I am a newly diagnosed Crohn's sufferer (December 2011). Let me just say, up until a few months ago, I had never heard of this disease and never knew what it was. I'm 30, and have had stomach troubles since high school (mainly with spicy foods and too much sodas, but not consistently). I had an acute attack of what I thought was gastritus about 5 years ago that required me to go to the emergency room with the most painful stomach swelling of my life but did not have many symptoms for a good while after that incident. Then, about a year ago I started having symptoms creep up that, looking back, I think I ignored until it got really bad about 3 months ago, and after much testing, here I am.
As the past is just that, I will not dwell on it further than that. What I desire to gain from this forum is any tips, tricks, etc. from others that can help me live a normal life and then pass that on to others. I just started taking Pentasa in December (about a month ago) and have noticed absolutely no benefits so far. My main symptoms are extreme swelling in the lower abdomen, extreme constipation (which seems to contradict the normal diarrhea that is most commonly associated with Crohn's according to everything I've read), and occasional severe stomach aches. This disease has pretty much wiped out any social life I've desired to have in the last few months and I'll be damned if it's going to hold me back forever. Additionally, in the last year and a half I've finally gotten myself into a job with a great potential to make a career of, and I don't want to let this Crohn's thing stop me from achieving my dreams.
As the past is just that, I will not dwell on it further than that. What I desire to gain from this forum is any tips, tricks, etc. from others that can help me live a normal life and then pass that on to others. I just started taking Pentasa in December (about a month ago) and have noticed absolutely no benefits so far. My main symptoms are extreme swelling in the lower abdomen, extreme constipation (which seems to contradict the normal diarrhea that is most commonly associated with Crohn's according to everything I've read), and occasional severe stomach aches. This disease has pretty much wiped out any social life I've desired to have in the last few months and I'll be damned if it's going to hold me back forever. Additionally, in the last year and a half I've finally gotten myself into a job with a great potential to make a career of, and I don't want to let this Crohn's thing stop me from achieving my dreams.
I would say it is perhaps worth chatting with your doc about an elemental diet. This may start of with no food and just nutritional milkshakes but then you go onto a pre set list of foods that are deemed crohns 'safe'. Alll going well you then start re-introducing food from a set list and you keep a food diary on how you react to these. This was what my doc tried for me when I was first diagnosed and I am thankful we did this before jumping on to the medication band wagon. Unfortunately I started flaring up whilst on the crohns safe foods but everyone is different and you could be lucky enough to be able to control things by what you eat. Check out our diet and nutrition forum as this will have a lot of helpful info about this, if nothing else try to follow a low fat/low fibre diet. The main culprits for most of us tend to be dairy and caffiene. This may then help the Pentasa do it's job. Obviously if you have already been looking at diet and have changed things and found no relief perhaps have a word with the doc about uipping the dose of the Pentasa?
