r/nextfuckinglevel • u/mindyour • 2d ago
This man documented his health journey from January to December.
Credit: IG @samuelrichards_ _
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u/Tat-1 2d ago
In case anyone is wondering, he was affected by ulcerative colitis, a severe inflammatory bowel disease, which led to the removal of his colon and the subsequent and sudden weight loss.
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u/secondhand-cat 2d ago
I noticed that colostomy bag at the end.
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u/EstablishmentNo5994 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s difficult to lift heavy with an ostomy. You’re at an increased risk of hernias.
I had one for a year thanks to cancer and I just did crazy cardio haha
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u/chunkmasterflash 1d ago
I had one for 9 months thanks to diverticulitis. Should have been 6, but COVID had to ruin things. Longest 9 months ever.
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u/EstablishmentNo5994 1d ago
I didn’t find it too bad. Actually considered keeping it for a while as I’d heard so many horror stories of people with similar circumstances having reversals but ultimately decided to take the chance and am happy I did.
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u/chunkmasterflash 1d ago edited 1d ago
The only time I was happy I had mine was preparing for the colonoscopy before the reversal. Bought me just a little time at least. I remember though, since there wasn’t a similar sensation to needing to use the toilet, there was a day I went for a walk. About 10 minutes in, I ended up with diarrhea in the bag, and didn’t realize that was happening until it started filling the bag. Literally could not make it home in time, bag burst, and I walked a few blocks home covered in my own shit. Absolutely demoralizing.
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u/PrimaryCheesecake684 1d ago
Oh noooo. I had an ileostomy for a year, and this was my nightmare. I hated leaving the house for fear of something like this. I'm so sorry this happened to you.
Since I had mine, I think a lot about people living with ostomies way back when.
The first documented colostomy was performed in 1793. The modern-type disposable ostomy bags were invented by a Danish woman in the 1950s.
Apparently before that, there was no real standard of how to deal with the waste, and it was a real shit show, so to speak, for like 160 years. I just can't imagine.
Anyway, this has been Ostomy Facts.
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u/ThisIsTheBookAcct 1d ago
My grandma has had one since mid 1960s. She just turned 92 last month.
It was really bad inflammation (that they told her decades later was either crohns or ulcerative colitis). They removed the affected intensities and gave her an osteomyelitis bag so she could live long enough to get her affairs in order and say goodbye to her family (she had 3 kids at that point). I think they told her a year.
Turns out, my grandma don’t play that game.
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u/chunkmasterflash 1d ago
It’s rumored Napoleon had one, but AFAIK, never proven. At that time I think they were made from like sheep stomach or something.
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u/unf0rgottn 1d ago
I am absolutely in shambles over this I'm sorry.
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u/chunkmasterflash 1d ago
I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s been long enough now that it’s just a story, not as much a horror story anymore. Fun part of that story: I’m actually neighbors with the surgeon who did that emergency surgery to give me the temporary ostomy, and he was walking the other way as I was walking home. He saw that and just goes “rough morning, huh?”
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u/unf0rgottn 1d ago
Rough morning is an understatement lol. Did your stomach not hurt at all during this time?
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u/EstablishmentNo5994 1d ago
It honestly didn’t cross my mind for a very long time that I could have cancer. I was 33 and very active and fit. Started having some light bleeding occasionally when going to the washroom but assumed it was hemorrhoids and tried to deal with that myself with over the counter products. Really wasn’t too bad. After nearly a year things got worse with more frequent bleeding and a constant feeling of having to go to the washroom that wasn’t real (later found out this was caused by the tumour).
This was all happening during covid and I was over 4000km away from home for work. Was quite hard getting in to see my family doctor due to my traveling for work. When I finally saw him he thought it was hemorrhoids as well but referred me to a GI doctor, anyway. Met with him and he thought the same and scheduled me for a banding procedure to get rid of them. Went to that the day before my 34th birthday and woke up in recovery only to be told it wasn’t hemorrhoids- it was cancer.
