- Joined
- Feb 6, 2011
- Messages
- 1
Hey all,
So my name is Thea, and I've had Crohn's for a couple years now. I'm currently 20 and a student at a state university and kind of feeling really lost and sad right now, which is what prompted me to join this site!
So basically I started showing symptoms a couple years ago when I was on vacation..I've always had a lot of gas and bloating but never thought it was a big deal until I started seeing blood in my stool. I didn't want to scare my parents so I kept it a secret for most the entirety of the vacation and eventually went to a gastroenterologist about a month later.
Since then everything's been rocky. I feel so so stupid even complaining abut my condition when I read about people who have had these crazy surgeries and incredible stories whereas my story is not nearly so interesting...
I've had two colonoscopies and my doctors told me that my inflammation seems to be moving..at first I showed some at my (illeuim?) or somewhere around there, but after my second it seems to have lessened there, but some has developed at my colon.
If I sound uneducated on my own body it's because I spent nearly the entirety of my disease trying to forget that I even had it. I've felt fine for pretty long stretches of time, and I was bad at taking the Lialda and 6mp that I was put on. I would constantly drop it and not see doctors and then freak out when I would have what I think would constitute a flair up, and practically crumble under the stress.
I think I mainly did this because I find Crohn's to be so embarrassing. I'm not a person who would ever talk about flatulence or diarrhea with anyone..it's still hard even talking to a doctor about it! But also because I have the very bad habit of running away from my problems...guess I'm not really that strong of a person. I'm even tearing up as I write this.
Fast forward to about a week and a half ago and I'm taking a small nap after eating biscuits and gravy (something I KNOW upsets my stomach!) and when I wake up I get this kind of sharp pain in my colon. And it continues on and off for a couple days. So I went back to my doctor who told me that it's probably just spasms from the inflammation there? I don't know, but it's hurt worse than anything I've had related to the disease, so I promise him (and myself) that this is a new start and I'm going to stick to my meds and man up and deal with my disease. After all, things could be so much worse.
Since then I've been on prednisone, Lialda, and 6mp but I don't know exactly what's helping and what's not. That's my biggest frustration really..nothing ever seems consistent! It's enough to make me want to rip my hair out.
I wasn't having diarrhea when I went to the doctors but since then (and since being on prednisone) I've actually had diarrhea for two days...maybe from the miralax I took with my meds or just from nerves.
Either way, I feel really miserable and I've missed a week of college, making me feel even more downtrodden. I still have little aches in my colon and I'm scared I'm going to feel that pain again. I'm going to schedule another colonscopy to see where I stand on inflammation and I guess go from there.
I've never told anyone this much about my history..this is actually the first time I've spoken about it at all. Honestly I'm really scared and sad and anxious all the time and it sucks because I've never known anyone with IBD in my personal life, which I think may have changed how I approached the disease in my teens.
Sorry to just ramble on and on to you guys...it's hard to stop once I've started.
I hope to post here pretty regularly because I think it will ground me and make me want to take better care of myself.
It's nice to meet all of you!
-Thea
So my name is Thea, and I've had Crohn's for a couple years now. I'm currently 20 and a student at a state university and kind of feeling really lost and sad right now, which is what prompted me to join this site!
So basically I started showing symptoms a couple years ago when I was on vacation..I've always had a lot of gas and bloating but never thought it was a big deal until I started seeing blood in my stool. I didn't want to scare my parents so I kept it a secret for most the entirety of the vacation and eventually went to a gastroenterologist about a month later.
Since then everything's been rocky. I feel so so stupid even complaining abut my condition when I read about people who have had these crazy surgeries and incredible stories whereas my story is not nearly so interesting...
I've had two colonoscopies and my doctors told me that my inflammation seems to be moving..at first I showed some at my (illeuim?) or somewhere around there, but after my second it seems to have lessened there, but some has developed at my colon.
If I sound uneducated on my own body it's because I spent nearly the entirety of my disease trying to forget that I even had it. I've felt fine for pretty long stretches of time, and I was bad at taking the Lialda and 6mp that I was put on. I would constantly drop it and not see doctors and then freak out when I would have what I think would constitute a flair up, and practically crumble under the stress.
I think I mainly did this because I find Crohn's to be so embarrassing. I'm not a person who would ever talk about flatulence or diarrhea with anyone..it's still hard even talking to a doctor about it! But also because I have the very bad habit of running away from my problems...guess I'm not really that strong of a person. I'm even tearing up as I write this.
Fast forward to about a week and a half ago and I'm taking a small nap after eating biscuits and gravy (something I KNOW upsets my stomach!) and when I wake up I get this kind of sharp pain in my colon. And it continues on and off for a couple days. So I went back to my doctor who told me that it's probably just spasms from the inflammation there? I don't know, but it's hurt worse than anything I've had related to the disease, so I promise him (and myself) that this is a new start and I'm going to stick to my meds and man up and deal with my disease. After all, things could be so much worse.
Since then I've been on prednisone, Lialda, and 6mp but I don't know exactly what's helping and what's not. That's my biggest frustration really..nothing ever seems consistent! It's enough to make me want to rip my hair out.
I wasn't having diarrhea when I went to the doctors but since then (and since being on prednisone) I've actually had diarrhea for two days...maybe from the miralax I took with my meds or just from nerves.
Either way, I feel really miserable and I've missed a week of college, making me feel even more downtrodden. I still have little aches in my colon and I'm scared I'm going to feel that pain again. I'm going to schedule another colonscopy to see where I stand on inflammation and I guess go from there.
I've never told anyone this much about my history..this is actually the first time I've spoken about it at all. Honestly I'm really scared and sad and anxious all the time and it sucks because I've never known anyone with IBD in my personal life, which I think may have changed how I approached the disease in my teens.
Sorry to just ramble on and on to you guys...it's hard to stop once I've started.
I hope to post here pretty regularly because I think it will ground me and make me want to take better care of myself.
It's nice to meet all of you!
-Thea
