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Pouchitis

I've got pouchitis. That's an infection in the j-pouch and it's not nice. The j-pouch is formed out of the small intestine and has to do the job of the rectum. The problem is that the small intestine isn't designed to hold poo so in some people it gets inflamed and ulcerates which then leads to infection. It causes bleeding, urgency and the need to go to the toilet. A lot. 

Over the last 2 weeks my bowels have not been great which I guess was the start of it all. I went back onto a really plain diet to see if that would help but last weekend I spent more time on the toilet than off so knew that it wasn't going to sort itself out. I've been getting up in the night 4, 5, 6 times and even falling asleep on the loo. It's left me feeling exhausted and drained and the pain is pretty bad too. It would probably be a lot worse if I hadn't recently had the ketamine infusion so that was good timing I guess. Once I realised that I was probably suffering from pouchitis I made an appointment with my GP to get some antibiotics. 

To treat pouchitis there are 2 antibiotics that are recommended. I couldn't remember which one I had been given before but I was pretty sure it began with T. 
"T?" asked the doctor "I don't think that it would be" so we looked on the St Marks website for information. 
"Metronidazole?" he said to me. 
"That's it!" I replied. 
"That doesn't begin with a T" he said looking at me like I was bonkers. 
"It's got a T in it!" I replied indignantly. 

So I started taking the antibiotics that evening and within half an hour I started itching. It began on the soles of my feet and spread upwards. I scratched until I bled and frantic with the itching and the pain from it I rang my parents to see if they had any antihistamine. It was 11.30pm so I woke up Hubby to go and fetch them. These are the advantages of living close to my parents I guess. I took the antihistamine and fell asleep. 

The next day I rang and spoke to my GP to let him know what had happened and get some different antibiotics. The only problem we now had was that I was already allergic to the other recommended antibiotic- of course I would be! So he prescribed a broad spectrum antibiotic and I've had no problems with it. The symptoms of the pouchitis have started to settle down but I'm still spending a lot of time on the loo. 

Last night I got up for the toilet and I must have fallen asleep. Nothing unusual there apart from the fact that I woke up when my head smacked the tiles on the bathroom floor. I must have been in a fairly deep sleep and fallen forward. With nothing there to stop me the first thing to hit the floor was my head and believe you me I woke up then!! 

My screams didn't wake Hubby up so I had to shout out his name a few times before he awoke from his slumber. He picked me up and helped me back to bed. I could feel my head throbbing and a bump was starting to appear. I took a couple of paracetamol and propped myself up with pillows so I could go to sleep sitting up because when I lay down the room started to spin. I woke up this morning with a nice bump, although not as big as I had thought it was going to be considering how hard I got the floor. I debated about going to the GP to get checked out but I reckoned he would only send me to A&E and I would be there hours only to be told there was nothing wrong. So instead I'm sat in a hairdressers chair finally getting my 4 month long roots sorted out. 

NB x





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