so i'm in montreal, my rich cousin put me up in a $350/night hotel. i had a colonoscopy earlier today, where i was driven there by my private limosine driver. his name was tony, he looked like "hitman". the dark shades, black tie and suit, shaved head. he's probably some ex mossad security/driver for uncle warbucks, wouldn't suprize me one bit. but yeah, 4 star hotel bitches. 

i have access to the "executive lounge" on the 35th floor, where i can enjoy hors d'ouevres at any time. there was a buffet style tray of scallops and lobster tail swimming in butter. i loaded up a big plate, took it back to my room and just rubbed the butter all over myself while flushing the expensive seafood down the toilet. well that last part's actually not true, i actually took the lobster tail and shoved it up my ass. apparently a doctor fit a 4 foot tube up there earlier today, i wouldn't have known cause i was knocked out on an IV cocktail of demerol and valium. this guy knew how to treat a fella. if i ever bottom out at least i know there's a career out there for me as a gay porn star. 4 feet, woo! 

So it looks like a have Chrons disease, which isn't a big deal, just ulcers in my small intestine, they're pretty fun. but who gives a shit about that, i'm sitting in the lobby with my feet up on some gilded coffee table which i can only assume is worth more than my life. this shit's fucking baller. this is the kinda shit jesus would do if he was rich. tomarrow i come back to the real world, and my fantasy adventure in never neverland will be over, but shit, it's kinda fun pretending that you're not too broke for some toonie tuesday at KFC. 

there's a fucking minibar in my room, it has a mini bottle of johnnie walker blue label, i'm afraid to touch it. i could only eat clear liquids all yesterday, so i got room service to send me up some sorta soup broth. $23 for some hot water with a beef boullion cube dissolved innit. and i tipped $5, (that's what rich fucks do right?). room service baby! 

no wonder all the rich fucks out there are completely out of touch with reality, if i got used to this lifestyle, many of life's inate joys wouldn't cut it for me anymore. i couldn't play games, instead i'd have buy 2 philipino boys and beat them with bamboo to make them press the corresponding W, S, A, or D key. that seems sporting. 

Sorry to hear that dood.

NOT jealous.

I have ulcerative colitis, and sad to say, it has  been a big deal in my life.  I knew a guy my age that died from complications from UC. Even so, I would NEVER trade it for Crohn's. I'm glad that it's not so severe that you can take it relatively lightly. I hope it stays that way, as that shit can make you miserable.

Doctors are pretty clueless when it comes to auto-immune diseases. They're tremendously educated, but our collective knowledge just isn't there yet. They've got a short list of treatments.  The first one or two aren't that bad, but once you get into long-term steroid use or immunosuppressives, then the fun starts.

You're Canadian, huh?  Good on you, at least insurance won't be an issue. Ever. Glad you're enjoying the accommodations. Don't get used to it!

Edited to add: That's some funny material there, it shouldn't go unrecognized. LOL at the smearing butter part.

Yeah, that sucks to hear you have that. Shit, I'll give you tips and info, but I'm not a doctor, so you can take it or leave it.

1. Stop eating gluten. You can go online and find a list of what contains gluten, but your typical foods that contain gluten are wheat, oats, rye, grains, etc. You can find all sorts of grains that are gluten-free, like quinoa (which is good as fuck for you) and you can find cereals and other grains that will be labeled as gluten-free.

Seriously, stop eating gluten. Totally eliminate it from your diet.

2. Get some myrrh, and try that. I've heard that it can relieve the symptoms of Crohns. It's cheap and its not bad for you, so just give it a try.

