Hello, everyone!
I'm new here and wanted to introduce myself. I am a 19 year old college student and I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when I was nine years old. My disease has always been particularly strange, yet relatively manageable. When I was diagnosed, I had disease in my bones and trachea in addition to having it in my small intestine. Because my disease is so widespread, surgery has never been an option for me. For the past several years, I have been pretty well maintained on immunosuppressants and steroids. 6mp, Remicade and Humira all worked wonders for me. However, I have recently been in an uncontrollable flare that has left me on prednisone since October. Both Humira and cimzia have failed in the last seven months. I recently started stelara, increased methotrexate to 1ml and cut out gluten and dairy from my diet. I recently started tapering off steroids and I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well this time around.
My overall symptoms consist of nausea, abdominal pain, extreme joint pain in my hands and knees and incapacitating headaches after eating. I'm seeing an immunologist this summer to see if there is another underlying problem, as my disease seems to be more systemic than most IBD cases. Has anyone else had any luck with immunology?
I run a video blog about my life as a college student with a chronic illness, if you want to check it out! Youtube search "Laurel Schwartz" and I should come up.
I look forward to talking with all of you!
Laurel
I'm new here and wanted to introduce myself. I am a 19 year old college student and I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when I was nine years old. My disease has always been particularly strange, yet relatively manageable. When I was diagnosed, I had disease in my bones and trachea in addition to having it in my small intestine. Because my disease is so widespread, surgery has never been an option for me. For the past several years, I have been pretty well maintained on immunosuppressants and steroids. 6mp, Remicade and Humira all worked wonders for me. However, I have recently been in an uncontrollable flare that has left me on prednisone since October. Both Humira and cimzia have failed in the last seven months. I recently started stelara, increased methotrexate to 1ml and cut out gluten and dairy from my diet. I recently started tapering off steroids and I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well this time around.
My overall symptoms consist of nausea, abdominal pain, extreme joint pain in my hands and knees and incapacitating headaches after eating. I'm seeing an immunologist this summer to see if there is another underlying problem, as my disease seems to be more systemic than most IBD cases. Has anyone else had any luck with immunology?
I run a video blog about my life as a college student with a chronic illness, if you want to check it out! Youtube search "Laurel Schwartz" and I should come up.
I look forward to talking with all of you!
Laurel