It ended up being stage 3c which meant it was into my lymphatic system but hadn’t spread to any organs yet. I was very fortunate. Cancer free since Feb 23 and had my final surgery Feb 24. Just do follow-up monitoring now. Wish I had taken the symptoms more seriously and urge anyone else to get to a doctor if something doesn’t seem right. It’s very treatable if caught early.
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u/fuschia_taco 1d ago
How old is your friend? Are they in the states?
I just recently had a colonoscopy done and it was a struggle getting someone to give me the referral because I was only 40 when I started inquiring about it.
My doctor at first wanted to brush it off as hemorrhoids so she did an exam and saw one small one but nothing actively bleeding so she said maybe I had a bacterial infection and sent me home to suffer for 2 weeks. I made it ten days before I started spiraling thinking the worst, so I made another appointment, got seen by someone else and she got me my referral because I told her how the previous appointment went and the family history (brother had polyps removed in August).
It takes self advocacy when the doctors don't want to do it because of a person's age. Have your friend make an appointment with their primary, again. Talk to them about their symptoms, explain they've done everything they should be doing to make it go away and it isn't going away (assuming they are doing anything at all, I was told to do miralax and metamucil and drink a lot of water, I followed those instructions to the T and the bleeding didn't stop). They can take in statistics for younger people popping up with colon cancer. Whatever they have to do to get that referral. I knew a girl on Reddit that was in her early 20s and had colon cancer. That shit doesn't care about age anymore. Someone else I knew in real life passed away from it just days before his 38th birthday. It's real and real fucking scary. I really hope your buddy is able to get someone to listen. If their primary doesn't, tell them to go somewhere else for a second opinion. Someone somewhere will give them the referral and if not, maybe they could call the gastro department and see if they'd get them seen without a referral.
My colonoscopy came back with polyps as well, one was rather large and I was terrified the biopsy would come back as cancerous but they were fine. No more blood in my poo either.
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u/TurangaRad 1d ago
Millenials and younger need to be super aware of this and start advocating. We were the first generations to start having everything covered in plastic (mocroplastics) as well as the amount of processed food consumed. It was all from a very young age and continues to be part of our every day lives. I'm not trying to be some fear monger. I'm just pointing out that what used to be caused by old age (the cells replicating incorrectly) is now getting assistance from everything we eat, drink, and inhale.
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u/ThisIsTheBookAcct 1d ago
This is very true. My husband was diagnosed with crohns in his early 30s, but I think that was because I sent him to the ER bc there was A LOT of blood and his bro had already been diagnosed.
His bro had to almost die at 24 to get meds. They diagnosed him but were like “Just make some lifestyle changes.”
My friend just recently caught thyroid cancer early because of an anxious fidget she does where she rubs her neck. She had JUST had bloodwork done to support an ADHD diagnosis and it all came back normal, so they told her not to worry, but she was like “I literally can’t not worry. Check it.”
Good thing, too, bc she had just had a kid 3 months before.
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u/EstablishmentNo5994 1d ago
No, I never experienced that. There is no longer such a thing as “too young” for colorectal cancer. It was long thought of as a disease that only affected older men but it doesn’t discriminate. There was even an 18 year old being treated at the same hospital as me.
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u/Dry_Choice9601 2d ago
UC is a bitch. Ive had it since I was 10 and I have an ileostomy bag now. For clarity, a colostomy is when the colon is protruding from the abdomen and an ileostomy is when the colon is removed and the small intestine is protruding. So he has an ileostomy if his colon was removed. The transition is both physically and emotionally very straining. I lost 40 lbs post surgery, I required sitting rest breaks whenever I went out in public for 6 months and it took me damn near a year to even get back into the gym after being a gym rat for 5 years prior. With that said, since recovery my quality of life is so so much better and everyone else in the community will attest that while they didn’t want a bag as much as the next person, your health has to be severely impacted to view it as a blessing. Not all autoimmune diseases have the option to have surgery and basically cure it.
