Water, drugs, and a really hairy face (Part 1)

Hey everyone,

I think it's time to have another post about my journey and what 2015 was like for me! 

After a bad start last January and finally getting diagnosed with left-sided Ulcerative Colitis I was put on all sorts of medication by the hospital so 'treat' the condition...I was told that there was so no cure as of yet but there were steps we could take to get into a remission (and hopefully stay there!) 

So the first (evil) drug I was put on was prednisone steroids...I had to take 6 tablets a day (30mg). Ideally, a person of my age should only be on this high a dose for a few months at a push, however, the hospital kept me on them for 6 months, at some point putting me up to 8 tablets a day! 

It seemed whenever I emailed the nurses saying I still feel crap they just replied "oh, just increase your steroids then"..naively I did whatever they said and ended up on 40mg every day...I got so podgy and hairy I felt like a boy! Hardly left the house, didn't go to school and couldn't stop the want to eat!! It was such a horrific time and I hated my body and everything about what the steroids were doing to me but I was given no alternative and so was taking them until July 2015. 

During the 6 months I was on the steroids I developed an infection in my oesophagus (whoopie!) because I stopped taking my Lanzaprasole tablets as I was not told that I needed to take them with the steroids...just thought they were stopping me vomit after every meal. So when I ran out I didn't get a chance to get a new prescription, so within the week of not taking them I developed this infection. Basically my oesophagus was heavily infected with bacteria and other rubbish where every time I ate, before it even got to my stomach it was just being through back up again. This horrible ordeal lasted about 3 days where I actually lasted 3 days with no food nor water due to not being able to hold anything down! 

So, of course, I ended up back in A&E (for the 5th time) with severe dehydration where I was on a drip of fluids for 96 hours straight! This amount of upset and stress caused me to have a flare up whilst admitted...surprise surprise! 

Once rehydrated, I spent a further week in hospital treating my flare up where I missed some of my AS exams which i was really annoyed about as I had revised so much and the doctors discharged me an hour after my exam but made me wait 3 hours more for my medicine to take home! 

Off I went home, exhausted from spending a second time in 3 months in hospital..back on steroids and other medicines and it all seemed like i just went back to square one...

I'll finish this blog in another post as don't want to exhaust you with massive posts!!! 

Thanks for reading! 

(and your gonna wanna know what happens next!) 

Joelle xoxo