Hello everyone, this is my story.
It started when I was 17 and I had a terrible bout of what I thought was food poisoning but a few months later, it hadn't gone away. I had vomiting and nausea but most of all severe diarrhoea and I was constantly tired. My doctor referred me to the local hospital who took blood and stool samples and told me I was fine, nothing to worry about, and told me to eat less as I was overweight. So I put up with it and gradually it faded away over the course of about a year and a half.
Fast forward a couple of years, I'm at university and I start getting terrible pain in my legs and the return of the diarrhoea. New doctor, more tests, same "nothing to worry about". This time Crohn's Disease was mentioned, but I was told it couldn't be that as I'd be skinny, not fat.
This pattern was repeated for the next few years, I'd get sick with various ailments plus the diarrhoea, have some tests (or not) and be told to go away and lose weight.
The next thing that happened was that my mother died at age 49 from bowel cancer, and I saw my GP to get a sick note for a week off work while I dealt with this, he mentioned in passing that if I had any change in bowel habit I should tell him. I told him I generally had constant diarrhoea, and he referred me to a specialist but then I got pregnant with my third baby and fell through a gap somewhere.
I had that baby, then another one a couple of years later, and I was the healthiest I've been since being tiny; but pretty soon the diarrhoea returned with a new symptom, pus and blood. Off I went to the doctors again and got fobbed off with "you have four children and a full time job, it's just stress and by the way you should lose weight".
I wish it had occurred to all those doctors that I really was trying to lose weight, and maybe they should have considered the weight was a symptom not a cause of my problems.
Anyway, my marriage ended and I moved house with my children to a new area and so had a new GP. At Christmas 2007 I went to him as I was feeling very ill and told him about the diarrhoea, the pus, blood, what I thought was a haemorrhoid and the terrible tiredness, he had a look at my notes and my family history and referred me to the local hospital as an emergency, as he was worried about bowel cancer.
Within two weeks I'd seen a specialist who said the haemorroid was probably a perianal skin tag, and he booked me in for a colonoscopy which was done four days later. During that colonsoscopy, the skin tag (or tubular adenoma, depending who was describing it) was removed along with several polyps, and fortunately there was no cancer.
During the follow up consultation I was so relieved not to have cancer, I didn't really ask what I did I have. I was prescribed Asacol suppositories, which helped a little but I didn't get very much better, there was still pus and blood whenever I went to the toilet, and I went a lot. I was so tired I had to cut my hours down at work and eventually had to get a part time job in a less stressful environment.
So back I went to the doctors in March 08 and had a barium meal & follow through which led to a diagnosis of Crohn's. It was such a huge relief that my illness had a name and I wasn't making it up or suffering from stress. I'm 45 now so that's 28 years to get a diagnosis, assuming it did start when I was 17.
The Asacol wasn't helping so I was prescribed Pentasa, eight horse tablets a day and I took those in a one month on, one month off pattern until last week in an attempt to calm things down. As they weren't really helping, I was taken off the Pentasa last week and put on Predfoam enemas.
My consultant hasn't really been able to answer my questions about my weight. I'm about eight stone (eek) overweight and even when closely monitoring every calorie that goes in, I gain weight. I take lots of exercise (I teach karate and train/teach four times a week most weeks, as my tiredness allows).
I've now been referred to another specialist and am waiting to hear about that appointment.
Current symptoms: pain and discomfort in the rectum, around the anus and on the right side of my abdomen, diarrhoea with occasional pus and blood (hoping th predfoam will stop this), tiredness and fatigue, pain and stiffness in my finger joints, pains in my legs and weight gain.
Wow! If you got all the way through that essay, well done!
Serafina.
It started when I was 17 and I had a terrible bout of what I thought was food poisoning but a few months later, it hadn't gone away. I had vomiting and nausea but most of all severe diarrhoea and I was constantly tired. My doctor referred me to the local hospital who took blood and stool samples and told me I was fine, nothing to worry about, and told me to eat less as I was overweight. So I put up with it and gradually it faded away over the course of about a year and a half.
Fast forward a couple of years, I'm at university and I start getting terrible pain in my legs and the return of the diarrhoea. New doctor, more tests, same "nothing to worry about". This time Crohn's Disease was mentioned, but I was told it couldn't be that as I'd be skinny, not fat.
This pattern was repeated for the next few years, I'd get sick with various ailments plus the diarrhoea, have some tests (or not) and be told to go away and lose weight.
The next thing that happened was that my mother died at age 49 from bowel cancer, and I saw my GP to get a sick note for a week off work while I dealt with this, he mentioned in passing that if I had any change in bowel habit I should tell him. I told him I generally had constant diarrhoea, and he referred me to a specialist but then I got pregnant with my third baby and fell through a gap somewhere.
I had that baby, then another one a couple of years later, and I was the healthiest I've been since being tiny; but pretty soon the diarrhoea returned with a new symptom, pus and blood. Off I went to the doctors again and got fobbed off with "you have four children and a full time job, it's just stress and by the way you should lose weight".
I wish it had occurred to all those doctors that I really was trying to lose weight, and maybe they should have considered the weight was a symptom not a cause of my problems.
Anyway, my marriage ended and I moved house with my children to a new area and so had a new GP. At Christmas 2007 I went to him as I was feeling very ill and told him about the diarrhoea, the pus, blood, what I thought was a haemorrhoid and the terrible tiredness, he had a look at my notes and my family history and referred me to the local hospital as an emergency, as he was worried about bowel cancer.
Within two weeks I'd seen a specialist who said the haemorroid was probably a perianal skin tag, and he booked me in for a colonoscopy which was done four days later. During that colonsoscopy, the skin tag (or tubular adenoma, depending who was describing it) was removed along with several polyps, and fortunately there was no cancer.
During the follow up consultation I was so relieved not to have cancer, I didn't really ask what I did I have. I was prescribed Asacol suppositories, which helped a little but I didn't get very much better, there was still pus and blood whenever I went to the toilet, and I went a lot. I was so tired I had to cut my hours down at work and eventually had to get a part time job in a less stressful environment.
So back I went to the doctors in March 08 and had a barium meal & follow through which led to a diagnosis of Crohn's. It was such a huge relief that my illness had a name and I wasn't making it up or suffering from stress. I'm 45 now so that's 28 years to get a diagnosis, assuming it did start when I was 17.
The Asacol wasn't helping so I was prescribed Pentasa, eight horse tablets a day and I took those in a one month on, one month off pattern until last week in an attempt to calm things down. As they weren't really helping, I was taken off the Pentasa last week and put on Predfoam enemas.
My consultant hasn't really been able to answer my questions about my weight. I'm about eight stone (eek) overweight and even when closely monitoring every calorie that goes in, I gain weight. I take lots of exercise (I teach karate and train/teach four times a week most weeks, as my tiredness allows).
I've now been referred to another specialist and am waiting to hear about that appointment.
Current symptoms: pain and discomfort in the rectum, around the anus and on the right side of my abdomen, diarrhoea with occasional pus and blood (hoping th predfoam will stop this), tiredness and fatigue, pain and stiffness in my finger joints, pains in my legs and weight gain.
Wow! If you got all the way through that essay, well done!
Serafina.
