Periods and pouches

Hi!

I too suffer a lot when I have my period. I try to drink a lot of peppermint tea or ginger tea. I don't like drinking a lot of pills but I always keep Imodium plus in my bag for those really bad days!

Good luck!

I, too, have noticed a definite increase in pouchitis symptoms, pain, spasms, frequency, and general malaise before & during my menstrual cycle.  It happens even when I am already on antibiotics for chronic pouchitis. The pain & spasms become so painful (probably intensified by a mucosal prolapse of jpouch)  I often resort to pain meds. I noticed this monthly pattern for over 15 years, even before my jpouch when my UC was misbehaving. My male doctors have always said there is no connection, but female doctors & nurses quite agree with me.

I have the same problem. My pouch is only a year old and I am hoping it will work itself out over the years. Even though with UC, I would always flare around my period so I began skipping my period with birth control pills until I wanted to try for a baby.

Now that I am off birth control, during the few days leading up to my period (& ovulation actually) when I began to flare I will take a high dose of Flagyl (1000mg) at night and see how I feel the next day. If still bad, I will take 500mg Flagyl the next night. You could try the Flaguyl instead of Cipro, or try skipping your period all together with birth control. My Gyno said I only needed to have 1 period per year, even though I never went that long without one. I would only skip 3-4 months and then suffer through one.

I am past that now but when I did have my periods it felt like my uterus was going to fall out. It felt so heavy...baseball bat to the kidneys feeling too...

Yes, it got worse with my pouch...no, time did not make it any easier...but modern medicine did. I got different treatments that helped... at one point they put me on progesterone to stop my period for 3 years. 

The pill helped a lot too.

Talk to your gyn and see if they have something that can help you.

Sharon 

I have also suffered a lot during my periods. Drinking ginger tea is beneficial. I also stopped using tampons and pads and started using cups from this website, it reduced the pain to some extent.

I also found that menstrual cups reduced my cramping and pouch problems. Its interesting how that works. I would recommend looking into birth control that reduces cramping and bleeding. I also know that the really potent anti-inflammatories were a HUGE help if you don't want to go the birth control route. They have some pretty serious side-effects if you take them long term but you might only need them 2-3 days a month. I just happened to stumble on this when I was taking celebrex for tendonitis. It completely stopped all of my cramping and pouch problems. It turned out that if I took it about 2 days before I started my period and the first day of my period I had zero cramping or diarrhea. 

So happy to of found this thread, even if it has been a few years. I also get very bad pain during ovulation and my period. for about 3 or 4 days during Ovulation and the run up to my period i have such bad bowels, butt burn and bathroom visits that i end up on the floor after trying to breath through the pain till it passes. I have found rectogesic really helps during those times, along with hot water bottles, paracetamol and a bit of self care

There was a part of me that doubted it was due to periods but finding this thread has made me feel less alone.

Thank you