I don't know how serious this flare is and need help assessing
Hey everyone!
So I got diagnosed on October 2025 (now August 2026 for the records lol). I was having symptoms for about a month before being diagnosed. These symptoms included urgency, frequent BM (like maybe 15x a day), after eating ANYTHING having to run to the bathroom and blood. After my first colonoscopy I was diagnosed with mild-moderate UC on the left side.
After that I was prescribed Mesalamine and took 4 1.2g pills a day. This worked pretty well very quickly.
November 2025 had a bad flare. Going to the bathroom like 20x plus a day. Got put on a short 40mg/day prednisone course and it sorted me out within about a month. Total remission from there on out while still taking the Mesalamine.
Fast forward to end of May 2026 and I start to get this weird kinda pain in my stomach again. It progressively get worse and I'm having urgency about 3x a day with blood. Mostly bad in the mornings with urgency diarrhea and lots of blood and mucus. I called my Doc and got sent the prednisone again. That helped mask the urgency and pain during the day, however, every morning it was urgent diarrhea with lots of blood. Finished that prednisone around endish of June and had urgency in the morning, blood in all BMs and always diarrhea continue.
I went in for my second colonoscopy on July 8th 2026 and they said the results were basically back to where I was at the first one in October 2025. I just turned 26 and have been fighting to get on insurance and was told to let them know once I am on new insurance to start me on Tremfya.
I continued to have urgent BMs every morning and always mostly blood and mucus in all my BMs throughout the day (I was going about 5-7x a day) and always diarrhea.
Now we are at current times (August 18th 2026). Starting around August 8th I started to experience A LOT more blood. My urgency went through the roof. I was going about 7x a day but it was still always blood and mostly blood and mucus. I will wake up at least twice in the middle of the night and run to the bathroom and experience at least 20min long periods of having to go, going, having it look like what I can only describe as mostly mucus followed by something that kinda looks like round ground turkey bits with blood on it, followed by I guess a lump/puddle of blood. Wiping is all blood on the TP. I also started getting a lot of canker sores around this time (end of July through first weekish of August.
On August 10th that night I had EXTREME anal pain. Like it felt swollen and this super achy dull throbbing pain after going to the bathroom. The next day I was so tender. That dull throbbing achy pain was so persistent. On August 12th I went to my GI and they attempted an examine with their finger but it was so painful they couldn't do it. Got sent home with some cream and started another round of 40mg/day prednisone for 10days this time before the tapper. I also started my first dose of Tremfya the next day.
I injected the 2 loading doses of Tremfya at home and have still been taking the Mesalamine hoping it will work again randomly. But I am still experiencing a lot of pain in my BMs and definitely A LOT OF BLOOD AND MUCUS. I wake up about twice a night with urgency and stomach pain, go to the bathroom and still see the mucus, bloody ground turkey (?) like texture. When I am awake it takes about 2 hours after taking the prednisone to feel probably 70% normal with maybe 2x urgent bathroom visits a day, but at night it wakes me up and I am going a total of about 7x a day and its all looking really bad.
I am just curious how serious this actually is. Do I wait out the prednisone (I'm on day 6 of a 10 day 40mg/day before tapper). How long before Tremfya can help me, also like those success percentages on their websites are not very comforting lol. Do I go to the ER for IV help? I don't know how bad this and how assess this.
I'm going about 7x a day, lots of mucus and blood, cramping and pain in stomach at night and before taking prednisone, urgency about 3-4x out of those 7 BMs a day. Anal pain is definitely down, but I am still tender (hurts to couch, sneeze and laugh but I can move around just a little slower and more careful).