Hello everyone,
I'm glad I found this site! I've been doing a lot of reading on here and already feel better just knowing that I am far from alone in coping with crohn's.
Anyways, I just thought for my first post I would tell the extremely strange story of my diagnosis:
It all started in January. One night I was out with friends having a good time, feeling absolutely fine and the next morning I wake up with an incredibly sore throat. I usually always get strep throat around that time of year so I went into the doc who told me I had bacterial tonsillitis. I got prescribed amoxacillin but my throat continued to develop white spots and my tonsils had swollen to the point of touching my uvula and I could only swallow broths and water. I went into urgent care where I was prescribed an antibiotic called clindamycin (aka the most evil substance I have ever put in my body). After another few days with no improvement I was sent to a throat specialist to check for an abscess. None were found so instead the doc DOUBLED my dosage of the clindamycin to 1800MG a day! Insanity!
That's when the GI problems began. My throat did start to clear up with the high dose antibiotics but I began to experience D multiple times a day, as well as HORRIBLE reflux. I could not swallow even my own saliva without a stabbing sensation in my chest. I complained to my doc but they said to finish the course anyways (I was only 4 days into the course out of 10). A few days later the reflux became accompanied with vomiting every time I ate and I began to develop a drug rash all over my arms, legs and hips. I told my doc who finally agreed to stop the antibiotic since clearly I was having an allergic reaction to the clindamycin.
So I was still trying to go to classes and work my brand new job at this point. I had stopped the clindamycin, my throat had cleared up but I was continuing to vomit frequently, have D many times a day and was running a temp of about 103 every night. I went about a week like this before I began to have severe abdominal pain and blood in my stools. I emailed my doc about it on February 12th, worked my job from 8:30am- 12:30pm, went to class from 1:00pm-4:00pm, got my doctor's email which said to "COME IN IMMEDIATELY" so I went in to my PCP around 5:00 and by 6:00 I was in the ER getting a CTscan. The scan showed that my entire colon was infected and inflamed. I was admitted to the hospital that night and was there Feb. 12- Feb. 23.
All the doctors, including the GI team suspected a C-Diff infection as I have no family history of IBD and because the onset was so strange, plus the fact that clindamycin is KNOWN to cause C-diff. However, I continued to test negative for C-diff over and over. They put me on pretty intensive antibiotic therapy anyways and treated me that way for 8 days with no sign of improvement. This is when they started talking about other possibilities such as IBD. They did a sigmoidoscopy and took some biopsies, and on day 10 of my hospitalization decided to go with an IBD diagnosis rather than C-diff. I responded pretty fast to the IV steroids and they released me almost immediately.
BUT the trouble was far from over. I was sent home on 40MG prednisone as well as a handful of antibiotics. I decided to move in with my dad because I was still so weak and feeling sick. I pretty much crashed immediately upon leaving the hospital.. my D was still horrible and frequent, I was able to eat bland foods ok but anything acidic or tasty would be thrown up immediately. I was home for two weeks getting steadily worse. I tried to go to class and to work a few times but would be completely exhausted by it.. I was also losing a ton of weight, multiple pounds a day.
I had a colonoscopy on March 12th. I remember going into the procedure room, and next thing I knew I was in the hospital again surrounded by my terrified looking family. They told me I definitely had Crohn's colitis, and had a 50% chance of saving my colon as there were so many ulcers and in places the mucosa had worn down to the point that my GI doc said it looked like "someone had taken a wood chisel to your intestinal lining." it was one of the scariest days of my life.
I had a PICC line put in and was instructed not to eat or drink anything, so I was put on TPN for 10days along with 2 antibiotics and IV steroids. Unfortunately I had to quit my job at this point as they couldn't afford to have an employee who had missed more shifts than they'd worked, and I had to drop all my classes except for ceramics.
Anyhow, they ran many tests and two days after being re-admitted to the hospital my doc started me on Humira. I responded very well to the drug and was able to tolerate clear liquids after 4days and was able to eat soft foods by the 8th day in the hospital. My BM's slowed down to just 3 times a day within 48hrs of the loading dose of humira and on the 11th day I was sent home feeling pretty alright.
It was a long, scary and very confusing 2 months between January 24th (the day I woke up with a sore throat) and March 22nd (the day I was released from the hospital for the second time) but I am happy to say that since getting out of the hospital I have been doing well.
I celebrated my 20th birthday on March 28th, I am working on gaining back some of the 40lbs I lost, I had my third Humira injection last week and it seems to have put me into remission more or less, I just started tapering off the prednisone which has been going fine so far and I just got a new job at a really cool store yesterday!
I realize Crohn's is for life, and that is scary for me to think about but I also think that it is a disease that makes all of us stronger and more appreciative of the good things in life. I am so thankful that I have such supportive family and friends, and I feel so lucky that I did not have to get surgery.
Sorry this post is so long, I just thought I'd tell the story since it was such a weird/interesting way for the disease to onset.
Looking forward to getting to know all you people on here.
