Has anyone with a history of DV, and with multiple flares over a long period, ever stopped having flares without surgery? I don’t mean for a few weeks or months. More like suffered with DV flares for 8 years, did this particular thing, now haven’t had a flare in 3 years. Just curious.

Edit for grammar.

F/43 here. Just went to ER with low belly pain (no fever), had CT, was diagnosed with DV. IV antibiotics in ER, with Augmentin at home 10 days. I’m 7 days post diagnosis and have felt mostly back to normal for 3 or so days. Still on low-res diet, slowly adding a little chicken. A year ago, I lost 75 pounds (on purpose) and have since maintained my goal weight be staying low carb and eating less in general. My meals generally consist of green veggies and protein of some sort. I haven’t been great at staying well hydrated, and my “bathroom” frequency has changed and I’ve become more constipated. This is where I think my problem started as I’m otherwise pretty healthy. All that being said, I’m hoping to hear some success stories of folks with uncomplicated DV that they’ve been able to manage with fiber/water/ exercise but otherwise could maintain a pretty normal routine post flare. I’m aware that everyone is different, the risks of complications, all that. But from what I see online, so many of the posts focus on the worst cases, and I understand the reason for that. So let’s take the opportunity to talk about the other percentage of cases, which, hopefully, make up the majority?

I post on here a lot and I’m so thankful for this community of people. 🫶🏼

I’ve had 3 uncomplicated flares between Oct and Jan. I was doing great for about 3mths after that. Now kicking myself for not having surgery while I was doing good and healed.

My 4th flare which is currently going on, landed me in the hospital for a few days. The Augmentin did not work this time 😞 I was released from hospital with a PICC line and was to receive 11 more days of antibiotic infusions to heal me in preparation for surgery.

Day 4 of them, the pain started back up again. I honestly could cry 😢 Just met with surgeon and waiting on CT and blood results. But the possibility of a bag now has increased 10 fold. I could kick myself for not doing it. I’m afraid this will push me into a bad depression. Just when summer and boating season is coming around too. I honestly just want to feel better and cry.

I hate that I’m so unfortunate that the 2nd time of taking Augmentin no longer worked. And that the strong IV antibiotic ertapenem isn’t working either It’s scary 😩

I'd been complaining to my doctor for 3 weeks. It was pain whenever I ate, and I couldn't get comfortable in bed without pain, I'd get out of bed having to clutch my abdomen and walk hunched over. Weird pressure/pain when peeing.. I'd have to press in on my right side people peeing to try to lessen the pain.

Eventually I had enough. I have a trip to London coming up (June 11). So I presented to the A&E.

After waiting 8 hours for a bed, they told me I had an infection but didn't know the source. Had a CT scan and X-ray.. and apparently have 20cm of inflamed lower intestine and a micro perforation which is contained.

So I've been on IV antibiotics since 1am Tuesday morning, and a clear diet.

It went from "yes you need surgery" to "wait and see".

Whilst I have no abdominal pain now, except for lower at times (and still when I pee).. I believe I feel better.

Is it possible for micro perforations to heal on their own?

And is holding off the trip truly necessary if things are going well with antibiotics?

UPDATE: 2 week follow up 5/18/26.
Ahead of the healing schedule. The nurse and my surgeon asked to see my incisions, and they were stunned. They’re barely noticeable and the biggest one from the belly button you can’t even see. It’s only been two weeks. I know there are people still suffering from redness, pus and infection. I have none of that. Barely any pain just adjusting to trying to eat again and have normal bowel movements and that will come in time. I’m not religious, but I feel blessed.
Approximately 32 inch’s of colon removed including my appendix if that’s what you could call it.
My appendix was barely recognizable. He stated I had to have had appendicitis along with diverticulitis several times. He was taken back when he removed the tissue as he said I did not know it was even your appendix attached to your colon it looks more like cancer, but it was tested and it is not. That’s pretty damn scary. Ironically, a diverticulitis perforation basically saved my life before it almost took it. But I could remember just about every lower abdominal pain I ever had and went to doctors and they said it was nothing. Granted they probably did bloodwork and no infection showed in my blood work. However, this surgeon saved my life. He honestly doesn’t know how I made it this far with what my tissue had become.
Two weeks later, I’m still a little sore and that will last for about eight weeks however, I do not feel sick. I do not feel like toxic waste is running through my veins. I do not feel like I’m in a fog, my thought patterns are back to normal from 10 years ago . I did not know nor did my fiancé know that I was even sick. Would always ask me what was wrong cause I just seemed off and I could never give an answer. I just kept saying I’m tired. I’m just so tired. But again the doctors just brushed it off . And before anyone starts talking about lawsuits and malpractice forget about it. Those doctors are long gone. The point of this is - this was the closest brush to death I ever had. I thought my heart ablation ( flat lined on the table) was but no, I survived that procedure while still having this creature inside of me . Listen to your bodies. You need to be your own advocate. Trust me, I will never let a doctor Tell me anything is in my head ever again!!!! I am healing so well and so fast that I don’t need to even make an appointment with him unless there is some complications. I am walking 2.5 miles a day. 1.25 in the morning and then 1.25 miles in the evening. He said that is doing absolute wonders for me and I started doing that one week after surgery. I hope this gives other people hope. I’m not bragging. I just want other people to know that there are some good outcomes. I had almost 3 feet of intestines that was so destroyed by diverticulitis scar tissue. 3 feet blows my mind but I’m still here. I’m still standing and today is the 19th and I had absolutely no pain or discomfort. I even went to the store for some retail therapy and ask the woman to put the items in several bags because they were too heavy and she asked why and I told her I had surgery half of my intestines removed two weeks ago and she was like what are you even doing out in public? I said the miracle of technology and science and the expertise of my surgeon made this possible. She was just stunned . She’s like I would never have known unless you told me. So far I am a success story. I’m hoping to keep it that way. I’m eating light, small meals, exercising drinking plenty of fluids. I am also going to see a nutritionist in two weeks to make sure my electrolytes and vitamins and minerals are balanced in my body. I’m down almost 40 pounds from when I started this journey. And I haven’t felt this healthy in so many years. I will post occasional updates but mostly will respond to peoples posts to support them . Just want to thank everybody for getting me to this point. You guys are awesome.!!!!!!!! I don’t know where I would’ve been without all your support. Even my grieving has changed. I’ve been given a second chance at life and I’m going to live it.!

