My Diverticulitis Journey
Writing this from a hospital bed while recovering from an elective sigmoid colectomy.
I actually discovered this subreddit after my last major flare, and I honestly think it changed the course of my treatment. Reading everyone's experiences helped me understand this disease far better than I had before, and ultimately gave me the confidence to push for surgery
My journey started in May 2023 with my first known bout of diverticulitis. My wife was giving me a hard time because it just looked like constipation, which was unusual since I've always had healthy, regular bowel movements. Like most people around me, she figured it would pass if I just waited it out.
After several days of worsening pain in my lower left abdomen and developing a fever, I finally drove myself to urgent care. The provider told me I was a little young at 30 years old to have diverticulitis, but based on my symptoms, they strongly suspected it. They sent me to the ER, where a CT scan confirmed my first episode of acute diverticulitis.
My dad had also dealt with diverticulitis, so getting established with his gastroenterologist was easy. I had my first colonoscopy shortly afterward, which confirmed diverticulosis and supported the diagnosis. At the time, I didn't think much of it. I was young, active, and lived a relatively healthy lifestyle, so I assumed this would just be an occasional inconvenience.
For the next couple of years, that mostly seemed to be the case. Through early 2025, I'd have a mild flare roughly every six months. Looking back, I was incredibly naive about the cumulative damage each flare could cause. Whenever symptoms started, I'd send my gastroenterologist a message or schedule a telehealth visit, get prescribed antibiotics, recover, and move on with life. I never really stopped to think about what repeated inflammation might be doing to my colon or that one bad episode could result in a perforation and emergency surgery.
Then everything changed.
The flare-ups became much more frequent. It felt like I couldn't make it through a single quarter without another one. What had once been an occasional inconvenience was becoming a recurring part of my life.
This was also when the mental side of the disease really started to take hold. I found myself constantly wondering if something I ate would trigger another flare, even though I knew the science wasn't that straightforward. Every stomach ache or cramp made me question whether another round of antibiotics was around the corner.
The unpredictability became exhausting. It wasn't just the physical pain anymore. It was the anxiety of never knowing when the next flare would happen, whether I'd have to cancel plans, miss work, or spend another week recovering. Diverticulitis had slowly gone from something I dealt with a couple of times a year to something that was starting to dictate how I lived my life.
By 2026, I finally started to understand what a truly bad flare-up could mean. I learned more about complications like perforations, abscesses, fistulas, and emergency surgery, and that knowledge made my anxiety even worse.
Then came the flare that changed everything.
Looking back, I probably should have gone to the hospital. Instead, I stubbornly tried to manage it at home and fought through a five-day fever, convincing myself it would eventually get better. It did, but it also forced me to realize how much I had been gambling with my health.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
For the first time, I stopped thinking about getting through the next flare and started thinking about preventing the next one altogether. I knew I couldn't keep living with the constant anxiety, the repeated rounds of antibiotics, and the fear that the next episode might require emergency surgery.
I had a colonoscopy scheduled, but it ended up being cancelled because I went into another flare. Thankfully, it was relatively mild because I hadn't really been eating much anyway, but that cancellation turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of rescheduling the colonoscopy, my gastroenterologist referred me directly to a colorectal surgeon.
The timeline moved incredibly fast after that. I went from planning for a colonoscopy on June 23 to having surgery on July 1.
The surgeon reviewed my imaging and history, asked me a few questions, and then told me that, given the frequency of my flares and my age, he'd prefer to operate before I had another one rather than risk waiting until I needed emergency surgery. My wife and I are expecting our second child in August, so the timing actually worked out better than we could have hoped.
Today I'm four days post-op.
I know everyone's experience is different, but so far I feel great. I don't have an ostomy bag, I'm already up walking multiple times a day, and every day has been a little better than the last.
More than anything, I feel relieved.
For the first time in over a year, I'm not wondering when the next flare is coming. That constant anxiety that had quietly taken over my life is finally gone.
I hope my story helps. Surgery isn't the right answer for everyone, but don't let fear keep you from at least having the conversation with a colorectal surgeon. Elective surgery under controlled circumstances is a very different experience than emergency surgery, and for me, it was absolutely the right decision.