It's always a balancing act!!

I am a little behind on getting this typed. It is something that has been on my mind the past couple of weeks as my routine visit with my IBD specialist was approaching last week and the dread was setting in. Let's just say the balancing act is definitely a work in progress for me!!! I will start by confessing right from the start that I do not like to go to the doctor for ANYTHING!! It could be a product of several things, but for sure with UC it has been the frustration I have had over the years with the doctors I have seen. The GI doctor who diagnosed me seemed just fine, but our dr/patient relationship was short lived because Toby and I moved not too long after my diagnosis. The new doctor I found when we moved sat there and told me to my face that UC is not affected by the food you eat or your stress level. I was new to this whole disease, but I had experienced enough to know better than that. I knew there were certain foods I would eat that would trigger pain and bring on many unpleasant symptoms of UC!! One of those was salsa which I LOVED!!!! I also saw how stress was making things worse. It was not long until I had to quit my full time job as a dental hygienist due to the disabling effects of the disease. There is no way you can take care of your patients oral health from the bathroom which was were I spent a large portion of my days. Not to mention the fatigue that sat in and made it an absolute chore just to move from my bedroom to the living room.

So this new GI doctor does my colonoscopy and tells me what meds I need to start to get this UC under control. One medication he said he wanted me to start right away and commit to it for the rest of my life. Now, at the time Toby and I had only been married about 2 years and had not had our girls. Committing to this medication meant that we would NOT be able to have children. The nurse made this very clear to me. WOW!! That was eye opening. I dreamed of having children. Was this really the only way to treat my UC?

We picked up info from the pharmacy on the medication and started reading. I was terribly sick and weak and losing weight like crazy!! Toby just wanted me well, so his initial thought was to start the meds....until we started reading side effects and that really started to sink in.

So, here I am newly diagnosed within the past year or so, just getting into the real meaning of UC and how it was changing my life, and I am obviously not on the same page as my GI doctor. What do we do now???

Well, before we had moved from Northwest Arkansas, we were blessed with the opportunity to meet an amazing doctor of nutrition, Dr Karen Spencer Dees. She opened my eyes to the world of nutrition. I wasn't a terrible junky eater, but boy have I learned a lot about the importance of good nutrition since then.

So, with the info on the suggested meds along with what I had learned from Dr. Dees, Toby and I took a leap of faith and decided we needed to try every option possible. I immediately started seeing Dr Dees as a patient and within no time my symptoms were improving! Since then it has really been all about a balancing act for me. Balancing between science and nutrition, and let me tell you....THE STRUGGLE IS REAL!!!! This is definitely one of my biggest struggles!! I am an all or nothing kind of girl. I think God has given us amazing bodies and with proper nutrition our bodies can do amazing things. When you go into a GI doctor and mention nutrition it is like you are speaking a foreign language. That blows my mind!! They seem okay with the fact that you want to eat well but that's about as far as that usually goes. I do have a colorectal doctor in Dallas and he is the one GI type doctor who has said, "keep doing what your doctor of nutrition tells you to do". He saw that it was working well.

With UC being an autoimmune type disease, it is a continuous balance of good nutrition and finding the right meds. I have had a few doctors since this journey began and the struggle with balance continues. I guess it always will. At this point I am on a medication that is working for me and that is Entyvio. It is an infusion drug given every 8 weeks and is specific to the colon. I have minimal side effects which is wonderful!! I am learning how to balance science and nutrition. I get my Entyvio, but I keep on feeding my body and making it stronger. Of course my dream is to one day be in remission and hear the doctor say I can stop the Entyvio. Until then though, it will be a balancing act for me!!

Here are a some things I have learned:

All or nothing doesn't always work esp when you are talking about your health.

You are your own advocate. You have to do your own research and be informed.

There is a place for medicine and it can be a blessing.

I have learned to thank God for the doctors and the medicine we have today.

If you have similar struggles balancing your life with an illness, or really any struggle in general, I hope this post helps if nothing else than to remind you that you are not alone.