Cheers,
-Mariah
I'm glad I found this site! I've been doing a lot of reading on here and already feel better just knowing that I am far from alone in coping with crohn's.
Anyways, I just thought for my first post I would tell the extremely strange story of my diagnosis:
It all started in January. One night I was out with friends having a good time, feeling absolutely fine and the next morning I wake up with an incredibly sore throat. I usually always get strep throat around that time of year so I went into the doc who told me I had bacterial tonsillitis. I got prescribed amoxacillin but my throat continued to develop white spots and my tonsils had swollen to the point of touching my uvula and I could only swallow broths and water. I went into urgent care where I was prescribed an antibiotic called clindamycin (aka the most evil substance I have ever put in my body). After another few days with no improvement I was sent to a throat specialist to check for an abscess. None were found so instead the doc DOUBLED my dosage of the clindamycin to 1800MG a day! Insanity!
That's when the GI problems began. My throat did start to clear up with the high dose antibiotics but I began to experience D multiple times a day, as well as HORRIBLE reflux. I could not swallow even my own saliva without a stabbing sensation in my chest. I complained to my doc but they said to finish the course anyways (I was only 4 days into the course out of 10). A few days later the reflux became accompanied with vomiting every time I ate and I began to develop a drug rash all over my arms, legs and hips. I told my doc who finally agreed to stop the antibiotic since clearly I was having an allergic reaction to the clindamycin.
So I was still trying to go to classes and work my brand new job at this point. I had stopped the clindamycin, my throat had cleared up but I was continuing to vomit frequently, have D many times a day and was running a temp of about 103 every night. I went about a week like this before I began to have severe abdominal pain and blood in my stools. I emailed my doc about it on February 12th, worked my job from 8:30am- 12:30pm, went to class from 1:00pm-4:00pm, got my doctor's email which said to "COME IN IMMEDIATELY" so I went in to my PCP around 5:00 and by 6:00 I was in the ER getting a CTscan. The scan showed that my entire colon was infected and inflamed. I was admitted to the hospital that night and was there Feb. 12- Feb. 23.
All the doctors, including the GI team suspected a C-Diff infection as I have no family history of IBD and because the onset was so strange, plus the fact that clindamycin is KNOWN to cause C-diff. However, I continued to test negative for C-diff over and over. They put me on pretty intensive antibiotic therapy anyways and treated me that way for 8 days with no sign of improvement. This is when they started talking about other possibilities such as IBD. They did a sigmoidoscopy and took some biopsies, and on day 10 of my hospitalization decided to go with an IBD diagnosis rather than C-diff. I responded pretty fast to the IV steroids and they released me almost immediately.
BUT the trouble was far from over. I was sent home on 40MG prednisone as well as a handful of antibiotics. I decided to move in with my dad because I was still so weak and feeling sick. I pretty much crashed immediately upon leaving the hospital.. my D was still horrible and frequent, I was able to eat bland foods ok but anything acidic or tasty would be thrown up immediately. I was home for two weeks getting steadily worse. I tried to go to class and to work a few times but would be completely exhausted by it.. I was also losing a ton of weight, multiple pounds a day.
I had a colonoscopy on March 12th. I remember going into the procedure room, and next thing I knew I was in the hospital again surrounded by my terrified looking family. They told me I definitely had Crohn's colitis, and had a 50% chance of saving my colon as there were so many ulcers and in places the mucosa had worn down to the point that my GI doc said it looked like "someone had taken a wood chisel to your intestinal lining." it was one of the scariest days of my life.
I had a PICC line put in and was instructed not to eat or drink anything, so I was put on TPN for 10days along with 2 antibiotics and IV steroids. Unfortunately I had to quit my job at this point as they couldn't afford to have an employee who had missed more shifts than they'd worked, and I had to drop all my classes except for ceramics.
Anyhow, they ran many tests and two days after being re-admitted to the hospital my doc started me on Humira. I responded very well to the drug and was able to tolerate clear liquids after 4days and was able to eat soft foods by the 8th day in the hospital. My BM's slowed down to just 3 times a day within 48hrs of the loading dose of humira and on the 11th day I was sent home feeling pretty alright.
It was a long, scary and very confusing 2 months between January 24th (the day I woke up with a sore throat) and March 22nd (the day I was released from the hospital for the second time) but I am happy to say that since getting out of the hospital I have been doing well.
I celebrated my 20th birthday on March 28th, I am working on gaining back some of the 40lbs I lost, I had my third Humira injection last week and it seems to have put me into remission more or less, I just started tapering off the prednisone which has been going fine so far and I just got a new job at a really cool store yesterday!
I realize Crohn's is for life, and that is scary for me to think about but I also think that it is a disease that makes all of us stronger and more appreciative of the good things in life. I am so thankful that I have such supportive family and friends, and I feel so lucky that I did not have to get surgery.
Sorry this post is so long, I just thought I'd tell the story since it was such a weird/interesting way for the disease to onset.
Looking forward to getting to know all you people on here.
Cheers,
-Mariah
