Hi everyone, I'm VERY new here and probably should have taken the virtual tour but didn't lol.. Anyway, I'm Jim, diagnosed with Crohns disease in April of 86. It's been a very long hard road.. I've had 12 operations to remove diseased portion, wore the bag roughly 6-12 months and then respected.. The biggest operation was called a Turnbal rectal pull through.. Basically they pulled approx. 12 inches of intestine through rectum.. After a month of laying in bed at Cleveland Clinic they removed the excess portion of intestine that basically died and stitched a new rectum.. ( It was sort of like an umbilical chord hanging out of my anus). The original reason I got it was due to fistula and abscesses that every other surgical procedure failed.. Unfortunately this also failed and left me with very little sphincter control which causes alot of incontinence problems I'm still dealing with even being on Lomotil, Immodium, tincture of opium and opiate pain meds that treat pain pain and also have constipating effects ( I obviously don't get constipated but it buys time ( sometime).. Anyway, now I'm dealing with major Scar tissue and adhesions in abdomen which is very painful and still have crohns flares ( lately minor not requiring surgery). I think I've tried every medicine out there.. 6-mp, remicade,Humira, prednisone (on and off). Well I've babbled way too long just to say hello and a brief history ( sorry it wasn't that brief. I apologize for not spell checking but I'm tired. God bless and hope I can help anyone or even learn something.. Goodnight. Jim