Hi, I am a new member here but found this site a great source of relief. I am 21 and have had Crohn's disease for 2.5 years now. I am in the Coast Guard and very proud of the fact that I can still have a job I love despite having crohn's.
When I first was diagnosed with crohn's it was a horror story. I was 19 and serving on one of our ship and I had severe abdominal pain. Our ship doc didn't know much about it, so I just got pain killers until we pulled into Puerto Rico. I was rushed to the emergency room at the VA hospital and the fun began. I lost 20lbs (i got down to 128lbs), the nurses and docs weren't too great with English, I was receiving food through my arm, and I was the youngest patient by 40 years. I spent a week in that hospital with terrible abdominal pain and consistently going to the bathroom.
I was then flown back to the U.S. to a Navy hospital and had a colonoscopy done and severe Crohn's disease in my illium region was the diagnosis. I was put on Cipro, Asacol, Entocort, and two other meds that I can't remember. That put my Crohn's into remission for a year.
After a year I had another flare up and my doc put me on 40mg of prednisone and that soothed the once again terrible gut wrenching pains. However I am on a flare up now and the prednisone isn't helping and I have tried allo pills and juice to no avail. I'm going to see my GI doc in two days and I really want to consider surgery because I'm getting married mid next year and I don't want Crohns to interfere at all. I am very happy that I can still make the Coast Guard my career, and I am even happier that I found this wonderful group of people on this forum.
When I first was diagnosed with crohn's it was a horror story. I was 19 and serving on one of our ship and I had severe abdominal pain. Our ship doc didn't know much about it, so I just got pain killers until we pulled into Puerto Rico. I was rushed to the emergency room at the VA hospital and the fun began. I lost 20lbs (i got down to 128lbs), the nurses and docs weren't too great with English, I was receiving food through my arm, and I was the youngest patient by 40 years. I spent a week in that hospital with terrible abdominal pain and consistently going to the bathroom.
I was then flown back to the U.S. to a Navy hospital and had a colonoscopy done and severe Crohn's disease in my illium region was the diagnosis. I was put on Cipro, Asacol, Entocort, and two other meds that I can't remember. That put my Crohn's into remission for a year.
After a year I had another flare up and my doc put me on 40mg of prednisone and that soothed the once again terrible gut wrenching pains. However I am on a flare up now and the prednisone isn't helping and I have tried allo pills and juice to no avail. I'm going to see my GI doc in two days and I really want to consider surgery because I'm getting married mid next year and I don't want Crohns to interfere at all. I am very happy that I can still make the Coast Guard my career, and I am even happier that I found this wonderful group of people on this forum.