Hi everyone, I'm completely new to this and am delighted to find a forum with others like myself, as it has been a very scary time recently for me. I was admitted to hospital on 3rd November with severe abdominal pain. This has happened on several occasions previously and i have been tested for kidney stones, appendicitis, celiac etc. Usually some anti-spasmodic meds and anti sickness would help calm the symptoms but these attacks have never been further investigated.
On this occasion though, nothing would calm the attack down. I was being given morphine and it wasn't even touching the pain. Suddenly, when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I had a massive searing pain just above my pubic bone and was screaming in agony. Following a CT scan of my abdomen, it became apparent that there was fluid leaking from somewhere and I was swiftly whisked to theatre with a suspected ruptured appendix and was told I would probably only be an hour or so. Fast forward 8 hrs and I was awakened to the news that my bowel had ruptured and it had been a massive clean up operation which had to be converted to open surgery followed by a left hemicolectomy, where half of my colon had to be removed. I spend 9 days in the adult critical care unit and was unable to see my 2 and 4 year old during this time before being moved to a ward for a further week of iv antibiotics to get the infection level low enough that I could progress to oral antibiotics and be allowed home to finish treatment.
I seem to be really sensitive to things and have always had skin problems and allergies (I now know this could be related to the Crohns) I seemed to take reactions to almost everything they tried to treat me with in the hospital so had a lot of setbacks. I was finally sent home on 40mg prednisone to be reduced by 5mg per week. Currently i'm down to 10mg and have been told I will see the Gastro consultant before the steroids are finished to put me onto maintenance medication. The Crohns nurse this morning told me I would probably be started on azathioprine and to google it and that's how i've ended up coming across the forum. I don't really like the idea of this drug but to be honest, none of the Crohns treatments look very appealing as they all seem to come with quite bad side effects. I can't be left without treatment though, as my Crohns is particularly bad and seems to be constantly flared up, even following this surgery.
Well done if you got to the end of this lol (and that was me making it as short as possible) I look forward to joining in with the forum and hopefully getting my head around everything and feeling a bit more positive about the future.
Hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas
Yvonne x
On this occasion though, nothing would calm the attack down. I was being given morphine and it wasn't even touching the pain. Suddenly, when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I had a massive searing pain just above my pubic bone and was screaming in agony. Following a CT scan of my abdomen, it became apparent that there was fluid leaking from somewhere and I was swiftly whisked to theatre with a suspected ruptured appendix and was told I would probably only be an hour or so. Fast forward 8 hrs and I was awakened to the news that my bowel had ruptured and it had been a massive clean up operation which had to be converted to open surgery followed by a left hemicolectomy, where half of my colon had to be removed. I spend 9 days in the adult critical care unit and was unable to see my 2 and 4 year old during this time before being moved to a ward for a further week of iv antibiotics to get the infection level low enough that I could progress to oral antibiotics and be allowed home to finish treatment.
I seem to be really sensitive to things and have always had skin problems and allergies (I now know this could be related to the Crohns) I seemed to take reactions to almost everything they tried to treat me with in the hospital so had a lot of setbacks. I was finally sent home on 40mg prednisone to be reduced by 5mg per week. Currently i'm down to 10mg and have been told I will see the Gastro consultant before the steroids are finished to put me onto maintenance medication. The Crohns nurse this morning told me I would probably be started on azathioprine and to google it and that's how i've ended up coming across the forum. I don't really like the idea of this drug but to be honest, none of the Crohns treatments look very appealing as they all seem to come with quite bad side effects. I can't be left without treatment though, as my Crohns is particularly bad and seems to be constantly flared up, even following this surgery.
Well done if you got to the end of this lol (and that was me making it as short as possible) I look forward to joining in with the forum and hopefully getting my head around everything and feeling a bit more positive about the future.
Hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas
Yvonne x
And everyone is super supportive, any questions ask away