So, I have had only 1 flare up since diagnosis, which I noticed a warning sign of the bloody mucus in my stool (also this happened with my original diagnosis). This then triggered a few days later with a flare up. From what I’ve read on here it seems to be the precursor for a lot of others also.

The question to you fine people - I was wondering if anyone who had this similar experience managed to kerb their flare up upon this warning sign? Or is it inevitable? TIA

I am seeing the surgeon tomorrow to discuss colectomy. you can see my previous post for background if you want. Can you think of any important questions I should ask?

I have had 4 episodes in 6 months. Never had diverticulitis before October of last year, then it's just been one after another.

Has anyone else here experienced anything similar?

I'm really getting scared due to the frequency in such a short time.

If something similar happened to you, what was the course? Just deal with it? Consider surgery?

This is all very new to me and I just don't know what to make of it.

Thank you 💗

A few people have mentioned they like soft chicken and skinless mashed potatoes when they start introducing low-fiber solid foods. For the chicken, do you use breast meat or leg/thigh meat? Is one or the other more/less digestable? How do you prepare it? I've been on a liquid diet for 3 days and then day 4 had some greek yogurt and a few saltine crackers that I chewed to near liquid (at separate times). So far, so good - no more flare pain. I really want to try chicken and eggs now, but I'm not sure how to prepare the chicken.

I recent had a pretty bad flare up and finished my 500mg each of Cipro and Metro. Since stopping then, I seem to not be able to fully urinate. I plan on calling my doctor if still having issues by the end of the week but I’m curious if anyone else had this?

I’m having my colonoscopy tomorrow and I’m wondering about how many bowel movements I’ll have with Suprep. This will be my first time taking it. The first colonoscopy I had was using Magnesium citrate and I hated it. I spent hours and hours sitting on the toilet and it hurt my stomach pretty badly. The second one I had was using clenpiq and I honestly loved it because it was easy to drink and I didn’t sit on the toilet for hours. For this one, they had me on MiraLAX for 7 days and had me take a bottle of magnesium yesterday and same thing. I spent hours and hours sitting on the toilet, so I’m not looking forward to taking the prep later.

I’m hoping taking it won’t be as bad as taking the freaking magnesium. I hope it’s something closer to what clenpiq did for me. Anybody care to share their experience if you’ve taken both?

So woke up Thursday in discomfort in lower abdomen, after going through several days including a gym workout, and a concert, about 4:00am Sunday morning, I still had pain, said heck with it and came to ER. After a CT scan, they diagnosed me with diverticulitis with minor perforation. It's now Monday morning, and I'm typing this whole laying in a hospital bed, they've been pushing antibiotics through an IV, the surgeon said they'd recheck my blood work and I may get to go home today with antibiotics, or they may keep me another day. I'm 56 years old, moderately overweight, and never had a colonoscopy. The surgeon said once I'm released, they'd want me to come back in a couple weeks for another CT scan, with a colonoscopy scheduled a few weeks after that. I'd heard very little about this until yesterday, now that I've been diagnosed, how often/likely are future flare ups? Do foods cause the flareups, or do flareups happen at random? Just wanted to introduce myself, I hope everyone has a great Monday!