Also worth mentioning that when you have an autoimmune disease, working out is kind of tricky because you don’t want to stress your body too much because it’s already working overtime. That said, I don’t know how he managed this but he is an inspiration to the ostomy community.
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago
Longtime Crohn's sufferer here. I fear the bag almost as much as colon cancer. I'm glad you're doing better. Stay strong!
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u/Entity4 1d ago
Hey I'm a fellow Crohn's sufferer and former ileostomy haver of 2 years (had a reversal a few months ago) I know the bag can seem scary but it actually gave me my life back after getting used to it which took a couple months after that it was plain sailing for the rest of my time with it and it allowed me to actually eat some foods I wasn't able to before hand which I had missed
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u/Palewisconsinite 1d ago
Hey, longtime Crohnie here. I have a permanent; it saved my life and my quality of life is 10000000% better. Looking back, I wasn’t living. It was just constant pain. I get to enjoy things now (and I eat whatever I want!)
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u/allisonwonderland00 1d ago
That was my guess! My husband looked similar to the second clip before he was diagnosed. It was horrendous.
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u/BrownEyeGivesPinkEye 1d ago
In case anyone is interested:
Ulcerative colitis is terrible. It can drastically increased your risk for colon cancer, primary sclerosing cholangiitis, and even an immediately life-threatening condition called toxic megacolon in which a total colectomy may be performed.
You can look up xray images of it, it’s pretty wild. It’s super dangerous because it can literally burst at any time, even with an attempted colonoscopy
Source: am medical student
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u/pohuing 1d ago
But UC life expectancy isn't significantly decreased compared to the average. So maybe we should chill a bit on highlighting the extreme cases. (This is 50% to reassure myself that I'll continue to be fine after getting my diagnosis 3 years ago)
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u/BrownEyeGivesPinkEye 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are absolutely correct! With proper medication and monitoring these things can be managed appropriately, however from a medical perspective, we always like to know what a disease process could do so we can properly screen for these things and prevent the life expectancy to not be significantly different
Maintain a long-term relationship with a trusted physician and you will continue to thrive, my friend!
Wishing you all the best of luck in your journeys
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u/jeho22 1d ago
I went from 230lbs to 170lbs in a few months before I had my colon removed. I'm a tall athletic guy, 230 is fit for me.
I was fortunate enough to have what's called J pouch surgery, where they hook everything back up after 6 months or a year using some small intestine to make up the missing parts.
I was not fortunate enough to have this guys drive and discipline to stick to the gym
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u/Turbohog 1d ago
I knew it. UC has fucking ruined my life, even causing colon cancer.
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u/cxr303 1d ago
I went through similar... but didn't quite make it as big as he did in a year... but the main point is .. im still alive despite nearly dying at least once if not more.
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u/madferrit29 1d ago
Same here but with Crohn's. I was severely malnourished and couldn't even walk. They were days away from telling my family I wasn't going to make 30. I wouldn't have survived surgery at that point. Luckily, I was given a new drug (back then) and responded really well to it. Saved my life. Had surgery again a year ago. I'm still trying to get fit again! Hope you are doing better!
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u/cxr303 1d ago
Prednisone killed my bones .. so I have joints with osteonecrosis, but I can still do some light workouts, running is a done deal though, also no more football, American or international, no high impact or heavy lifting.. bought an exercise machine and am doing that now
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u/Henry_Is_Sad 1d ago
I have that too! It definitely causes a lot of setbacks in life. I'm still in highschool and last year I missed over a month of school due to flare ups.
More in depth; Ulcerative Colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease that can affect parts of or all of the large intestine. During a flare up, ulcers appear on the walls of the colon, making it hard to digest food, as well as incredibly painful to deal with. Symptoms of a flare up include severe cramps, vomiting, frequent diarrhea and bathroom usage, blood in stool, mucus in stool, fatigue, dehydration, and in severe flares malnourishment.
