From Fully Fit to the Worst Abdominal Pains!
Fully fit, 25 years old, working full time loading customers grocery shopping orders into delivery vans 9 hours a day and 5 days a week, fairly fast paced but with the freedom to blast any music I wanted from the vans CD players, getting to smoke cigarettes and grab food when ever I wanted so long as I was either on schedule or ahead of it I thought I had a pretty decent setup. I got on with most my co-workers and the drivers, members of management were a different story but my work life and home life balance was fairly sweet. I would finish shifts and rush home to sit with my first ever house mate and smoke cannabis all night and watching conspiracy videos online or just simply playing video games with him. We would have women come round and stay a lot and like I mentioned life was pretty decent. Earning an honest wage, running a household with one of my mates and just doing what we wanted. Looking back our diets were absolute trash, a mixture of ready meals, spicy foods, stoner snacks like biscuits and crisps, an unholy mixture of alcohol and multiple cans of energy drink a day. Hindsight says itās no wonder I am in the state I am in, but common sense really speaks volumes when you add the fact I had terrible anxiety and self image issues because my last girlfriend had recently done the dirty on me by cheating with one of her colleagues, and I had previously devoted my entire life to this girl. 18 months of being treated like a slave, I was shown no affection at all and I lapped it up thinking, no, believing it would get better. She wasn't over her ex who had treated her the exact same she treated me but me being the strong willed person that I was had the faith I could fix her and be the knight in shiny amour that she so desperately needed. An alcoholic with severe daddy issues who had just been cheated on herself found me when I was riding a wave of positivity and had an air of pure confidence. After we split and she wanted me back she admitted she didnāt want me, but she simply didnāt want anyone else having me. However, weāll get back to that later.Ā
So, riddled with self doubt, anxiety and a history of depression, mixed with past feelings of being unloved due to not having a relationship with my father and most of our extended family, cocktailed with alcohol, cannabis, and an awful diet, it really comes as no shock to know that I started to get these horrible burning stomach aches at work. They mainly hit me at work when I was lifting and bending over, squatting up and down because as you know, you lift with the knees and not the back. I, like most young lads and to be honest my men, I ignored them for about 2 weeks, thinking I would just magically get better, but it didn't, they got worse. at about this point I started to get acid reflux and loose stools. I never vomited or felt sick, but I did lose my appetite even when I had the munchies. I went to the doctors who prescribed me with acid reflux tablets, Omeprazole and some tablets to alleviate bloating. After 6 weeks of taking these pills my pains got worse and the loose stools became more frequent. Iād be at work and hold my bowel movement as long as possible so I could do my business in the comfort of my own home as I really hated using public restrooms and my work place at that time didn't exactly have a great facility either. Men's rooms are gross! I wasn't eating much and I started to lose a lot of weight, I went from a nice toned frame weighing at 11.5 Stone, which is roughly 73Kg/161lbs down to 8 stone (50kg/112lbs) in what felt like a blink of an eye! I lost my skin colour and went a ghoulish grey colour and started to feel really lethargic and weak.Ā
I went back to the doctors who couldnāt understand what was going on with me so he referred me straight to the hospital where a consultant told me that there is a high chance that this was all down to having Crohn disease. Sounded scary but just having a name to what could be wrong with me did actually feel me with a sense of comfort, however scared because I had to have CT scans, and I gave multiple stool samples, urine samples and blood tests which is something Iāve never been through before. The doctor was fairly supportive and told me this would be a very personal journey and that I needed to be honest with him and even said we needed to build a friendship to make this easier for not only me but for him too. He really wanted to understand and help me. In this time I also had to change my job role to a less physical position which wasn't too bad because again I had freedoms and with this once I had got all my tasks done I could either help another department or just clock out and go home. You can probably imagine what option I took most of the time. I had just got into a relationship with a young woman I again thought the world of, and to be fair she thought the world of me too, started off fully supportive but couldn't understand why I didn't want sex or to be sexually physical with her and this all took an immediate strain on us and we started to argue and fall apart. The pain and feeling disgusting from having diarrhoea most of the time were contributing factors to not wanting sex but my sex drive itself just hit an all time low, which was confusing for me but I had more important things on my mind at time like not knowing what was wrong with me myself, she was 22 and I was 25, She probably thought I was gay or something because I kept giving her what she must have thought were lame excuses about pain and feeling unsexy but sheād then watch me smoke a massive joint and fall asleep in a stoned coma till the next morning. This did unsurprisingly lead her into the arms of another man. Which is fair, I guess. But that wasnāt for another year yet.Ā
