A warm welcome to The Colitis Experience blog and thank you for your interest in seeking further information for living through your own colitis journey. It is a journey with difficult challenges, sometimes unforeseen hurdles that the patient has to travel often only equipped with the bare essentials to making the daily experience bearable.

The purpose of The Colitis Experience is simple. No matter at what stage you are at with your colitis, or maybe you have had surgery and now have an ileostomy or even a j pouch, there is always the desire and need for information to make your daily life that little bit easier.

But not just any information. Today, the internet is full of websites, articles, blogs etc that provide the sufferer with the basic colitis information. Often it is all wrapped up in medical speak or written in a very cold educational tone. Some people have blogs detailing their daily battles yet often these are no more than the “look at me, I have a blog and I’m sure everyone will be interested that I went out last night with my friends” type of postings. Don’t get me wrong here. There is some great factual information to help colitis sufferers and those going through surgery with an ileostomy or a j pouch. The problem is that it has been written by an academic, a medic even a journalist. Very seldom do you come across information that is provided by a fellow sufferer.

I would actually not call what you have now found “information”. I prefer to refer to it as practical knowledge, first hand experience gained at the coal face. Knowledge and experience gained over many years that you yourself can understand and relate to. But unfortunately, there really is a dearth of it available from an easily accessible single source. This is incredibly frustrating because it is this knowledge and experience that can be a hundred times more useful than anything that can ever be given by a doctor or consultant. The snippets, the tips, the tactics that have been discovered and used by those who have faced the problems that colitis sufferers, ileostimists and j pouchers have to face up to everyday.

With this frustration in mind, I decided it was time something was done. What would I have loved to have found way back when my colitis experience started? Simply, a treasure vault of practical advice gained through years of experience, the knowledge, the tips, the tactics that only a fellow colitis sufferer could speak about with any authority because they had to endure it them self. No doctor or nurse, however good at their particular job, could ever give such valuable practical advice for the one simple reason that they most likely have never lived through The Colitis Experience.

So what you now have access to is just that. It’s my treasure vault of knowledge, experience, tips and tactics that I have gained since I was diagnosed with colitis back in 1994. So to help you have an understanding of my colitis experience, here is a brief history of what happened to me. I am sure you will be able to pinpoint where you are and therefore I am sure there is included in this reference some knowledge for you to use to ensure your colitis experience is a little easier to live with.

You have now found a colitis survivor who has experienced it all and now you have an opportunity to discover real life answers that you know have legitimacy, simply because I have been through it, found what works and what doesn’t and now the answers are available to you.

In November 1994, at the age of 28, I was diagnosed with colitis. I had up until then very good health, was fairly fit and quite literally it was a bolt from the blue. I returned to work after about 5 weeks off and was recovering quite well when my first relapse hit in June 1995. I lost my job. I returned to good health but a second relapse happened in August 1996. Thankfully, this was much milder than the first two times and then I had good health until Dec 2000 when I was hit badly by the next relapse. It took longer to recover though good health returned once again.

In July 2004, the mother of all relapses occurred and would not let go. In September I underwent surgery for the removal of my large colon which was about to perforate and the creation of a temporary ileostomy. As I was so weak and had been seriously ill, the consultant waited until June 2005 for the second operation to create a j pouch but due to difficulties it was immediately kick started into operation. But in July 2005 further difficulties arose and saw another operation in which the j pouch was deactivated and another temporary ileostomy formed. In March 2006 the j pouch was reactivated and I have been learning to live with it since.

As you can imagine, I have been through a fair experience of colitis and beyond, you could even describe me as a colitis survivor. With this experience, I decided that it is too valuable to be locked up in my head. Undertaking research, I could see other sufferers were posting question that they desperately wanted answering as they could gain no satisfaction from the general colitis information that is available.

Don’t forget, The Colitis Experience is not just one reference. I am creating a treasure vault of knowledge and experience for those with colitis and ileostomies and j pouches to refer to. There will be specialist resources available to people who want further knowledge on a particular subject.

A word of advice though. What you will not get from me is “a promise to eradicate your colitis for good if you follow my secret formula”, or “eat this miracle diet and your colitis will disappear by lunchtime”. I’m sorry if that is what you are still looking for but you won’t get any of that from me. Why? Quite simply, because I don’t believe claims like that, claims which, during periods of excruciating pain can appear very tempting like a shining light showing you the way to your freedom from discomfort. I will never make claims like that because I can’t back them up with evidence and would not won’t to offer false hope.

And secondly on a similar matter, I am not a doctor, I have no medical qualification and I will not be giving you any specific medical advice. That is not the purpose of The Colitis Experience. I may make references to medication that I took or currently take but that is in no way supposed to be a recommendation from me for you to do likewise. You should always consult your medic where you wish advice about medication and for any major changes that you wish to make to your daily life in terms of diet, supplements etc when living with colitis.

What you will gain and benefit from The Colitis Experience is first hand knowledge. It is the experiences that I have been through myself and which I am sure will assist you to make your daily life that bit easier.

Don’t forget to revisit www.thecolitisexperience.com for further great references that will be available and if you have not already, make sure you are signed up for FREE updates, info and offers that you cannot afford to miss if you want the inside knowledge to make your life a little easier and ease the anxieties.  

So what knowledge and experience can you access today? I have made available a new reference “The 27 Most Wanted Colitis Answers” that will provide you with real life advice, tactics and tips to assist you in your daily colitis experience. It is packed with practical advice that I found was not available from the doctors or nurses. You will discover nuggets of information and ideas that you can use to adapt how you live. Whether with colitis or if you have had to have an operation and now with a stoma or j pouch, you will know the daily experiences are made better with trial and error but you can’t make much satisfactory progress if you are not aware of the information in the first place.

Don’t rely totally on the medical profession to ensure your colitis experience is as comfortable as possible. You will often be left in the dark to find your own way. Now you don’t have to as I have travelled the very journey that you now find yourself on and can provide you with all the knowledge, experience, tips, tactics, ideas and advice that you want.

How do I know that? Well, it was the very advice that, looking back now, would have made my colitis journey much easier.