I don’t know what caused my latest flare up, but once it starts it’s a spiralling cycle of feeling dreadful, then feeling better, then a sudden urge to stay close to the bathroom, and then the inevitable hopelessness in knowing that you have little control over what happens when you’re away from your home unless you starve yourself.
This is what living with an IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) can be like during a flare up and it’s a depressing time. At the moment the only positives I can draw from my current flare up is that it’s the middle of winter anyway, so at least I’m not missing beautiful summer cycling days, and also that since 2020 I am now working from home. Not feeling compelled to leave the house is helpful at times like these.
My version of IBD is Ulcerative Colitis, which I’ve had on and off since my early twenties. This latest flare up started to become symptomatic a couple of months back. Possibly it was because I was becoming stressed about my pre-diabetic diagnosis, as well as a few things in life that weren’t going the way I would have hoped, and also I went and caught the mega cold that was going around which had wiped me out for about a month, adding to feeling quite down.
A routine hospital appointment in early October…
