- Joined
- Feb 21, 2010
- Messages
- 8
Hello all, my name is Spencer I am 21 years old and I was recently diagnosed with Crohn's Disease this past month. It all kinda started over my Christmas break I was feeling fine until about the last week of break. I started to get these fissures in my bottom so hence I was bleeding and just didn't feel good. At first my normal doc thought it was just hemorrhoids, so I tried to treat them but they never went away. He recommended me to see a surgeon after seeing him, he immediately recommended me to a GI doctor because he could tell something else was up. At this time, the week was over and I needed to head back to college. So about 3 days into school the pain in my bottom was getting unbearable to the point were I couldn't walk to class and I started to develop terrible arthritis in my legs and arms. I went to our student health services and they gave me a cream for it... didn't work. So by the end of the week I headed back home to see a GI Doctor. That next Monday I had a colonoscopy done (probably the most awkward and uncomfortable thing ever hahah) but he found some ulcers in my lower GI tract. Then concluded that the swelling looked like Crohn's he put me on Prednisone and Lialda to cure the symptoms. The Prednisone took away the arthritis and fissures... I was stoked, but the lialda had brought upon massive stomach cramps. After about a week of this treatment the arthrithis slowly came back and stomach cramps continued and I had developed some throat and mouth ulcers. So I went back in the doctor ran an endoscopy (throat scope) and said he might have miss diagnosed me. He took me off of all my crohn's meds. Eventually I developed ulcers in the back of my mouth, completely down my throat to the end of my asphogas into the upper GI tract. At this point I was unable to eat or drink completely, let alone try to take my medicine, my GI doctor gave me some percoset to deal with the pain and said to try to get through it. I was taking about 2 every 4 hours just so I could drink water and that's it. About a day or 2 of this I had to go to the hospital because I was so dehydrated and malnourished. Once in the hospital and having test run, my red blood cell count was at an 18, its supposed to be around 50 so I was very anemic. In the hospital I had another endosocopy done, and they confirmed that it was Crohn's of the throat, and that all my ulcers were bleeding and that's why I was loosing so much blood. After 7 blood transfusions, 2 weeks of only ice chips, and 3 weeks of daytime television I was finally able to get the levels back to normal and leave the hospital. I came home with a TPN pump that I carried around for a week, Currently I just finished my first week without it and I am on normal foods now!! I am on 40 mg of Prednisone which I will drop down to 20 next week, I am on Azothiaprine, lialda, and protonix. This past week I have had severe stomach cramps and gas so I think I am going to stop taking the lialda because I had this problem earlier with it. My case is very different than most of you on here,it was the first case of crohn's of the throat that the GI clinic had seen in 20 years. I don't get severe diarrhea, I almost have the opposite problem but I still have ulcers in my intestines that cause tremendous pain and sometimes bleed.
I am brand new to this disease, I have a very unusual case of Crohn's and I don't know anyone that has crohn's, I had to drop out of school for the term so its definitely been hard to deal with all of this, but im glad to see other people are in my boat!
Thanks for listening!
I am brand new to this disease, I have a very unusual case of Crohn's and I don't know anyone that has crohn's, I had to drop out of school for the term so its definitely been hard to deal with all of this, but im glad to see other people are in my boat!
Thanks for listening!