3. General shit: take a multivitamin and fish oil every day. Don't eat shit-tier foods and refined sugar.

you guys are totally jelly

but yeah, thanks for the tips, sympathy, etc. i was reading in the globe and mail this morning saying how when it was first studied that ulcers are from bacteria, and not lifestyle choices, back in like 86' it came under alot of fire. but time has proven this to be true, and has developed to much better treatments. so i guess that's a good thing. the one thing that can irritate the symptoms is taking too many anti-inflammatory medications. and i take advil like smarties, guess i'm never taking that shit again. i sometimes get muscle cramps or headaches, and advil works like a charm, but i've gone through like a bottle of 100 almost since december, that's waaay too much, and probably a cause of recent pains. but yeah, sucks to hear you've had to deal with UC doc, but sucks even more that you say you'd never trade it for what i got, cause i'm willing to throw in an original babe ruth signed upperdeck card with the trade. this isn't anything i haven't dealt with before, believe it or not i've dealt/am dealing with worse. at lease this time i'm not a kid who will spend a month straight drinking to deal with it, now i'm a big boy and nothing really phases me anymore. i was preparing for cancer as it's big on both sides of my family, so the fact that there is none (crosses fingers waiting for biopsy) is like me winning the fucking lottery as far as i see it. woot! anyways, this thread is uber depressing now. way to ruin it faggots.

Slick, yeah, when I first started passing blood, I thought I had cancer too. I'm not a doctor, despite the handle, but I know that when you start passing blood, it's never good. When you're thinking cancer, almost anything else sounds good by comparison. Change the Babe Ruth to an Honus Wagner ATC card, and I'd consider the trade.

Christ dude, you've dealt with worse? Crohns should be enough. How old are you? Generally, Crohns hits college-age kids, but I thought you were older.

A bottle of 100 Advil since December? Piker. When I used to unload trucks, I'd go through one of those a month, and yeah, I don't use it anymore.

I have a bottle of myrrh. It didn't do anything for me, but while UC and Crohns are both autoimmune and involve the colon, they are different, so results may vary. My burps tasted like incense, so that might be a plus for some folks. I never tried the gluten-free thing. Seems draconian, and difficult to do.

heh, yeah a bottle of 100 of the big ones though, (maybe more) i try not to, but sometimes i just pop a handful to help me sleep. that shit's retarded, i had a feeling it couldn't be good for me. drugs are bad mmmmmkay? although shit i could definately go for a nice big spliff right about now, i'm on the train coming home and all they have is coors light. i need some chrons for my crohns. oh geez, i think imma make that joke alot from now on.

and yeah, i'm 28, but crohns is no big thang. i just don't talk about it. i didn't even wanna mention this, guess i was still whacked from the demerol and valium, i was just trying to gloat about being a pimp ass gangster. but yeah, like i said, its not a big deal to me. i've learned from last time to not just aimless wander the internet when you're trying to find info about a health problem, it'll just scare you shitless. a million scare mongers out there trying to convince you you're in mortal peril and they have the miracle cure. it's garbage. i learned only to get info from specialists who know what they're talking about, i don't even trust GPs cause you have no idea how many times i've been misdiagnosed, and sent all over the place for no reason. you never know what a GP knows and what they don't, if you go there with an ear ache, you don't know how he scored on "ears" in school, maybe he flunked "ears", but he nailed other things, they'll still pass him, and he might be clueless about some things. it's alot to ask for these guys to know everything. i just listened to my body, and it told me to get a colonscopy, so i set one up with someone who was good and would just do it, not have to go through a million mini sessions trying to see if they should send me somewhere else. and boom, i nailed it.

also, if you throw in a mint condition complete set of the original "garbage pail kids" series from topps, i'm in.

Seriously, go gluten-free for a few weeks. It's not that bad or difficult. Give it a shot. if it doesn't do anything, all you did was limit your gluten intake by not eating grains with gluten.

Also, instead of taking aspirin or whatever to help you sleep, go get some Valerian Root and Melatonin. I've had insomnia my entire life, and before I found Valerian root, my options were: 1. inebriation 2. sleeping pill 3. shit sleep

You can get Valerian root at just about any grocery store in the herbs/vitamins isle. Same with melatonin. Take 530mg of Valerian root, 6mg of melatonin, and in half an hour you'll be asleep like a ma fuka.

