Medication for Ulcerative Colitis: How I Ended Up with Herbal Medicine

Although I mentioned in another article that I am undergoing treatment for ulcerative colitis,
I am currently taking herbal medicine.

While herbal medicine has become more common than it used to be, I think that the more severe the illness, the fewer people choose herbal medicine as their first line of treatment.
I did not choose herbal medicine from the beginning either.
I would like to write about the process of how I ended up with herbal medicine.

First of all, the hospital where I had my initial consultation and started treatment
was a hospital in Osaka where I lived at the time.
I have forgotten what medication I was taking,
but I believe it was a standard medication for ulcerative colitis.
The policy seemed to be to take the medication for a while and check the condition, but there was absolutely no change in my symptoms after about three months of taking it.
In the meantime, I changed jobs and returned to my hometown, so I had them write a referral letter and started going to a local prefectural hospital.

At the local prefectural hospital, it started with a colonoscopy. When they examined me, they found a polyp in my intestine, so they decided to remove it right then and there. When I had to get eight injections in one day for various reasons, even I, who have no resistance to injections and actually like watching blood being drawn into a syringe,
felt like, 'That's enough injections...'

After going through that, I believe I was prescribed "Pentasa." I took it for several months, but there was no change in my condition with this either. During a regular check-up, I honestly told the doctor about the situation, and the medication was changed to "Asacol." However, there was no change in my condition with this medication either.

Then, during a regular check-up, when I told the doctor, "I don't feel like the medication is working," they said, "Since your condition is an early-stage proctitis type, perhaps the medication isn't reaching the affected area."
Ulcerative colitis is a disease that can start in the rectum and progress throughout the entire intestine, and I believe the nuance was that since the rectum is the final part of the intestine closest to the anus, the medication might not be reaching it. Certainly, there is some truth to that idea.
However, I stopped going to that hospital because of this incident.

When I had my first consultation at the prefectural hospital, I waited for hours only for the consultation to end in about five minutes with the doctor not even looking at my face and acting coldly. I was dissatisfied with that and I think I couldn't trust the doctor.

Since then, I felt completely discouraged and used the busyness of work as an excuse to leave the disease untreated for about a year or two. Fortunately, I didn't feel like my symptoms were getting worse, so I was able to go about my daily life with just the usual bloody stools.
However, the disease doesn't just go away because you ignore it.
But I didn't want to have another sad experience by going to a regular hospital, so I decided to go to a hospital that specializes in ulcerative colitis. I did some research and eventually ended up being treated at a specialized clinic in another prefecture.

Until then, the bloody stools never stopped even while I was on medication, but when I started taking the medicine from that clinic, I was happy when the bloody stools stopped at an early stage, and I decided to continue taking it after that.
Since the medicine prescribed by the clinic was herbal medicine, the medicine I am taking ended up being herbal medicine as a result.

I don't believe that ulcerative colitis can only be cured by herbal medicine, but if your current medication doesn't suit you, I think choosing herbal medicine is one option.