My Intro

[sfink16]

Good Morning,

I was diagnosed with Crohn's during a hospital visit a month ago. I always knew that I had stomach disorder(s) previously thought to be IBS. I've had multiple colonoscopies due to the fact that my maternal grandmother died of colon cancer. My latest one was just last year where Crohn's was not diagnosed.

My symptoms are almost entirely in the lower stomach. During the month out of the hospital my doctor has me on 20mg of Prednisone daily. His hope was to "put the disease in remission". What is remission exactly and how long can it stay in remission?

Currently, when my symptoms are at their worse with pain and discomfort, I take stool softeners and for whatever reason it seems to help. If diarrhea occurs I take an occasional OTC antidiarrheal pill or two. I also take a Ranitidine pill twice a day as it seems to help. Finally I take Lactaid when I take dairy products.

Thanks!

Steve

 

[valleysangel92]

Hello Steve. Welcome to the forum, I'm sorry you have this condition but I'm glad you found us.

What tests were you given to determine this diagnosis? You say your last colonoscopy was last year, are there any plans for another one soon?

Were you started on a higher dose than 20 mg?
remission is where the disease is no longer causing symptoms and there is no active inflammation. It can last any where from a few days to a decade or more, it is a very individual thing.

 

[Clash]

There are different types of remission. The therapeutic goal used to be clinical remission, this was an absence of most symptoms and decent lab work. Then there is histological remission, which would be remission at the cell level(microscopic level) and endoscopic remission, which if visually with a scope no signs of active disease.

The therapeutic goal for a long time has been clinical remission. Recently, the goal has shifted to full mucosal healing or histological/endoscopic remission. It was found that even though you may not be having symptoms there can still be low level inflammation present which can cause permanent damage, scarring and may lead to surgery.

Prednisone will usually knock down the inflammation while you are on it but when you taper off or sometimes as you taper down all your symptoms will start to return because the amount of Pred isn't enough to keep the inflammation under control. Also, most CD'er are started at a dose of 40mg per day, it is at 20mg and below that some find symptoms returning. The GI will generally put you on a maintenance med to help induce and maintain remission. The med is started most times while you are still on the prednisone since it takes the meds some time to build to therapeutic levels.

Some of the maintenance meds commonly used are the immunosuppressants-6MP or Imuran or methotrexate, biologics- Remicade, Humira, Cimzia. 5ASA's are also used for Crohn's although they haven't showed great efficacy on their own in treating CD, some of these are Asacol, Pentasa etc.

Good luck I hope they find some thing to get you feeling better quickly!

 

[sfink16]

Hello Steve. Welcome to the forum, I'm sorry you have this condition but I'm glad you found us.

What tests were you given to determine this diagnosis? You say your last colonoscopy was last year, are there any plans for another one soon?

Were you started on a higher dose than 20 mg?
remission is where the disease is no longer causing symptoms and there is no active inflammation. It can last any where from a few days to a decade or more, it is a very individual thing.

Thanks for the welcome!

I was given an upper GI test. My next scheduled colonoscopy is in about a year and half from now, unless something changes during my office visit tomorrow. No, 20mg is the only dose I've been on since the hospital release.

At this time, at least with my current meds, the disease is manageable for me. If it doesn't get any worse then it is now, I can live with it.

Thanks agains!