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Need your help

Hello I am 20 years old male from Bulgaria. For the past 7 months i am having bad abdominal pain in my lower left and lower right abdomen. I sometimes have diarrhea (semi-liquid stools about 2 times a day , max 3 times) but most of the time i dont have. However I have a lot of gasses. My pain is at its worst short after bowel movement. Before that i barely have pain. I dont have night symptoms. My doctor tought i am crazy and ordered blood test : WBC was on its lower part of the normal range, CRP was 0.3, ESR was 2, Hemoglobin - 169, RBC slightly elevated, tromobcytes in its normal range, Feritin a bit low but in its normal range. So she told me i am just crazy. I made several calprotectin tests:
  1. 1st test was ordered by my GP and it was 1.3mg/kg (0-50 normal range)
  2. 2nd calprotectin test was semi-quantitive in another laboratory . Result - <20 mg/kg (normal range <= 50 mg/kg)
  3. The third test was quality assessment - it means it tells me if my calprotectin is low or high. My result was negative - meaning low calprotectin levels
  4. And because i am hypochondriac i did 4th test that surprised me with 60 mg/kg slightly borderline elevated

I have done colonoscopy during my 2nd calprotectin test. The doctor told me that i had very mild redness through the whole colon probably because of the prep but it was completely healthy.I had several spastic regions during colonoscopy. Fecal occult blood test was negative. Doctors think about spastic colitis/ IBS

I have a history of depression, somatic disorder and panic disorder. Doctors think that this is the case with me. But i am a little hypochondriac and i am scared of IBD because i always think of the worst scanario how i die on a hospital bed with my intestines pulled out.

I also suffer from gastritis since i was a little kid. My gastritis was in remission for 10 years till now when i drank NSAIDS for a shoulder injury and after the NSAIDS medications my stomach and bowel problems began.
I did barium swallow for esophagus, stomach and duodenum but it was normal.

I dont have family members with IBD, however my sister has Multiple sclerosis. My mother had colonoscopy at the age of 55 but the dianosis was IBS - slight hyperemia without biopsies showing anything.

Here is the deal my ileum wasnt tested at all, i have barium swallow test on my stomach and duodenum (no pathology there) but not on my small intestines. I am very worried that i might have crohn disease because of my 4th test of calprotectin. I am scared to death... Multiple blood works dont show any signs of inflammation. I am very scared that this will ruin me and i wont have family. I have a girlfriend that i love and she loves me and i really want to have family and normal life. I will be the man in the family one day and i am scared , i have to stay strong so i need your support.I dont want to have my bowels cut and spent my life on a hospital bed :(
 
Welcome. You keep pushing until you get some definite answers. Also, you will find a lot of support here. Let us know what the doctor finds out.
 
Thank you my friend. I hope this is just one of my bad movies i create. I hope this is one of my wrong selfdiagnosis because i had many of them through the years. Wish me luck for having IBS but not IBD!
 

Scipio

Well-known member
Location
San Diego
Everything taken together adds up to a low likelihood of Crohn's, IMO. However, to be more certain, you could ask your doctor to have an MRE of the bowel performed in order to assess the ileum region.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about the FC result. Some labs Normal Reference range is less than 50 ( in the US Labcorp use to have this as its NRR but now it's less than 150) others have even higher Normal Reference Range ( Quest is less than 162.7 or right around there. They're all using the same unit of measurement it's just different from each lab.

I don't have IBD (my son has CD) but my fecal calprotectin result was 167 so barely above the NRR for Quest labs. I had the test during GI distress but my turned out to be H Pylori(which had no relation to my fc result number) which was discovered during my upper endoscopy.

Anyway, 60 is not high at all so I would let yourself get carried away with worst case scenarios based on that.

For peace of mind, you could ask for an MRE or pill cam like the above poster suggested.
 
You have been in great service guys thanks for helping me. Thanks to you i finally stopped crying and i think i already see the light in the tunnel. I hope you are right and i am ok.:):redface: My doc before the colonoscopy (as he thought i had crohns) said that IBD patients live completely normal but about 3% of them live very bad and i always think the worst scenario. However after the colonoscopy the doctor was convinced i have Irritable bowel syndrom..
 
My 5th calprotectin test is even higher 80mg/kg wtf i have never had high abnormal calprotectin till now :X In all the 7 months my calprotectin has always been low ... :X
 
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