone down a lot which is I'm hoping is a good thing. Also the form of the stools has gone back to how I was before this! My problem arises where every time I put the enema I get a nauseous feeling and this keeps me up at night! So what I tried to do was not take it for one night and well that night (yesterday) I felt better and could get some sleep. Today in the afternoon a while after I took all my morning meds (flagyl, gas relief, and pantoprazole) I started feeling really ill. My head felt light and dizzy, my stomach felt warm and acidic, and I almost threw up twice. Second time I was already on the floor near the toilet ready to go but the feeling left. I dislike throwing up very much, to a point where I'll drive myself crazy. I feel pressure all around my lower abdomen which is also something that recently occurred! I'm not sure if its the flagyl or if it's whatever I have but I'm not feeling good at all. I was so good with my pouch and now it feels like things are taking a bad turn and it's getting me down. i have to take two more flagyl AND the enema (since I skipped one yesterday) before my appointment tomorrow so I'm quite nervous :/
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I'm glad you'll be seeing the doctor so soon. With his help you should get a likely diagnosis and a treatment you can tolerate. Do you think you might now be dehydrated in addition to whatever else is going on? If your pee is dark (or you're not peeing) you could try getting more fluid into your body.
Hey Scott,
thank you for the reply!! I am trying my hardest to drink as much fluid as I can tolerate but it's getting hard with all this nausea and wanting to vomit! My pee has been clear colored throughout the morning and afternoon but whenever that nausea kicks in I lose the energy to do anything, so then it changes to the dehydrated yellow color! I'm going to try to drink a lot more fluid tonight though so hopefully it'll go well! I too as well hope I get a diagnosis, if nothing is found im telling the doc to give me a CT hopefully that same day as I don't want to wait another week :/
GI upset is a pretty common side effect with Flagyl and I would suspect it more than the enema. Try taking it with food. For some people it is so bad that they cannot take it.
Jan
Hi Jan,
Me and my doc just came to the conclusion that it was the antibiotic. Guess it's just too strong for me, he told me to stop taking them and go in to get scoped tomorrow. Both from the top and bottom! Now I'm glad he'll be able to see what's going on and all but I am pretty nervous. This will be my first scope with a j pouch, I've been scoped before for the UC and all but I was just wondering if this'll be any different and should I have any special concerns at all? Any advice or reply would be much appreciated! Thank you all and have a nice day!!
Pouchoscopy is much, much easier than colonoscopy. An EGD (upper GI scope) involves more sedation, so you won't notice much. They'll both be over before you know it.
Hey Edie,
if you get put to sleep with Propofol or else this is no problem at all. You'll wake up and everything will be like it's been before. The one thing I notice after being scoped is that it's hurting a little when having a bowel movement, but not the pouch itself but more on the outside due to the streching of the anal canal with the scope. But mine seems to be quite tight, too. I just put on some Panthenol creme on and it will be fine.
If I don't get put to sleep the experience is VERY unpleasant. It's not the pain itself but it makes me feel unbelievably uncomfortable and the pain is adding up to that. But I always remember that it's helping more than it's making damage and normally it doesn't take that long.
So, don't worry too much. It won't be fun but it's nothing to write home about either
Hopefully you'll feel better with a different medication soon!
Best regards!
Many of us (perhaps most) don't bother with sedation for a pouchoscopy.
Hey all! Had my scope yesterday and I was put under! I don't think I would be able to handle being awake, I'd freak out too much since I'm a very big worrier! But thanks again all for replying, turns out I do have pouchitis. My GI said he's surprised it not as bad as he thought it was and my pouch already has colon properties or something like that. But he also found gastritis!! He says the gastritis is more severe than the pouchitis it self! He ordered dexilan and questran for the gastritis. For the pouchitis he sent me Canasa suppositories. I was wondering about telling him to give me carafate for the ulcers in my stomach and esophagus but he hasn't answered my messages :/ I see him in two weeks and as the biopsies he took should be back by then but he is going on vacation soon so I just hope things don't get out of hand during that time
I'm glad you have proper diagnoses now. I'm a little surprised at the Canasa instead of Cipro, but perhaps the Canasa will fix you up.
I'll ask my GI about why the canasa instead of antibiotic! He told me that the pouchitis wasn't bad at all and there are only some ulcers in there. It seems as if he is more concerned at the gastritis than the actual pouchitis. Things have not been easy these few days though because for some reason I always end up with loads of nausea at night. This is causing me to lose lots of sleep and makes it hard to keep the canasa in as it doesn't help me with the nausea! I had to go to the ER two days ago because I felt terrible, was about to throw up, started getting chills and shakes and loads of dehydration. I just hope the biopsy reports back soon because I just don't feel good. I was really happy and optimistic with how things were with my pouch but up until now everything seems to be declining! Anyway thank you all for replying it means a lot to know there are people out there who also go through this as I hardly ever hear about anyone with a j-pouch! When I went to get scoped I had to explain to everyone there that I had no colon and what a J-pouch was!!
The gastritis is probably the cause of the nausea. If he hasn't given your anything for the gastritis the you might try Zantac (150 mg twice a day). That should clear it up in a few weeks. Best to check with the Doctor first, if he'll return your calls.
Yeah I was prescribed some dexilant for the gastritis and I suppose it's helping, very slowly though as the nausea did leave, although, I still have discomfort by my stomach area. I started taking carafate for all the gastritis ulcers etc and that also seems to soothe and coat things in that department. As for the pouchitis, I had missed two doses (not periodically) and well it seems as if the blood has been wanting to come back. It's very weird because this morning I had very very loose stools but as the day progressed I went down to very formed almost hard stools. We'll see how tomorrow goes as I'll be back on track with my Canasa treatment! I also have my appointment tomorrow as my biopsies came in so there's that!! It seems as things are starting to cool down, I just hope things keep at this pace so I can feel good again! Thanks again all for replying and helping me through this, this website truly is a wonderful place to come to when in need!!