My Story thus far

[jminutel]

In late 2006 or maybe earlier (I had some issues I never fully contributed to the Crohn's) I began having severe stomach pains, diarrhea, bloating, fatigue, vomiting the works. Like the bull-headed, uninsured person I was I kept putting off the inevitable, a doctors visit. Finally after picking up insurance through my employer I had endured several months of hell already, I was having a very bad night and decided to go visit a doctor. I was immediately sent to the ER for possible appendicitis (which I knew wasn't the case). The attending physician ordered several tests and admitted me, being a very healthy person up til recently I was scared out of my mind. I called my mom and she drove over an hour to come and help me through this. I spent three days in the hospital discussing my issues with a doctor of internal medicine, he told me he was positive it was Crohn's but wanted an experts opinion. I was then sent to my GI to go over everything. After an endoscopy and colonoscopy she diagnosed me with Crohn's sometime mid 2007. As I'm sure a lot of you have done, I immediately went to Google and read for hours about the disease, different forums with personal accounts and medical information. I'm sure all the worrying really helped out the progress. After my follow-up from the scopes I was started on numerous medications, none of which seemed to work. Asacol, Pentasa, various steroids, none of them seemed to really give me any relief. Shortly thereafter we also discovered my gallbladder was only functioning at 3% and it had to be removed, a lot of my pain went away after it was removed. Finally with asacol and a high dose of prednisone I started to feel a little better. After a year of playing with doses, and throwing other medications into the mix we still had not achieved remission. Through the year I had several bowel obstructions as well. Another scope and Barium X-Ray showed that the medication hadn't done anything to help, my ilium had swollen to a very unwanted size. I was down to two options, surgery or Remicade. I couldn't really afford either but I opted for surgery considering the side effects of Remicade. My Crohn's had been in remission for about two and a half years then it flared back up. After toying with medications again to no avail about a month ago I had my second surgery for the disease. The healing had been slow and I was running a fever so another CT scan found I had developed a large abscess. I now sit here at my computer with a drain in my side on antibiotics hoping this will clear soon. I am currently seeking financial help for either Remicade or Humira.

 

[mikeyarmo]

Welcome jminutel,

Your initial reactions to having the disease is something I am familiar with... I remember the first time being diagnosed and spending quite a bit of time on the internet searching away.

Have there been any other symptoms other than the abcess from the surgery?

 

[Lisa]

Remicade has financial assistance available - go to their website for more info.

gope you get things sorted - and as an FYI- I've had few/no side effects from remicade - or at least what could be directly related to the remicade.....

 

[Sha0913]

I am also on remicade and have been on it for 2 years and have had no side effects what so ever and it has made a huge difference in my life. As Pasobuff stated they have assistance for remicade users one is Remistart, you should look into it.

 

[xJillx]

Hi jminutel and welcome! I am so sorry to hear you have been through so much and your Crohn's is still acting up. I think it may be time to bump up the medication. I know some of the side effects sound alarming, but there are many on the forum who are doing very well on both Remicade or Humira. Try to steer clear of the horror stories you can come across on google and think positive! Good luck!

 

[Gwen pippy]

Hi jminutel

Welcome to the site, sorry to here you are having bad time of it at the moment. You have been through so much already, I hope that financial helps comes through soon and you can back to normality. We are are all here for you.

Gwen xxx

 

[ameslouise]

Hi Jminutel and welcome!

Sorry your remission had to come to an end. I hope you can get on the Remicade and that is works wonders for you.

I hope the abcess drains easily and quickly and you don't have too much trouble from the infection.

- Amy