Hi,
I am new to the forum and only quite recently diagnosed with crohn's.
I began having symptoms (minor at that stage) around 2 and a half years ago, back in February 2009. As the months rolled on, the symptoms just didn't go away and started to pick up pace getting worse and worse all the time. I went to see my GP several times, and kept on telling him of my symptoms which at that time were lower abdominal pain, constant need for the toilet, headaches and tiredness. Guess what he kept telling me? You have IBS! Go home, unstress yourself and take the peppermint capsules that he prescribed me. I asked if I should have any tests done to confirm but he was adamant that my description of the symptoms and because of my age etc all pointed towards IBS.
So, on I rolled, obviously the peppermint capsules did nothing for me (bearing in mind it turns out I never had IBS), symptoms got worse week by week, and weeks became months. With each month that passed I became more and more worried about things, started stupidly reading things on the internet and convinced myself that despite my relatively young age that I must have bowel cancer which caused me massive anxiety issues and put me in a constant state of worry which put me in a state of mind where I was too scared to go back to the doctors for fear of the worst.
After months of now being in agonizing pain with constant diarrhea, needing the toilet around 20 times a day, not being able to sleep at night because of the need to keep getting up for the toilet and finally the last straw of loosing my appetite and around 4 stones in weight, family forced me to get back down the doctors (they had been trying for months and months) and not to take any brush offs of you have IBS. Scared to death and convinced I would shortly be told you don't have long left, I plucked up the courage to go back to the doctor. He took one look at me, listened to what I told him and had me an appointment at the hospital within a week for a colonoscopy.
The thought of having a colonoscopy added to my anxiety but I have to say that it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be and compared to the constant daily pain that I was in, the colonoscopy was a bit of a walk in the park. The doctor saw me within an hour of the colonoscopy and told me that the test almost certainly revealed that I was suffering from severe crohn's disease and that the biopsies they had done would confirm this within around a week. A week or so later, I had an appointment with the gastro consultant and he went through my results and confirmed that I had severe crohn's disease. It was a relief to me just to be told that after all this time, there was something wrong with me and it wasn't cancer. For a short while, I was just so relieved that it wasn't cancer.
The consultant put me on 40mg of Prednisolone (daily) and 50mg of Azathioprine (daily). Within a couple of weeks, things started to slowly improve and I was after 2 years finally feeling some level of better. However, as the weeks went on and the dosage of the prednisolone was tapered down by 5mg each week - all the big symptoms started to return and got worse and worse and I even needed to get signed off work for 3 weeks because I just couldn't get through the day with all the symptoms at there worst. At my next appointment with the consultant and after we went through all the weekly blood test results I had from the earlier 8 weeks, he increased the prednisolone back up to 40mg and the Azathioprine to 100mg. He also said I would need to go on to another drug aswell - either Humira or Infliximab (Remicade). After we discussed both, I decided that I really did not want to be injecting myself (Humira) and so I chose to go on to the Infliximab.
Well, I just had my first hospital infusion of Infliximab last Friday, and I can not praise it enough. After just 24 hours things began to feel better and each day that passes just seems to be better and better. I have my second infusion a week Friday, a 3rd infusion due 4 weeks after that and then will only need to have it done every 8 weeks. I have only been on it less than a week and it is already changing everything for the better for me. I just hope that it continues to work and I can finally get this damn crohn's into some kind of remission for as long as I possibly can.
I am new to the forum and only quite recently diagnosed with crohn's.
I began having symptoms (minor at that stage) around 2 and a half years ago, back in February 2009. As the months rolled on, the symptoms just didn't go away and started to pick up pace getting worse and worse all the time. I went to see my GP several times, and kept on telling him of my symptoms which at that time were lower abdominal pain, constant need for the toilet, headaches and tiredness. Guess what he kept telling me? You have IBS! Go home, unstress yourself and take the peppermint capsules that he prescribed me. I asked if I should have any tests done to confirm but he was adamant that my description of the symptoms and because of my age etc all pointed towards IBS.
So, on I rolled, obviously the peppermint capsules did nothing for me (bearing in mind it turns out I never had IBS), symptoms got worse week by week, and weeks became months. With each month that passed I became more and more worried about things, started stupidly reading things on the internet and convinced myself that despite my relatively young age that I must have bowel cancer which caused me massive anxiety issues and put me in a constant state of worry which put me in a state of mind where I was too scared to go back to the doctors for fear of the worst.
After months of now being in agonizing pain with constant diarrhea, needing the toilet around 20 times a day, not being able to sleep at night because of the need to keep getting up for the toilet and finally the last straw of loosing my appetite and around 4 stones in weight, family forced me to get back down the doctors (they had been trying for months and months) and not to take any brush offs of you have IBS. Scared to death and convinced I would shortly be told you don't have long left, I plucked up the courage to go back to the doctor. He took one look at me, listened to what I told him and had me an appointment at the hospital within a week for a colonoscopy.
The thought of having a colonoscopy added to my anxiety but I have to say that it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be and compared to the constant daily pain that I was in, the colonoscopy was a bit of a walk in the park. The doctor saw me within an hour of the colonoscopy and told me that the test almost certainly revealed that I was suffering from severe crohn's disease and that the biopsies they had done would confirm this within around a week. A week or so later, I had an appointment with the gastro consultant and he went through my results and confirmed that I had severe crohn's disease. It was a relief to me just to be told that after all this time, there was something wrong with me and it wasn't cancer. For a short while, I was just so relieved that it wasn't cancer.
The consultant put me on 40mg of Prednisolone (daily) and 50mg of Azathioprine (daily). Within a couple of weeks, things started to slowly improve and I was after 2 years finally feeling some level of better. However, as the weeks went on and the dosage of the prednisolone was tapered down by 5mg each week - all the big symptoms started to return and got worse and worse and I even needed to get signed off work for 3 weeks because I just couldn't get through the day with all the symptoms at there worst. At my next appointment with the consultant and after we went through all the weekly blood test results I had from the earlier 8 weeks, he increased the prednisolone back up to 40mg and the Azathioprine to 100mg. He also said I would need to go on to another drug aswell - either Humira or Infliximab (Remicade). After we discussed both, I decided that I really did not want to be injecting myself (Humira) and so I chose to go on to the Infliximab.
Well, I just had my first hospital infusion of Infliximab last Friday, and I can not praise it enough. After just 24 hours things began to feel better and each day that passes just seems to be better and better. I have my second infusion a week Friday, a 3rd infusion due 4 weeks after that and then will only need to have it done every 8 weeks. I have only been on it less than a week and it is already changing everything for the better for me. I just hope that it continues to work and I can finally get this damn crohn's into some kind of remission for as long as I possibly can.