Error speaks the truth.

sounds good, i think i'll hit a health food store and get some of that sleeping stuff. i'll try anything once. and i haven't eaten gluten in about a week, just fruits, veggies, and meat, seafood. haven't really touched milk.

i bought 5 pounds of genuine deli montreal smoked meat, it's sooooooo good!

the real problem with my diet is that there's no grocery store near me, and the little boutique shops are insanely overpriced, we're talking $2 for an apple kinda rip off, in the suburbs i could get a whole bag for that. so often i just eat out lately, and there's not many options without gluten. subs, sandwiches, hamburgers, burritos, pizza, everything has grains in it, and mostly all of them have gluten in some form. it's not as easy as just flipping a switch. if i owned a car and could go to an actual grocery store, it'd be a different story. if i go to the local coffee shop and get a gluten free biscuit/cookie thing, it's $3.50, and i don't have a job, so yeah, getting a whole meal from somewhere else for almost the same price, it's rarely a contest as to who gets my money.

so yeah, i'm paying alot more at the moment, but i'll try it for a few weeks, see if things change. nothing so far. gluten-free does seem to be a pretty big diet fad right now, so i'm not really convinced, but as i said, i'll try anything once.

also, from everything I've read and been told, diet has absolutely no effect on crohn's diesease. it's an auto-immune disease of which there is no cure! yes! best i can do is drug treatment which can bring it into remission. apparently being jewish and having previously been a smoker puts me at a very high risk for this. oops. i totally should have picked "gentile" on that application form, you know when i was swimming around the spirit realm. I was screaming: "japanese! japanese!" but no one could hear me because i didn't have a mouth...

hey to anyone actually following this thread, check this out, it'll cheer you up:

Well, going gluten-free isn't going to cure Crohns, but for people who are alergic or sensitive to gluten, it causes similar symptoms.

basically, remove gluten from your diet, and see if it helps. even if it doesn't help, it also doesn't hurt...so it may be a "fad", but honestly, there's absolutely no negative to trying to change your diet to possibly aleve your symptoms.

and trust me, fuck aspirin. Valerian Root and Melatonin. I can get both in the vitamin/supplement aisle at the grocery store. Trust me, they absolutely work. Take them half an hour before you want to go to sleep. Then do something calm and relaxing, and trust me, you'll be able to shut your eyes and fall sleep.

Aspirin's natural. Derived from willow bark.

"You know what they call 'alternative medicine' that’s been proved to work? Medicine." - Tim Minchin

Aspirin is natural, but it can still cause a lot of problems if taken a lot. Valerian root is just as natural, and has a specific calming/sleeping benefit without the same issues excessive aspirin can cause.

yeah i don't think ill of things because they're a fad or popular at the time, i'm just skeptical. but i'm skeptical about most things in life so that's not really anything new. not to the point where i think that we didn't land on the moon or that the government is bombarding us with invisible lasers to turn our blood into gasoline, but you know what i mean, a healthy skeptic. lewis black has a great bit on one of his older albums talking about how many times in his life it's been either "good" or "bad" to drink milk. how many times society seems to flip flop on what's good or bad for you, so as a whole i think that everyone's health is unique, and what's good for you might not be good for me and vice versa, there aren't many global constants in health. and in the same vein, yeah, i think that i am sensitive to wheat stuffs, and that can definately trigger symptoms. i burp alot after i eat anything like that. people think i'm weird, or possibly swallowing air, but they're legit, i burp like i just chugged a 2 litre of pop after eating a soda cracker. and if i don't burp umm, loudly, then it gets stuck in my diaphragm, and it hurts. if you've ever been on vent with me, you've probably born witness to this, i'm not too shy like that. gastric gasses for all! ^^

also it was advil that i was taking, the anti-inflammatories are the things that can aggrevate the ulcers apparently. never really taken aspirin, i just knew it as the drug that i wasn't allowed to take as a kid, or teenager even. also i'm pretty sure that bayer's old-timey parent company produced the gas that they used in the chambers in the death camps, so fuck that shit.

