It was about 3 1/2 years since my transplant when I hit another bit of a bump, although at the time we didn’t know it was transplant related.
I was hit with a Flu bug that got my Wife and Son a short time earlier. It was a hit hard and fast extreme Vomiting and Diarrhea for a few hours then it passed for the most part with a couple days of minor “after shocks”. It left us all feeling weak for a couple days. It so-happened that we all got this bug while in Mexico, BUT it was not a Montezuma’s revenge kind of bug, it was a legit flu.
Scuba diving at Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
My wife and I at 100′ below the surface.
We also saw Bull sharks on this dive.
This was before the Diarrhea !!!!
.
I returned to Canada as planned a few days later but the diarrhea continued for days, weeks and eventually a couple months. I went to the toilet between 5 – 20x per day, mostly 1st thing in the morning and from mid afternoon on. Basically after I’d eat. Imodium sometimes slowed it down but not much. I eventually dropped almost 30 lbs from 184 lbs to 157 ( my grade 9 weight ).
I had been to my GP, Emerg a total of 3 times for rehydration, was booked for ” a scope” to see if there was anything abnormal and throughout had had lots of bloodwork to monitor my Transplanted Kidney.
I was finally admitted t the hospital for 6 days as that was the only way they could get me scoped and various other tests done without a 3 week wait. All tests scopes, barium xrays etc came back normal.
I had a feeling it was Transplant Med related as I had similar Diarrhea problems after a trip to Bali 2 years ago. I was finally switched from Cellcept aka Mycophenolate.to Myfortic aka Mycophenolate Sodium which eased the symptoms and allowed my bowels to recover.
I was switched from Myfortic to an old original anti rejection drug called AZATHIOPRINE about a week later the diarrhea started to subside and I started to gain weight again.
Apparently this diarrhea thing is not all that uncommon on these meds. I guess this is one of the negatives to transplant drugs.
To much information alert !!!!Re ” Diarrhea and Burning watery bowel movements. The “runs” where mostly water and not the acidy runs I had when I was 1st put on Cellcept. Despite this, that much use of a body part becomes very painful over time.
I tried several barrier creams supplied by the hospital but they didn’t help much. Then I tried Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream. This “Beauty Product” was the silver bullet relief for my tortured sphincter. Its about $ 25 but when your in pain its worth 10x that for relief.
This stuff works.
Here’s a link to a write up about all its other uses.
http://www.beautylish.com/a/vxyzy/cult-product-elizabeth-arden-eight-hour-cream
I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how to apply it.
The year preceeding this and since the med change have been great. I’ve been very active and Work / Play hard. I’ve been living life like I’d never had kidney trouble ( apart from using sunscreen more regularly ).
My New ( Transplanted ) Kidney Journey 