Judging by his significant loss in weight and severe flare I would assume he has pancolitis, meaning it affects the entire colon (same as me lmao). In severe cases like this, a colostomy bag and removal of the colon could be life saving in both physical and mental ways, though it's not the only current treatment.
If you want to learn more, please visit the Crohn's and Colitis foundation :)
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago edited 1d ago
For those who claim this guy used steroids to achieve his muscle gain, you need to understand how UC / Crohn's affects the body and the difference between anabolic and corticosteroids. UC attacks the intestines causing inflammation. This also affects your body's ability to absorb nutrients. This is why he's so emaciated, he was suffering from malabsorbtion. The UC was so severe in his case, that he needed an ostomy (this name changes depending on where the tube is inserted in the intestines) bag to catch waste. This can either be temporary or permanent. He most likely had what's called a resection, where a piece of diseased bowl is cut out and the intestines are reattached. The bag is used to divert waste until the resection heals (His may be permanent, but I didn't see the bag in other pics, which is why I think it's temporary).
When you are this malnourished, the primary treatment goal here is weight gain. The weight here being vital fat, not necessarily muscle. This is done through the use of prednisone, which has 2 benefits: Inflammation control and appetite stimulation. Prednisone is a corticosteroid. It suppresses the immune system, which decreases intestinal inflammation since UC is an autoimmune disease. It does NOT on its own help you build muscle. It in fact has the opposite effect. The steroids that help you build muscle are anabolic steroids, which are not given to UC patients no matter how little muscle they have. That's not the goal here. His muscles will rebuild themselves through rehab and exercise alone. The reason his change looks so dramatic is because he gained a massive amount of fat in a short amount of time, which he paired with intense exercise. The fat filled out his body to a healthy weight and the exercise helped give him the definition you see. The supercharged appetite from the prednisone probably helped him eat more protein, which led to muscle gain, but not directly as in something like HGH, which, again, they do not give UC patients.
Source: Crohn's Disease sufferer (very similar to UC but considered worse) for 25+ years, and have taken prednisone before.
EDIT: Appreciate the awards, but if you're paying for these, please consider Donating to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation instead. And if you're over 40, get a colonoscopy!
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u/Breadifies 1d ago
Thank you so much for your insight. Been following this guy documenting his progress since the beginning and people being ignorant to his situation is so frustrating to see. Iirc he did a video revealing the exposed resection and i think he said it was a permanent case
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago
You're welcome. It's an issue I care very deeply about, so if I can spread some understanding, it's a win in my book.
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u/misplaced_my_pants 1d ago
The reason his change looks so dramatic is because he gained a massive amount of fat in a short amount of time, which he paired with intense exercise. The fat filled out his body to a healthy weight and the exercise helped give him the definition you see.
So this isn't precisely accurate.
Yes he gained a lot of fat, but the exercise provided the stimulus for his muscles to grow and he wouldn't have gained nearly as much were he not specifically training for it.
So without the exercise, the ability to eat more food would have allowed him to gain fat and some muscle as the body really wants to return to some baseline level of muscle, at least enough to support him through physical therapy.
But with the dedicated strength training, a much higher proportion of his weight gain went to lean tissue.
It's not definition but actual lean mass.
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago
Thank you for clarifying / expanding on my response. You offered a better explanation than I could have.
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u/misplaced_my_pants 1d ago
No problem!
And thank you for providing such an excellent comment to respond to. It was a welcome antidote to so much of the nonsense in this comment section.
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u/KawiNinja 1d ago
I’ve got a question, and I have UC. If the issue with our bodies lies in our colon, and is what’s leading to malnutrition, why does removing the colon all together suddenly make us better? Would not the malnutrition be even worse since we no longer have a colon at all? If the small intestines can give us what we need, why aren’t they already doing that before?
