I've posted on here a few times but never "introduced" myself. I've never done so on forums but I think this is a good exception.
Well, my name's Ian and I'm 18 and live in Southern California. My whole ordeal started just after my 17th birthday when I started noticing some blood when I went to the bathroom but thought nothing of it really. It continued for another 3 weeks or so until I went to the doctors and was told "we'd keep an eye on it." It did nothing but get worse when I was going the bathroom 25-30 times a day. I finally to the emergency room, which was a truly lovely experience that resulted in 12 hours of sitting in a hall and an appendectomy late the night I arrived there. None of my bowel problems were even addressed, and I was told to see a doctor on the outside. My family and I have a hunch the removal of my appendix wasn't necessary...
So let's skip ahead 2 months when I got my first infusion of Remicade in the hospital right before Christmas of 2009. It was the first of an eventual 8 infusions (5 of them being double doses). I went into a brief 3 month remission after my second infusion on New Years, and thought the worst was over. Right after I flared up again, I started dating a girl which was the beginning of my first "serious" relationship. This was also when I started Prednisone again, which in the past has not helped me one bit, but rather just gave me a lot of acne and massively bloat my face. Throughout the whole 5 months of us being together I had never been more miserable with my Crohn's, which eventually resulted in the demise of our relationship. The next few months were very rough for me. In October I developed in abscess in my perineum. It developed to being around the size of my thumb making it impossible for me to sit down, and very difficult to walk and even lay around bed. I ended up getting it incised while I was wide awake in an un private hospital room with a whiny 20 something year old guy complaining about his recent appendectomy. I felt little sympathy after he requested I was making "too much noise" while many nurses were attempting to pack my wound full of gauze. The end of 2009 was quite rough to say the least. After this incident is when I started my Humira, and stopped having Remicade infusions. I was originally doing it one injection every two weeks, but later began every week due to my lack of response.
Well here I am 2 months shy of being 19, still on Humira and now on 6mp. I haven't been in remission for over a year now, and have hardly been free from problems. It's becoming harder and harder to get a good nights sleep and feel rested. Over the past 2 years I've had 6 colonoscopies, an endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy(that was pretty uncomfortable), an appendectomy, and a capsule endoscopy. Hopefully I'll reach solace one of these days, it's hard to keep a positive attitude about it but I've been doing my best.
Sorry for such a long post, but it feels good to write about it sometimes.
Well, my name's Ian and I'm 18 and live in Southern California. My whole ordeal started just after my 17th birthday when I started noticing some blood when I went to the bathroom but thought nothing of it really. It continued for another 3 weeks or so until I went to the doctors and was told "we'd keep an eye on it." It did nothing but get worse when I was going the bathroom 25-30 times a day. I finally to the emergency room, which was a truly lovely experience that resulted in 12 hours of sitting in a hall and an appendectomy late the night I arrived there. None of my bowel problems were even addressed, and I was told to see a doctor on the outside. My family and I have a hunch the removal of my appendix wasn't necessary...
So let's skip ahead 2 months when I got my first infusion of Remicade in the hospital right before Christmas of 2009. It was the first of an eventual 8 infusions (5 of them being double doses). I went into a brief 3 month remission after my second infusion on New Years, and thought the worst was over. Right after I flared up again, I started dating a girl which was the beginning of my first "serious" relationship. This was also when I started Prednisone again, which in the past has not helped me one bit, but rather just gave me a lot of acne and massively bloat my face. Throughout the whole 5 months of us being together I had never been more miserable with my Crohn's, which eventually resulted in the demise of our relationship. The next few months were very rough for me. In October I developed in abscess in my perineum. It developed to being around the size of my thumb making it impossible for me to sit down, and very difficult to walk and even lay around bed. I ended up getting it incised while I was wide awake in an un private hospital room with a whiny 20 something year old guy complaining about his recent appendectomy. I felt little sympathy after he requested I was making "too much noise" while many nurses were attempting to pack my wound full of gauze. The end of 2009 was quite rough to say the least. After this incident is when I started my Humira, and stopped having Remicade infusions. I was originally doing it one injection every two weeks, but later began every week due to my lack of response.
Well here I am 2 months shy of being 19, still on Humira and now on 6mp. I haven't been in remission for over a year now, and have hardly been free from problems. It's becoming harder and harder to get a good nights sleep and feel rested. Over the past 2 years I've had 6 colonoscopies, an endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy(that was pretty uncomfortable), an appendectomy, and a capsule endoscopy. Hopefully I'll reach solace one of these days, it's hard to keep a positive attitude about it but I've been doing my best.
Sorry for such a long post, but it feels good to write about it sometimes.
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