Okay, so I was just diagnosed with having Crohn's last December, but have been feeling the symptoms for a while. But my symptoms were oddly specific.
The first time, it happened right after graduating from high school. My family took a trip to Italy and slowly over the first day there, I felt worse and worse. I told my parents I had a stomach ache and they told me I was overreacting. They dragged me around sightseeing and made me climb to the top of a church in Venice. I was just about ready to kill them. I slept the entirety of the next day and didn't wake up until dinner. After two days of pain so intense I couldn't stand to breathe, I was able to move around a bit more. By day 4, I was feeling fine and eating delicious Italian cuisine.
For the lolz, please enjoy this picture of 17 year old me, at the top of Basilica San Marco, cursing my parents for dragging me up those stairs while I felt like shit.
During my junior year of college, right around Halloween, it happened again. Initially, I thought it was mittelshmerz, as I was right about that time in my cycle. But over the course of the day the pain got worse and worse and worse. One of my professors had to drive me to the health center because I couldn't get there on my own. After a battery of tests, there was no answer. The intense pain lasted two full days and then slowly faded away.
I didn't connect that incident to the first until it happened AGAIN during the January of my senior year. I ended up in the hospital but still received no diagnosis. The one thing all of these had in common is that they happened RIGHT when I ovulated, the intense pain always lasted two days, and then faded over a third.
I had two more attacks in the November and December of that same year, which finally got me into the doctor and a diagnosis of Crohn's disease. I went on Pentasa and was feeling fine. I was getting into great shape, doing P90X, running regularly.
Then, I stupidly decided after 10 months that I wanted a medicine I didn't have to take 4 times a day. He put me on sulfasalazine and I took it for about a month.
I should have known something was wrong. One day while I was running, I felt a soreness in my lower abdomen, but wrote it off as nothing. A few days later, I ovulated and was again in crippling pain. I assumed, like the others, I would be unable to move for two days but able to regain my life by day four.
But I haven't gotten better. I'm no longer in crippling pain, but a general feeling of malaise. My lower abdomen is almost constantly dully sore, made worse by eating. I can't run at all and even low impact activity like the elliptical I can only keep up with for about 30 minutes before I need to stop. I started doing yoga, but am so tired and sluggish that it's hard for me to get up and make myself.
I'm still figuring out how to eat... I've sort of come around to eating once per day then being too sick to eat the rest of the day. My dinner this evening consisted of orange juice, a piece of chocolate from my friend's candy bar, and a mint that for some unknown reason they were giving out at the movie theatre.
This is the first time since my diagnosis that I feel like I'm actually sick. And I hate it. And I know it isn't even that bad.
I just... wanted to put that out there. This is the very first time I've put that story together... thank you, if you've taken the time to read this.
The first time, it happened right after graduating from high school. My family took a trip to Italy and slowly over the first day there, I felt worse and worse. I told my parents I had a stomach ache and they told me I was overreacting. They dragged me around sightseeing and made me climb to the top of a church in Venice. I was just about ready to kill them. I slept the entirety of the next day and didn't wake up until dinner. After two days of pain so intense I couldn't stand to breathe, I was able to move around a bit more. By day 4, I was feeling fine and eating delicious Italian cuisine.
For the lolz, please enjoy this picture of 17 year old me, at the top of Basilica San Marco, cursing my parents for dragging me up those stairs while I felt like shit.
During my junior year of college, right around Halloween, it happened again. Initially, I thought it was mittelshmerz, as I was right about that time in my cycle. But over the course of the day the pain got worse and worse and worse. One of my professors had to drive me to the health center because I couldn't get there on my own. After a battery of tests, there was no answer. The intense pain lasted two full days and then slowly faded away.
I didn't connect that incident to the first until it happened AGAIN during the January of my senior year. I ended up in the hospital but still received no diagnosis. The one thing all of these had in common is that they happened RIGHT when I ovulated, the intense pain always lasted two days, and then faded over a third.
I had two more attacks in the November and December of that same year, which finally got me into the doctor and a diagnosis of Crohn's disease. I went on Pentasa and was feeling fine. I was getting into great shape, doing P90X, running regularly.
Then, I stupidly decided after 10 months that I wanted a medicine I didn't have to take 4 times a day. He put me on sulfasalazine and I took it for about a month.
I should have known something was wrong. One day while I was running, I felt a soreness in my lower abdomen, but wrote it off as nothing. A few days later, I ovulated and was again in crippling pain. I assumed, like the others, I would be unable to move for two days but able to regain my life by day four.
But I haven't gotten better. I'm no longer in crippling pain, but a general feeling of malaise. My lower abdomen is almost constantly dully sore, made worse by eating. I can't run at all and even low impact activity like the elliptical I can only keep up with for about 30 minutes before I need to stop. I started doing yoga, but am so tired and sluggish that it's hard for me to get up and make myself.
I'm still figuring out how to eat... I've sort of come around to eating once per day then being too sick to eat the rest of the day. My dinner this evening consisted of orange juice, a piece of chocolate from my friend's candy bar, and a mint that for some unknown reason they were giving out at the movie theatre.
This is the first time since my diagnosis that I feel like I'm actually sick. And I hate it. And I know it isn't even that bad.
I just... wanted to put that out there. This is the very first time I've put that story together... thank you, if you've taken the time to read this.
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