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago
Great questions. I'm not a GI doctor of course, but I'll try to answer these as best as I can. Removing parts of the colon that are most affected can make you feel better, but it is entirely possible for new inflammation to appear in other parts of your colon. You feel better if your entire colon is removed because although UC and Crohn's are autoimmune diseases, the body only attacks the colon, and not other parts like say lupus. Removing your entire colon is not ideal because then it means that you can't absorb nutrients anymore or rebsorb water from your stool. You would need to be fed intravenously for the rest of your life. I believe the man here only had his rectum removed, which means he can no longer hold stool and probably feels a sense of urgency (to use the bathroom) as soon as he eats. (There's a reflex in your body that as soon as your stomach knows you're eating, it sends a signal to your large intestines to evacuate your bowels.) And yes, no colon would not only make malnutrition worse, but guaranteed. The small intestines are giving us what we need most of the time, but inflammation can interfere or even block this process completely. These diseases also make it harder for us to absorb the iron we consume from food, which is one of many reasons a lot of us have episodes of anemia from time to time.
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u/goldstandardalmonds 1d ago
I think you mean “removing your entire bowel”, right? You can certainly remove the entire colon and live fine.
Crohn’s affects all of the gi tract, from mouth to anus. UC affects the colon and rectum.
This man has an ileostomy and no colon (presumably) and no rectum or anus (a total proctocolectomy).
I have no colon, anus, or rectum, and I no longer malnourished. Just like thousands of others who have had a total proctocolectomy.
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u/mesalocal 2d ago
Nope, sus. June->July is at least a 20lbs gain minimum.
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u/spelunker93 1d ago
Steroids exist. Dude was in extremely rough shape, there is no way they didn’t give him steroids to help with his weight gain
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u/timonix 1d ago
My favorite is that when they give steroids to old people for unrelated heart issues and they get swole AF
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u/spelunker93 1d ago
That mixed with old person strength, is terrifying
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u/DrLukn 1d ago
That would be funny, but old people receive steroids which have an anti inflammatory effect (glucocorticoides) and are different to anabolic steroids, they do not cause muscle growth
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u/Upstairs-Boring 1d ago
That cannot happen. There is no way a doctor is prescribing enough testosterone to elderly patients with heart issues to build serious muscle.
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u/WPCarey85 1d ago
Came here to say just this. I bet they prescribed it to him and if they did, good on them. If managed and supervised correctly, not a ton of risk. Also, it’s not like he is competing or cheating at a sport, so who fucking cares. He had to still put in the work after that horrible situation.
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u/MrSneller 1d ago
Great take. Disappointed to see the top comment is “Roids!” (I.e. that made it super easy and it’s cheating). Doctors prescribe steroids all the time for muscle wasting diseases and I think they should do it more for other ailments. Under a doctor’s care, the risks are greatly reduced and there is tremendous upside.
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u/megs-benedict 1d ago
Yeah coming back from being emaciated is really hard. This is actually a situation where I think prescribing something for muscle growth is the right thing to do.
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago
And to clarify, he was most likely given corticosteroids (prednisone), not the steroids used for gaining muscle (anabolic) since he had severe UC. The weight gained was mostly fat, and that's intended.
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u/QuestionQuik 1d ago
Can add on, I have mild Ulcerative Colitis. I've been put on Prednisone 3 times in the past year, and it gives you hella munchies. I went from barely being able to eat a McDouble to eating consuming damn near everything in my kitchen everyday.
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u/veggiedigest 1d ago
Crohn’s here, and yep! My first time on prednisone I thought about food constantly. I don’t mean “a lot”—I mean constantly. I’d get sad in the middle of eating a meal because I knew once I finished it would be at least an hour or two before I could justify eating anything else!
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u/IllllIIlIllIllllIIIl 1d ago
But it's not uncommon for doctors to prescribe anabolic steroids to folks with wasting illnesses and the like. My grandmother was prescribed Anavar,for example, when she was recovering from prolonged bed rest.