Anyone taking aspirin to relax or sleep is doing it wrong - I've never heard of it being used for that purpose. Benedryl works pretty good for sleeping. I'm open to the idea that OTC herbals can help in that area as well, but I'm not about to reject all modern knowledge of medicine. I had a friend urge me to see some doctor who had a radio show for my UC - turns out the 'doctor' in question was a chiropractor, not an MD, and sold homeopathic 'medicine'. I don't think I ever convinced my friend that the guy was a quack.

I probably shouldn't be taking aspirin. NSAIDS are not good with UC. I guess it's time to buy some Tylenol, but I really don't like taking it. Too many ppl end up needing liver transplants every year from it because they accidentally took too much. Many of them die before they get a liver.

I am interested in the gluten-free thing. There's no question gluten bothers some ppl, and as Crohns/UC are autoimmune diseases, I can easily believe some foods would exacerbate those conditions. For example, I can't eat tomato products. No spaghetti, no pizza, no ketchup! GRRRRR. . . It looks like it's getting easier to go gluten-free, but it still looks to be a chore. With all the grain the US produces, there's a lot of bread, cereal and pasta in our diet.

Some people are straight-up allergic to gluten. Other people are "sensitive" to it. I don't think I have a problem with gluten, but there is an idea out there that gluten and lineolic acid cause a lot of health problems even for people who aren't allergic or sensitive to it. I think more research needs to be done, so at the moment, I still eat a little wheat and oats.

You can drop gluten pretty easily, although it means you'll have to eat a little differently. Here's a link that lists grains that are gluten-free. Give it a couple of weeks, and see if it helps. If not, nothing lost and you tried out some different foods. If so, then its only better. So there's basically no reason to not try it.


http://www.csaceliacs.org/gluten_grains.php

And Valerian Root and Melatonin work wonders. Your body already produces melatonin, but as you get older, it produces less. Valerian root is natural, and is almost like valium in that it helps with anxiety and helps you fall asleep.

acetominophen is fucking devil. and they put that shit in everything too, you want some sinus relief? it was 400mg of tylenol in it, you want codiene? it's gonna have a bunch of tylenol in it too. it wrecks havoc on your liver, and i've heard that dying from overdosing on it is one of the most painful ways to go, takes 2 weeks as your organs just start failing one by one.

perosnally i think that it's BS that there aren't other alternatives for painkillers, i hear of other shit they have over in other countries, like jellyfish extract that kills pain, is natural, with no heath side effects. of course tylenol corp or whatever won't be having any of that. and if you can somehow manage to get ahold of some of the "good" painkillers in the west (read: effective ones) then they're all opiates! seriously, why the fuck are we all on opiates? i know that there's other things out there that work just as good, which don't fuck up your gut, aren't as narcotic, and are as ADDICTIVE to many people.

i mean, for me personally, i've asked every doctor, nurse, and specialist that i've ever seen to prescribe me a painkiller that doesn't "bung up" my intestines. cause that ends up only making my problem worse right? i get some oxycodone, it kills the pain, but then it ends up making the problem worse physically. and they all just shrug and say "ionno, that's a good question". and i go on living in constant pain day to day. so yeah, i've found my own "alternatives" which work great and don't act like cement in my bowels, they're not exactly legal, but fuck them, i've tried my hardest to work with the system, and they can't help.

and the best part is, sometimes i'm really in alot of pain, like i can't move around at all pretty much, and i could really use something serious to take the edge off, so i hobble into a doctor's office, explain my situation, and ask for painkillers, he tells me to take some tylenol, i tell him that i can take a fist full of that shit and it does nothing. i'm in alot of pain, and to have the odasity to ask for a "real" painkiller has the doctor looking at me like i'm a junkie. it's a pretty great feeling being rejected in my time of need, it's happened too many times to remember. you know the only person who's ever prescribed me just 20mg oxyies? and only 10 tablets of them? my fucking dentist, cause i had a dislocated jaw when i was a kid, and some of my cartilidge is still floating around, so when i get work done on my mouth, a filling or something, my jaw locks, and then i can't open my mouth for about a week, and it hurts a shit ton. he actually believed me. so yeah, i have no shame in finding my own solutions, sometimes you guys might see "night slick" on the attack, and that's a good time, cause that's a slick who's not in pain.

