Bad Diagnosis?

[Free Radical]

Greetings.

Twelve years ago a very good friend was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease after suffering from serious abdominal problems. Ever since then she has been taking the relevant medication to control this condition. Most recently she has developed a lump on her head, which seriously worries me.

Today I realised that prior to 18 months ago she had not had either a gastroscopy or colonoscopy. Neither has she ever had surgery relating to this condition. How is it that with no physical mass to test and no camera images of her ileum, only MRI images, did they come to such a conclusion? I don't see any way that they could have ruled out tuberculosis if the necessary comparisons could not possibly have been made.

I have absolutely no qualifications at all in this field but I can sense that somebody screwed up somewhere, big time. For all anybody knows she could have been affected by a deadly pathogen all this time and the health care services have failed to pick it up. Or am I just looking into things too much?

 

[motheroftwins]

Hello and welcome to the forum. :smile: I am not sure if I can answer your question. As I was diagnosed from a colonoscopy, (with biopsies) enoscopy and pillcam. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of medication is she on and is she seeing a GI dr?

 

[Free Radical]

Thanks. I couldn't tell you exactly what medication, but I know that it's along the lines of steroids and immunosuppressants. If a GI is a gastroenterologist, then yes.

 

[David]

Sometimes the disease is in an area that an endoscopy and colonoscopy cannot reach so some sort of imaging technology, blood tests, and other symptoms are relied upon for diagnosis. A colonoscopy with biopsy is certainly preferred to rule out other possible causes like you mention but it's not always possible. What were the colonoscopy results from the one 18 months ago?

 

[Free Radical]

I take it the results didn't prove much unless it was favourable to Crohn's. She has mentioned that polyps had been discovered but I don't remember how that was determined. I take it her problem is indeed in that hard-to-reach area of the ileum (or even the appendix?) and maybe that's why they didn't use an endoscopy, she actually said something about the camera being a risk to perforating something if it goes too far, so they have to be very careful. I doubt that they even considered tuberculosis in the first instance otherwise by now they'd surely have performed surgery at some point, wouldn't they? As it happens, there is a history of TB in her family.

She has an appointment on Tuesday and I think she'll be having a blood test so maybe more information will come to light.

 

[David]

Are you all located in the USA? How has her family contracted TB? Travel? Or?

Intestinal TB is usually treated with powerful antibiotics given for a LONG time frame.