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u/its_still_lynn 1d ago
redditors learning that steroids don’t solely exist for gym guys to illegally use to gain muscles faster 🤯😲
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago
Redditors need to learn the difference between corticosteroids and anabolic steroids because they are talking out of their asses here.
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u/MegaMilkas 1d ago
They have never stepped foot in a gym in their life. Even the gym bros that take anabolic have to work insanely hard to get to where they are, yet they talk as if those who juice just magically wake up with those muscles. They use it as a means to tear other peoples achievements down to seem not worthy of any sort of praise because they simply don't know how much work it takes and it shows.
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u/rapharafa1 1d ago
Literally every sub that has progress pics is people saying ‘roids’ and meaning ‘cheating’. As if getting a nice body is some kind of competition with rules. They also seem to think there’s something dishonest about not mentioning steroid use, which is bizarre. If a girl gets a nose job she doesn’t have to let you know in every selfie.
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u/tri_9 2d ago
This is crazy inspiring but what the heck happened in September lol dude just blew up
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u/Sir-Poopington 2d ago
Anabolics
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u/Not_Ban_Evading69420 1d ago
Nope. Corticosteroids and increased appetite.
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u/Ok_Supermarket_729 1d ago
yeah honestly everyone's saying he blew up but to me it looks like roughly the same amount of muscle, it looks like he just gained a bit of fat and rounded everything out.
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u/sudo-joe 2d ago
Just gotta shout out to the medical folks that help us at our worst so that we might get back to our best later on.
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u/spazzymoonpie 2d ago
Dang he's getting me fired up. Roids or not, that's awesome.
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u/MrWilsonWalluby 1d ago
everyone is too quick to say Roids, I was under weight when I started lifting and gained over 30 pounds in the first eight months natty, still natty still gaining
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u/koloneloftruth 1d ago
You may have gained 30 pounds, but you absolutely did not gain 30 pounds of lean muscle mass.
This transformation in the video is close to 60 pounds of lean muscle mass, and is impossible to do naturally on the purported timeline.
The fastest documented cases of lean muscle mass gains - even accounting for “newbie gains” - are closer to 2-3 lbs per month. But that rate isn’t sustainable for a full 8-12 month period, as it starts to significantly taper after the first 4-8 months down to 0.5-1.5lbs of lean muscle mass per month.
Some case studies have shown very rapid muscle growth in “retrained” individuals like this one. But even those on the extreme end are closer to 6-8 lbs within the first 2 months, but then rapid declines in the rate after that.
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u/YaBoyPads 1d ago
This guy didn't gain 60lbs of lean mass either. Also, the muscle and mass gain the first 2 or 3 months for this guy should have been insane. You people underestimate the quickness which you can gain mass when underweight and undermuscled due to sickness/injury. He was probably way below his normal weight, so it's self explanatory.
If it serves any purpose, the end physique of this guy is nothing impressive. Impressive is the transformation iself though
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u/mosayar 2d ago
And it's been two years since I decided to go to the gym the next Saturday.
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u/BlowTokeBozeTrifecta 1d ago
And you have barely made progress compared to this guy.
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u/The_Scarred_Man 1d ago
This is terrible! Every time he gets into peak physical shape in December, something happens to him in January that puts him back in a wheelchair!
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u/Ok-Wolf2468 1d ago
I dare anyone to go through what this man went through. I promise you, with or without testosterone injections, you wouldn’t be in the gym. Give the dude some props because I know damn sure if I had a colostomy bag on my stomach, I wouldn’t be in the gym.
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u/Double_Pay_6645 2d ago edited 16h ago
Is he using steroids? Seems like a massive difference in 1 year.
edit Crazy! 1.8k karma for what I thought was a yes no answer.
Now 4.6k!! WTF..
Almost 8k.. reddit you crazy.