Welcome to the Ulcerative Colitis Vlog! After dealing with ulcerative colitis for a year and a half, I started this site to describe every aspect of living with colitis, living with an ileostomy, and living with a j-pouch. If you have any questions at all feel free to contact me!
Over 10 hours of original videos!
If you are a colitis sufferer, nurse, doctor, or surgeon and you find the UCVlog useful and think others would find it useful, Help Spread the Word in your clinic!
This might be the last Spanish-subtitled video about my journey with ulcerative colitis for awhile, the long-awaited third surgery. Next will come more subtitled videos about managing an ileostomy and J-pouch.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
I’ve got a new drug to tell you guys about. I know many of you are considering surgery but some people like to exhaust all their medicinal options before undergoing surgery.
Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, makers of Asacol have just released a newer, stronger of version of Asacol called Asacol HD. The “HD” stands for “High Dose,” not “High Def” (as in high definition television).
Asacol HD is mesalamine, just like Asacol, and is intended to treat moderate ulcerative colitis, whereas Asacol is meant for mild ulcerative colitis. You may have tried Asacol in the first days after your diagnosis.
The main difference between the two medicines is the size of the dosage. Asacol is taken in 400 mg doses with a maximum of 2.4 g/day. Asacol HD is taken in 800 mg doses with a maximum of 4.8 g/day. So the new version of Asacol is simply double the dose of the old medicine.
The press information on Asacol HD make clear that one HD tablet is not bioequivalent to two Asacold tablets. In test results of Asacol HD, patients with moderate colitis showed a more positive response to the HD version of the drug after six weeks than to the mild version of the drug.
I asked the company how this can be and they replied:
[T]he active ingredient in both Asacol HD and Asacol is mesalamine, and it is identical in each drug aside from the dose. The 800mg has a similar eudragit coating as the 400mg, but due to the tablet size the release profiles of the coating are not identical to the release profiles of the 400mg tablet.
That’s as much as I know about the differences between the two drugs.
Clinical studies of Asacol HD studied the drug for six weeks, so its effectiveness beyond that time-frame has yet to be established. In studies, 75% of people had decreased frequency of bowel movements after six weeks and 80% had decreased rectal bleeding after six weeks. The drug seems to have relatively few side effects, but like all medicines there’s a chance of more serious side effects.
And as always, don’t take my word as medical advice, talk to your doctor about new medicines that you might want to try.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Check out this fun video about a fundrasier for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. The fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha at Boston University allowed students to smash this car for a donation to the CCFA.
The video’s over a year old but the point is this: find creative ways to raise money for IBD research! Everybody can do something to give back.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Since starting my Spanish-subtitled video series, I have been in contact with the Association of Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis in Malaga, Spain. From what I can tell this group is similar to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America that most of us should be familiar with. I don’t understand Spanish very well but it seems that they have a very informative and helpful site for people with IBD.
Currently they are working on a research project to find out the differences in care and experiences people from around the world have with their IBD. So far they have interviewed people from Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Chile, Morocco, Argentina, and Uruguay. Unfortunately for most of my readers, the interviews are in Spanish and occasionally French. But with the help of FreeTranslation.com you can get the gist of the interviews.
Currently they are looking to interview IBD-sufferers in America to gain knowledge of our experiences. If you can assist with this project they’d greatly appreciate it. Simply fill out this questionaire and email it to Juan Rodriguez when finished. It shouldn’t take you more than five minutes.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Here’s the last video in my dream series. This one, however, is not about dreams you have at night. It’s about the dreams and the hopes and the aspirations that we all have inside of us–that one day there will be no more ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
While this dream is certainly unavoidable, how possible is it?
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
There’s an interesting new article on C3Life entitled Telling People About Your Ostomy.
Written by Sheryl C., an ostomate of over 18 years, this article describes how she tells others about her ostomy, including friends, family, coworkers, and romantic partners.
For those of you who go through surgery, you will have to learn how to tell others about your ostomy. In many ways you can hide it and never have to mention it to some people. Other times it might be almost impossible not to bring it up. How you do it and what you tell people is up to you. But one thing I found was true, and I think most ostomates will agree, is that people won’t shun you just because you have an ostomy. They will still treat you as normal for the most part. Very rarely does somebody tell me that a loved one has rejected them because of an ostomy.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Hey everybody, another milestone was reached yesterday here at the Ulcerative Colitis Vlog: 100 original videos now posted! When I first started this project I figured I’d make a few videos about my journey with flare-ups and surgeries and then do a video about emptying an ileostomy appliance and changing it. Once I got started in this project I realized how much ulcerative colitis had changed my life and affected every part of it. I started making videos about all aspects of living with colitis, living with an ileostomy, and living with a J-pouch.
This is how we end up with 100 videos.
Some of these videos are more popular than others. But for those of you who are new to this site or who have followed it half-heartedly for a few months, now might be a good time to go back and check out some videos you have missed.
And increasingly I am finding more videos about ulcerative colitis and ileostomies from others, plus three people are currently helping me translate select videos into other languages, bringing the total videos available on this site even higher.
If you are thinking I’m running out of ideas, you have another thing coming! I have a list of video ideas that I add to every week. Most likely all of them won’t be made into videos but certainly I have enough ideas for the next 100 videos. I have a ton of videos planned describing various medical procedures and issues–I really haven’t focused on that too much these first 100 videos. Plus I have more videos about ileostomies and J-pouches planned as I haven’t covered everything there is to know yet.
And, of course, I’ll continue to update you on my progress as the months tick by. Recently I gave you a six month J-pouch update–there will be more updates in the future.
With any luck, and a little help for you, I will soon get some Gutbending videos made, but I can’t do that if I don’t get videos from you guys. Some day, too, I’d like to make original videos featuring other peoples’ stories, as my perspective is only one perspective.
If you have any video ideas, reply to this post and let me know! I have fun doing this project and hope to continue it long into the future!
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
You’ve seen my video about my ileostomy dreams–now see the other side of the coin: my J-pouch dreams. I’ve written about a few of these dreams months ago.
The Wolves
The Ostomy Bag
The Window Bathroom
The Doctor Visit
Why have I only told you of four dreams compared to the ten dreams with my ileostomy? Watch this video to find out why.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Question: For the J-pouchers: do you have J-pouch dreams? Post your experiences!
The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America has teamed up with NASCAR driver and ulcerative colitis patient Scott Speed to offer two tickets to a Sprint Cup Series race to the winner of the Fast and Furious Take Steps Fundraising Contest.
Take Steps, as many of you know, is a series of fundraising walks to raise money for IBD research. Between now and August 31, 2009, for every $100 raised you will get one chance to win the tickets, which is for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, November 8th, 2009.
The winner will also get a chance to meet CCFA spokesman Scott Speed, driver of the number 82 Red Bull Toyota.
For those looking for ways to get involved and to help fight the battle against IBD, don’t miss this opportunity.
Over the past two years I’ve started watching NASCAR with a friend and it actually is an exciting sport.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
When I had my ileostomy I frequently had dreams about having an ileostomy that preceded waking up to empty the pouch. You can find written accounts of some of these dreams here:
Can’t Flush the Toilet
Frozen Stool
Labeling My Ostomy Pouch
The Professor Visits
The Auditorium
New Pouches
The Jungle
The Tree on the Man
The Metal Frame
Help with my Pouch
This video features my reflections on this very bizarre aspect of living with an ileostomy.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Question: What kind of ostomy dreams do you have? For those of you who’ve had the ostomy for years, do you still have these dreams? Comment on this post!