A few months after all my tests came back inconclusive a letter came through in the post saying I had a colonoscopy to go to which felt really humiliating having to admit to my already losing interest girlfriend, but just the overall thought that another man would be rummaging around in my back passage with a camera just felt like I was the most unluckiest man alive. By this point the stomach pains had got so unbearable that I wasn't able to work and by the time of the colonoscopy I hadn't been to work for about 4 months, and sleeping at night became an absolute nightmare before I had even fell asleep and started to dream. I received all my laxatives and a letter informing me of what a colonoscopy is and what to expect during the procedure, and let me tell you, just the preparation for this was an awful experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I had to mix a sachet of ginger flavoured laxatives with water in the morning and not eat any solid foods all day, another laxative at night too. I was obviously expecting the worst and had set out a clear path to the bathroom ready to sprint to when I needed to, but I guess due to having an empty stomach I actually didn't get the effects I was expecting... Until later that night. Iāll spare details but its actually amazing what the body can expel when there isnāt much to get rid of. Extremely nervous about sleeping that night encase I soiled the bed and worse covered my girlfriend in my own brand of fake tan, I did get an decent nights sleep. The pains I had been getting for the last several months eased off and I remember getting a good 8 hours sleep, however waking up with split seconds to make it to the toilet.Ā
Arriving at the hospital alone due to feeling to embarrassed to have anyone with me I got to my ward to meet the first man to ever venture my dirt trail. Dressed in only a backless robe and slippers, with a canula in my arm he asks me to curl up into the foetal position, pumping me with pain killers through the canula I watched this man lube up a disturbingly long camera on a hose type device whilst he told me to hold my breath and just remain calm. Without going into the not so romantic details of literally being anal probed, I can tell you this hurt! even with the drugs this was seriously up there as one of the most disturbing experiences of my life, however, I did have the mindset that after this I would finally know what was wrong, get some closure on the entire ordeal and finally get better and go back to having a normal life. I went home not knowing the results or having a definite diagnosis but instead to having to go home to a really unsupportive girlfriend, and not only that but her family were round that night and I was met with a onslaught of jokes and comments about the procedure. Iām fairly thick skinned though even after all this and I took most of it on the chin. Looking back I realise what a toxic bunch of people they are and I still have the mindset that I am the better person for not rising to it, even if I didn't have the energy to do so anyway.Ā
A week past and I back at the hospital for my consultation, partially excited for the good news, also prepared for the worst news, I sit down to be told there is no obvious signs of Crohns disease, however signs of inflammation and bleeding. I told my doctor that I have never seen any blood in my stools and after many months of research that I didn't believe it was Crohns disease. We had a chat about our next options and steps and that resulted in even more tests, which to my confusion, the tests he was referring to were the same tests again. CT scans, stool samples, urine samples and blood tests. Except this time they wanted to do an MRI Scan as well. They put the current diagnosis down asĀ āsuspected Crohnsā. Months pass, I eventually ease myself back into work although under no medication but a change in diet and no longer drinking energy drinks and alcohol. I felt slightly better but no where near my old self and healthy.Ā
2 months or so pass and I return to the hospital thinking this time Iāll definitely have answers, get some medications and finally start getting back to my old and normal life, only to be greeted with a completely different doctor who wanted to do every single test again, including the colonoscopy. I questioned why, and even argued that the old test results would be the exact same as the new ones but he stood his ground and said that is what he wanted to do and this is where I took the wrong path because I literally refused all help, got up and walked out. Iāll do it myself. Looking back I can see why I did this, confused, frustrated, battling a depression, and clinching onto the remains of an already broken relationship at home, feeling like a test subject rather than a patient I literally gave up all hope and just accepted this to be my new life. I really wish I didnāt do what I did so please, if you're reading this and this ever happens to you, just do what the doctors want! they know best, they are educated and experienced, and as much as it may frustrate you, just talk to the doctor and explain your feelings. They will help you. I cannot stress this enough. I went 5 years battling this completely on my own and as much as I had positive results with trial and error, I also had very negative results too. I had educated myself on guy health, Crohns disease, colitis, and nutrition, but again in the long run none of it helped.Ā
So, my journey continued.Ā
In my next blog post I will explain in detail what I tried, what helped and what didn't.
And over the course of this blog you'll find out what happened next and where I'm at now. Ā
Thank you for reading. Please comment, share and feel free to message me.Ā
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