I hear ya. I think all drugs should be legal, and that you should be able to self-medicate. I personally find it appalling that the government is so intrusive that it wants to be able to control our bodies and minds. Unfortunately, since your country is right next door to Rome - err the United States, your laws are going to reflect our laws. And our laws are fucking garbage.

yeah, somtimes i think that our laws are your laws. not all of them, but as far as US-Canada relations go, you only have to look at the case study of the Avro Arrow to see how fast Canada will sell out to uncle Sam. sometimes i don't know what makes us different from any of the other countries the US bullies around the globe. do we have nukes? can't we just nuke your bitch ass? something tells me i don't think we have nukes...

There's probably a short youtube video out there that explains what the Avro Arrow incident is better than i can describe, i'm just worried that it'll be some Canadian Hippy fanatic who will distory all the facts, because it's a pretty harrowing tale, but then people take it too far out of the realm of facts. (i just looked, and infact, being canada, it's the opposite, it's mostly videos saying that it was "no big deal" and "we don't wanna make no fuss" i wanna kill myself)

Long story short, In the late 50's Canada was already making Mach 2 jet fighters, with out own designs, and our own engines. Then mysteriously the project was scrapped, all planed were ordered destroyed, and the compny disbanded and let all of their employees go. The behind the scenes stuff was that the President and Prime-minister were working behind the scenes to arrange for Canada to be forcibly strong-armed into buying some US-made missles for a missle shield against Russian nukes. And in return for this "generosity" (??????) we were to scrap this amazing plane project.

We were light years ahead of the world, the rest of the world was having major problems breaking the sound barrier, we were doubling it. Then all blueprints, all pictures of, and all of the aircrafts (only like 7 or 8 had been manufctored by that point) were destroyed. There's supposedly an intact arrow somewhere in a protected bunker in canada, that some people have claimed to have seen. there's a replica in one of our air museaums in ottawa i think. But other than that, a few black and white snapshots of a pilot flying over the airfield watching them being dissasembled is the proof that's been left.

What happened to all of those brilliant engineers who built this marvel of technology which would have ensured Canada as a powerhouse and the leader in air tech? Well they were all promptly brought down to the states where they helped form NASA, and we built your fucking space program. I guess Canada couldn't be trusted with tech better than the US, expecially by such a wide margin, shit maybe we'd sell to the russians or something! (it's funny cause why the fuck would we ever do that? seems like america was projecting that THEY do shady shit like that all the time, so they assume that other countries would do the same, who knows)

but yeah, talk about how your policies affect us, no shit. It's not a soverign nation, we're not as bad as half of the world under the US's control, but still we have the same bullshit confidence that "Canada's totally free" and "we're the best country on earth" and "no one can tell us what to do" bla bla bla. At least when it comes down to it on an individual level, the people act a bit different, in that i've never once been busted for doing drugs in my life, i've not had a single one of my friends ever goto jail for that shit, because the cop who might find you drunk and high stumbling on the street, he's not the government, he's just a dude. And he doesn't always tow their line.

i'm all for self-medication too, i never hurt anyone, fought anyone, raped anyone, killed anyone, never lost a house, a wife, kids, a car, never thrown a punch. so whatever ever the fuck else i choose to do is my own business. and i don't judge people for their personal choices. i don't care if you're a heroin addict or a bible thumper, i won't exclude your voice from my conversation, even if i don't agree that your choices are the same one's i'd have made myself.

oh yeah, and that avro arrow? this is all that our government gives us 50 years later, "part of our heritage" 60 second tv spots.