New here, and to Crohn's

[turbo_gc8]

Hows it going?

Im a 21 year old college student from Ontario, Canada and i was diagnosed with crohns in August of 2007. I had never been sick a day in my life until Christmas eve 2006 when i was hospitalized over night because of a massive pain in my lower abdomin.

It was like nothing I had ever felt before and the first thing i thought was "oh great my apendix is about to burst" luckley it wasnt that and I was realeased christmas afternoon feeling back to my normal self. Between then and May i would get random pains in my stomach for no reason and then in June i had a massive attack again and was in bed for about a month with just solid pains all of the time.

In august they finally dianosed me with crohns and i was starting to feel better on Pentasa until about a month ago where it went back to being a painful experience.

They loaded me up on some steriods for a week and it was the best week i have had since December of 06. Not a single pain during the whole time! It was incredible. Unfortunetly after my precription for that ended, and I went back to m Pentasa, the pain thought it should come back and just as strong as ever.

Can anyone recommend any drugs I should try? I REALLY dont want to go on steriods because of the side effects, which i have personally seen happen and I kind of like my appearence to much to have it ruined by it.

I just think that pentasa isnt working for me and I'm not sure what other people are taking that might work better but not give me the crap side effects like steriods.

Also I forgot to mention. With my crohn's I dont have diarea, at ALL. Its actually the opposite sometimes, where I have problems using the bathroom.

Any help would be great :ycool:

 

[Keara07]

Hello Turbo! Also new on the forum and to CD dx.

I was also quite afraid of the drugs and inthe last 7 weeks have been on and off a variety of things until the latest round of pentasa (4g) and predisone(40mg for the last 3 weeks, and will hopefully taper process after my doc visit next week). I was mortified to read all the side effects but haven't had one (yet) - it did take me over 2 weeks to see some good results though. My only side effect is dizziness and exhaustion after taking them for about 3 hours - a rare effect I am told - but better than some of the others. For now, I will gladly put up with them, to alleviate the pain though and try to get this CD flare under control before possible surgery - I am actually a little nervous to go off them in case that crazy 15/10 level pain returns and I punch another hole in my wall!

Ones that did not work for me were asacol, suffolak, entecort (another steroid but they say with less side effects) so the doc put me on the pred to kick the CD in the butt (so to speak). I too don't have the constant bathroom runs but go back and forth between going, and not going tupe of days - the pain is the worst symptom.

I was also told the pentasa can take awhile to kick in too - I may now be seeing some results due to that even but I have been on that for 4 weeks now - certainly nothing too dramatic and comforting happened overnight which was alarming but I am learning, fast, that CD is so different.

Best guess - you could ask about entecort (budenosoid...sp??)maybe? I dunno - again, I am new. Everyone reacts so different to the meds, I amlearning this very fast.

Good luck and hope you feel better soon!

 

[Christina]

I am almost 20 and I know what you are going through. I have had crohn's since June 2003. After a month in the hospital they said that I had crohn's and they put me on steriods. The steriods helped with the pain greatly, but they made me gain a lot of weight. After getting off of steriods my doctors put me on Asacol and Mercapurtine. To me those medicines didn't work. I was always in pain and bleeding when i would go to the bathroom. Finally they put me on Remicade. That is the best medicine in the world to me. For the last couple of years I have strictly been on only Remicade. I have no pain or bleeding. Sometimes I will bleed a couple days before a treatment, but other than that I live a pretty normal life with no pain. I recieve a treatment about every 6-8 weeks. I hope that you can try out this medication. I think it will help. I also haven't ahd any kind of side effects to this medication.

 

[davidlek]

Hello everybody I am from Hungary. I am 25 years old. My disease begin my age of 23 in the university of medicine. Probably I have crohn, but I am not sure, because my doctors can 't recognise it yet. My colon is inflammed only. I take salazopyrin 3000mg per day and I feel good. I think the diet help me which I eat in every morning. It is pulp(mush) mixed grated apple. I have to admit that I would like to be a gastroenterologist doctor because of my disease and so I visit this webpage to say everybody my crohn and colitis test. If you have 5-10 minutes to fill an anonim test you can help me very much. The result of the test I can publish in this webpage if the moderator permit it. Thank everybody for understanding me, David Lékó