Is it UC or not?

Hi and welcome to the forum. Usually IBD complaints leading to a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis involve bloody bowel movements, blood in toilet water, and blood on toilet paper after wiping. Have you seen any blood?

Without blood, it's often considered to be an IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) diagnosis. IBS is often considered the catch-all, when notjing specifically wrong can be found.

IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disorder) encompasses Ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and others) and blood is often key for these.

While it's true that UC usually involves bleeding, it's not always the case with Crohn's. In Crohn's, sometimes there is no bleeding; and even when there is, it's often from higher up in the GI tract, in which case it's not always noticeable/visible in a bowel movement.

Tarsy, what did the biopsies from the August colonoscopy show? That should be key. Find out exactly what the biopsy report says.

I see two possibilities:
1) It's not uncommon to have diarrhea after gall bladder removal. The gall bladder controls the amount and rate of bile going into the small bowel. Without it, bile can go into the small intestine too often and can lead to bile-salt diarrhea, where the bile irritates the colon. Many people who have had their gall bladder removed need to take bile-binding agents to control their diarrhea. Did your GI mention this? Have you tried such medication?

2) You may have microscopic colitis. It is a less-common form of IBD (less common than UC or Crohn's). It can lead to watery diarrhea without blood, and with little or no visible inflammation seen on a colonoscopy. But biopsies will show specific types of inflammaton. It's most common in older women.

Thank you for your thoughts.

The colonoscopy biopsies showed a very minimal amount of inflammation, nothing more and I mentioned microscopic colitis but it was dismissed.

I have wondered if bile was the culprit.
During the ERCP the GI cleaned out the duct to make sure there were no stones and I believe the week prior I passed a small stone when I spent the morning in extreme pain.
After the ERCP when in recovery I repeatedly threw up what the nurse described as bile that had been in stomach for a long time.

And I could see some diarrhea from the bile, but what I go through every morning is crazy, with 4-5 trips to the loo. When things were really bad in June/July, is was 10-12 trips all through out the day.

And I don't know if it's possible, but something is going on with my mid back and it takes very little for it to really hurt. Twice in the past after a week or so of bad back pain when I was working on the house, the diarrhea started.

I have to call the GI this week and will ask about bile binding agents before I end up with a steroid.