Hi all,
Been lurking on and off for a while and whilst obviously not contributing to discussions have found this forum useful and supportive during my most recent flare.
I'll try and keep it short. Was diagnosed with Crohns in 2006 after 6 months of thinking I had bowel cancer (didn't visit Dr, had never heard of Crohns). On the day of my graduation I was lying on table with a camera up my back passage. It was also two days after my birthday :ycool: Was started on Pentasa but ended up in hospital again 6 months later and started on 6mp and went into remission. Happy days!
Spent 9 years getting on with life - trained as a mental health nurse, got my first post and life was grand. This time last year I noticed symptoms creeping back - mouth ulcers and rectal bleeding mainly. Nothing too disruptive though. As I was in fixed term employment I didn't want to look as though I couldn't cope so buried my head in the sand and carried on with work thinking I would be fine until I saw my GI in the new year.
I went downhill pretty quickly. Currently had 8 hospital admissions this year, pretty severe pain in all but my last admission a month ago. You can empathise I'm sure...
So after limited sucess with Humira (still have to take it fortnightly), I got start on low dose MTX (10mg). Still flaring, oh, and steroid dependant, so trying to taper that as well. Currently symptoms are returning. No doubt I'll be posting about them!
It's been a tough year but I'm surprised just how strong I can be when I need to. Guess I'm lucky - no surgery and great healthcare support when I do get admitted to hospital. Hopefully I can offer some support as you have no idea how much just reading some posts on here has helped me through the tougher times and I look foward to speaking to you all in other threads :ghug:
Been lurking on and off for a while and whilst obviously not contributing to discussions have found this forum useful and supportive during my most recent flare.
I'll try and keep it short. Was diagnosed with Crohns in 2006 after 6 months of thinking I had bowel cancer (didn't visit Dr, had never heard of Crohns). On the day of my graduation I was lying on table with a camera up my back passage. It was also two days after my birthday :ycool: Was started on Pentasa but ended up in hospital again 6 months later and started on 6mp and went into remission. Happy days!
Spent 9 years getting on with life - trained as a mental health nurse, got my first post and life was grand. This time last year I noticed symptoms creeping back - mouth ulcers and rectal bleeding mainly. Nothing too disruptive though. As I was in fixed term employment I didn't want to look as though I couldn't cope so buried my head in the sand and carried on with work thinking I would be fine until I saw my GI in the new year.
I went downhill pretty quickly. Currently had 8 hospital admissions this year, pretty severe pain in all but my last admission a month ago. You can empathise I'm sure...
So after limited sucess with Humira (still have to take it fortnightly), I got start on low dose MTX (10mg). Still flaring, oh, and steroid dependant, so trying to taper that as well. Currently symptoms are returning. No doubt I'll be posting about them!
It's been a tough year but I'm surprised just how strong I can be when I need to. Guess I'm lucky - no surgery and great healthcare support when I do get admitted to hospital. Hopefully I can offer some support as you have no idea how much just reading some posts on here has helped me through the tougher times and I look foward to speaking to you all in other threads :ghug: