It Gets Better: How I Adjusted to the UC Grind

Written by Abby McCoy, RN
Medically Reviewed by Melinda Ratini, MS, DO on March 11, 2026

By Natalie Kelley, as told to Abby McCoy

My first ulcerative colitis (UC) symptoms started in college. Before I got my diagnosis, I heard it all: “It’s anxiety,” “It’s food intolerance.” People told me, “You’re a girl in your 20s. Tummy stuff is normal.” But it didn’t feel normal.

After a few years, I finally got diagnosed in August ‌2017. I started taking mesalamine, also known as 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA), and followed an elimination diet called the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD).

At first, I thought it was working. But I had just started my senior year of college, and with that came a lot of stress — my biggest UC trigger.

By the end of my senior year, I had started flaring pretty badly, but I remember thinking, “I’ll graduate in a couple of months, get a colonoscopy, and it’ll be fine.” I decided not to tell anyone and to keep pushing through, hoping my treatment would work.

But two or three weeks after graduation, I was hospitalized for ulcerative colitis. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t even drink water without feeling intense pain. My doctors weren’t sure if I was allergic to mesalamine or if my UC suddenly turned severe.

One thing was certain: my treatment had failed.

After some discussions, my doctors put me on adalimumab (Humira) injections, which I gave to myself every few weeks. I stopped following the SCD diet but kept working with a nutritionist and explored other holistic options like acupuncture. 

I stayed on adalimumab for about nine months. And while it worked pretty well to keep my UC at bay, I got almost every side effect. Feeling depressed, I asked myself, “Where’s my quality of life?” I knew I was eating better and having fewer flares, but I felt so down. 

At that point, I started looking more closely at other options. My doctor put me on low-dose naltrexone (LDN), an off-label medication for UC inflammation. I also started seeing a naturopath, who suggested a Chinese herb called Qing Dai. Some research shows this herb helps lower UC inflammation, and it worked well for me.

When I first realized mesalamine wasn’t working, I felt so scared. I was so young. All my classmates were looking for apartments and jobs, but I felt uncertain about my future.

I didn’t want to tell anyone that when I went to the bathroom, I saw blood. I kept telling myself to keep going, graduate at the top of my class, and finish out my sorority responsibilities.

So I did all that, but underneath it all was fear, because I didn’t understand my options. I’d heard about infusions and injections, which also sounded terrifying. There were so many unknowns. I kept thinking, “What next?” “What if that doesn’t work?” 

The first time I realized my treatment plan wasn’t working, I didn’t have a lot of mental tools to help get me through it. So I leaned on denial — trying to ignore it until I couldn’t.

I remember one very specific moment when I realized that even though adalimumab was working for my UC, my quality of life was terrible. I still lived at home for a year post-grad, and I was working on a blog, trying to figure out what I wanted it to be.

Facing another treatment failure, I literally sat in the corner of my basement office, stared at the place where the walls met, and sobbed. I felt like I was outside my own body. 

I had always struggled with anxiety but had never dealt with depression like that. At 22 years old, I walked upstairs, curled up in my mom’s lap, and cried.

At that moment, I knew I had to not only figure out a new treatment plan, but I also needed to address my mindset.

I also needed to hear I wasn’t alone. There’s so much shame around low moments, and we feel like we should be able to handle them and be strong. But other people feel this way too. Someone else is probably staring at the corner of their room right now, freaking out.

Hearing “It gets better” might have annoyed me at the time, but it really does — even if you have no clue how it could.

Before I could figure out how to handle the uncertainty of UC and treatment changes, I had to grieve the loss of the person I had planned to be.

When I was hospitalized after college, I couldn’t run from it anymore. I couldn’t ignore it. And I remember lying there for a week at the start of summer and thinking, “My life is not going to look at all how I thought.”

I had to come to terms with that and go through all the stages of grief. I wasn’t accepting defeat, but I had to embrace the fact that life would look different. And it was still up to me to create a life I liked — and that worked for my body.

Finding an outlet

Thankfully, I always had a solid practice of journaling, and I wrote about my experiences and feelings a lot in those early days. I didn’t feel like I could talk to my peers, but journaling gave me an outlet. 

I could vent all my fears, freak out, and then try to soothe myself a little bit when it felt like no one else around me understood.

I also love running, and ran almost every day before my diagnosis. Even after I was diagnosed, I still tried to run a little but ended up stepping back. 

Although I wasn’t able to work out like I used to, I went on a lot of walks, just to get outside, change my environment, and find some calm.

Building new routines

It’s so important to find certain pieces of your life that can stay consistent, no matter what UC symptoms you have. For a large chunk of time, I felt like I could barely move my body at all, and my typical yoga and running routine was gone. 

So I created a new morning ritual, which gave me a sense of control and consistency and didn’t depend on me feeling great that day. Whether I’m at my best or having a flare, I can have a cup of warm lemon water and do my daily gratitude practice, journaling, and meditation. 

That was a big shift for me. Even though I couldn’t run every day like I used to, my new habits offered a steadiness that helped.

Even with my new mindset, I truly could not have managed without my mom, who has Crohn’s disease. Diagnosed at 16 years old, she had many years of coping under her belt by the time I got diagnosed. 

She advocated for me to get my colonoscopy done and get my own diagnosis. When I felt overwhelmed, she did research for me, contacted my doctors, and basically worked like my medical liaison, putting all the pieces together.

No matter how I felt, I could always talk to my mom. She would remind me that other options exist, and we would keep trying them until we found the right one.

While I turned to my mom a lot for help, I also found support and connection online. When I first started experiencing symptoms, I got really into wellness and started a food blog. 

In the early days, I stuck to recipes only and didn’t share my personal struggles. But then I began writing about my symptoms, looking for answers. It was nice to have that outlet to talk about my diagnosis. 

At the time, it felt like an online diary — I didn’t have a huge audience at first. But by talking about my ulcerative colitis online, I started growing a community. I connected with other women my age, who automatically understood what I was going through. 

My community helped me redefine “success.” I always thought a successful day should include a workout and a long list of productive activities.

But I realized my success didn’t have to look like everyone else’s. It can look like giving yourself more rest. Now I can say, “I had a successful day because I listened to my body.”

I stopped comparing my timeline to others’. Climbing the corporate ladder and always having a clean home weren’t my version of success at that time. And that shift helped me so much.

Throughout my UC journey, I have tried to stay hopeful. A lot of people may hesitate to “get their hopes up” when they try a new treatment. I still feel fear when starting a new treatment, especially after a few haven’t worked, or when I have to take prednisone for a few weeks and deal with its uncomfortable side effects on top of everything else. 

But I let myself hope. 

A few weeks ago, I ran a marathon. Nine years after my UC diagnosis, I finally got to cross the finish line of 26.2 miles with zero tummy issues during the race.

I beat my personal record by finishing in under 3 hours and 40 minutes, fulfilling a dream I’ve had since I was diagnosed. When things started feeling hard at mile 21, I kept thinking of the version of me who was so sick, scared, and confused about her future. 

Every mile I run now is for her.

Add WebMD as a Preferred Source to see more of our trusted content across Google Search, AI Overviews, and AI Mode