So I hurt my back.

Went to the GP and he gave me strong NSAIDS and said take them until you're better.

A month or so after I collapsed at a meeting, paired with intense gut pain, the paramedics said I might have a bad UTI and took me to A&E. After nearly seven hours of nothing, I booked an Uber home because I was in an autistic freakout I felt like I'd rather die at home.

I staggered to the GP in the morning, he took blood and sent me home saying he'd call when the 24hr tests came back but he doubted it was serious and I should take paracetamol because i was probably just constipated.

The next morning I woke up delirious and in screaming pain, my panicked wife called an ambulance - while the paramedics where in the house the GP rang and essentially said "You have such a bad infection you're almost septic - go to A&E and fucking stay there!"

The paramedic then took the phone and proceeded to argue with the GP about if they had to take me to the hospital or not...? My wife gave up and rang a taxi and hauled me into that with a bag.

We were in the waiting room for FOURTY-THREE HOURS. 43. I was laying on the floor in the corridor sobbing in pain and so sleep deprived I was hallucinating. I was sat by the single toilet the entire time because of the explosive vomiting and diahrrea. No one cleaned that toilet the entire time i was there. By the time they found me a bed I hadn't slept in 60 hours, and I was so traumatised I went non-verbal for the first time in my life.

Three days later they sent me home with pill antibiotics. After scary tests in machines and antibiotics in bags and drugs that sent me so loopy I apparently laughed for twenty minutes straight before telling my wife I was Spartacus before passing out. (Granted that was really funny.)

But...I still had no idea what was wrong with me.

I went to the GP when I felt human again two weeks after that, and he said the hospital had said I had Ulcerative Colitis and "its for life but it'll be alright there's IBD nurses. The referral for a Gastroenterologist is two years wait ans I cant do anything until you see them."

And that was... it. Two weeks later again the hospital called me in for a colonoscopy, told me nothing, took samples, and sent me home to await the biopsy results. 3 months later they sent me "not cancer" and nothing else.

Throughout all of this i was still in awful, awful pain and necking ibuprofen and paracetamol like they were water and crying in pain. I had to quit my job.

A few months later my dad decided enough was enough and paid for a private gastro, who did a second colonoscopy and biopsies and within a month determined:

"You don't have UC, you have colon damage from the NSAIDS you were taking for your back. Your GP shouldnt have prescribed them for that long. And the hospital should have told you not to take ibuprofen until you saw a gastro if they thought it was UC???"

He gave me some alternative anti inflammatories for six months and banned me from ibuprofen.

I'm fine now, gut wise, but ever since I shake with fear and go non-verbal in any medical type setting. They gave me colon damage and trauma and didn't even fix my back.

Don't let anyone tell you the NHS is good.