Apart from some phantom pains or tenderness I was doing decent. Eating close to 25g of fiber which includes supplements with psyllium husk or Metamucil.

Today though I started feeling ill no fever but just stomach issues. I’ve had three solid stool outputs today and one diarrhea output with bloating and a little bit of cramping on the opposite side.

I hope it’s just some sort of bug or ibs type issue. My colonoscopy is scheduled a week from tomorrow so hopefully this doesn’t complicate things. Wondering if I need to do a low residue diet or liquid diet for the time being to let things settle until then.

My mind is spinning with the worst possible outcomes since this flare happened.

I'm in my worst flare up ever. Nothing Inc water and broth stays inside and I've had so much diarrhoea. Is sugar in rehydration salts to be avoided? I've been making my own with sugar, salt and water as per NHS guidelines for diarrhoea. But I struggled with night sweats last night and wondered if I had too much sugar. The only pre made one the pharmacy had without sugar has aspartame and rice powder. Would either of these be typical triggers?

I'm so tired and headaches 😞

Hi everyone, here is my situation.

I started to have lower left abdomen pain about 6 months ago, came and went, also had flat stools and that really worried me...

So I got a colonoscopy, they found 2 polyps, they took them out, both were non cancerous, so that was the good news!

However, they found to diverticulas, at the same spot as the polyps, and that's actually where my pain is located.

I looked it up and I think I have:

"Symptomatic Uncomplicated Diverticular Disease"

the pain is about 1/10, stomach gurgles, it's not horrific, but things aren't just right.

Does anybody else have this?

https://preview.redd.it/5f9p0t95zt1h1.png?width=788&format=png&auto=webp&s=5b875cfbedb78d51e7458476633d25b0583215fa

Llevo desde el 20 de marzo operado y tengo aún dolores en el lado izquierdo y la cicatriz me duele muchísimo … el cirujano me dice que todo es normal pero yo me estoy desesperando

Cuánto tardasteis en sentiros normales ? También es verdad que me quitaron solo 11 cm de sigmoide y me da miedo a veces que hayan dejado algún diverticulo

Gracias a todos familia !!!

Im very worried about the surgery. He had a perforation last October and surgery was not necessary and was treated with just antibiotics. We were told he would need surgery in order to not have any flare ups. He’s been on a diet since then and he hasn’t had any flare ups since then. Also since he’s been out of the hospital he has been having pains on the right side of the colon. He says the pain usually appears when he is sitting down or laying down. When stands up the pain usually goes away. Is this normal? . Ive read multiple posts about people getting surgeries but im still worried. How dangerous can the surgery be? Hoping and wishing everything goes well. Any tips for after the surgery?

I was on a three month low residue diet last year when I began not feeling well.

Since December I developed a weird lower left tenderness. Honestly it only started right after I as bending down a few times for something. For nearly a month it felt very uncomfortable to bend down for anything. I also felt a weird tenderness feeling when being in a car. Even if I’m not driving.

I do have ibs c so when I have gas I feel some tinges down there.

I also notice if I have a full bladder I feel tender or almost like a heavy feeling lower left also.

I haven’t done any scope procedure due to this feeling and nervous about feeling worse or a perforation as I’ve had two family members that it happened to before. One even died. I know it’s rare but after knowing this and having anxiety plus no health insurance I’ve just been putting it off. I’ve seen 4 gi docs and none seem to understand my concerns or fears about the procedure.

That’s a separate issue.

My concern is since the beginning of this problem last year October I constipated pretty much everyday. I don’t eat trigger foods like dairy and gluten.

But even chicken and rice makes me very constipated. I ate just 10 pieces of small potato chips. I didn’t even eat half of the small bag and I was so constipated I developed a fissure….

Is this normal dv stuff?

Simple foods that didn’t cause me any problems in the past are now making me constipated. It doesn’t make any sense.

One of the drs said it could e colitis. But colitis seems to cause diarrhea rather than constipation. I use miralax everyday

I just got out of the hospital with really bad pain. I have Crohn's disease so I figured that's what it was but nope diverticulitis.

a few years ago I had it and the pain was so bad they gave me four doses of morphine - I kept passing out from pain. I had no idea it can come back.

one question. they gave me a single amoxicillin at the hospital. I ate some crackers because I hadn't eaten in 15 hours. as soon as I got home I barfed it up. they also gave me zofran which seemed to do nothing.

I can't eat multiple times a day (I eat twice a day limited to eggs for a while now) but I have to eat to take the antibiotics 3x a day, every eight hours. which, no matter how I slice it, means waking at 1am to eat a piece of toast and take the meds.

I'm wondering if the nausea was a combination of the morphine plus the antibiotic.

how has it gone for you? does the antibiotic make you sick? I've got ten days to go ad the pain is back with a vengeance. and they wouldn't give me any morphine doggy bag!