What is considered extreme, mild , cases of crohns?

[bobby5]

I was just diagnosed with crohns and was wondering what are some of the symptoms of a extreme case of crohns, and what are mild symptoms. How do you know if you have to have surgery?

 

[fenway1971]

hi bobby and welcome to the forum!

that's a tough question to answer. everyone suffers differently. for some, even mild inflammation causes intense pain, etc. usually surgery is left for those whom pharmaceutical treatment doesn't help.

i have what my GI calls "mild inflammation" yet have hardly any symptoms at the moment. a year ago, my colon was severely inflamed and my GI thought I should be suffering a LOT worse than I was given what she saw (fatigue, mild pain and had 3-4 bm's a day that were non-bloody diarrhea).

 

[bobby5]

Ive been on 100mg of predizone for a week because my colon is inflammed pretty bad( just now found out that its crohns after 10 weeks of tests) the doctor said. I jst got back from my check up and i dont feel like im doin any better. The doc said my colon was so inflammed it could take weeks to go down. I really dont have real bad pain i just have diarhiaa uncomfort. I cant keep weight on because of the diarhia which is mostly late at night and cant sleep. I was just wondering if any of you guys had experience with medicine taking this long to work?

 

[fenway1971]

I was on prednisone for 9 months.

 

[kasper87]

A mild case of Crohn's is when You are not being Malnourished by your small bowel absorption.. The Area of colitis is minimul and in 1 area only. When surgery isn't an option. Most Mild Cases can be controlled with remicade.

 

[BWS1982]

Location of inflammation is irrelevant to severity for the most part. Mouth to the anus. You can have 4 inches of bowel so ulcerated it's eaten into your body cavity, and that's severe. you can have yards of bowel affected, yet be deemed mild because the inflammation is minor at best. You don't have to have malnourishment or "colitis" (which is colon specific, thus, again, subjective per patient for location) to be deemed mild or severe, it's an accumulative effect: BM's per day, pain, weight loss, fatigue, blood presence, etc... all add up to diversify your caliber of severity. On top of that, most mild cases never see Remicade treatment because they're treated with lesser drugs first (assuming bottom up approach is taken)...Asacol/Pentasa is a common mild medicine.

 

[Maverick7]

To answer your question, prednisone normally kicks in pretty quick as it has a half life of 4 hours in the blood stream. Especially on 100mg, you should start feeling the difference within a week. There are normally a few very good options of medication treatments before surgery is chosen. Talk to your doc more about other treatments if the prednisone doesnt start working in 2 weeks.

 

[CROHNS SUFFERER]

bobby 5, mines is considered severe crohns, i dont know if this affects it but i have it entirely covering my colon, entirely covering my iliuem and sparing in stomach and oesophagus. i personally would measure severity in how far the disease has progressed in your body. i mean if your bowel is sooo badly diseased that medicine isn't working, surgery is only viable option.

but like all the other posters have said, if you measure severity in pain, diaherra etc, it seems a mixed bag

 

[ErinDF]

Hey,

So here is a website that has a short description of the diagnostic considerations for mild, moderate, and severe crohns. http://www.crohnsandme.com/understand/stages.asp

When I was first diagnosed, it took several months before the prednisone really started making me feel significantly better.

In terms of needing surgery, obviously thats something you need to discuss with your doctor. However, I think that surgery is most often recommended when (a) a colonoscopy reveals that a certain, limited part of your intestine is so impacted that it needs to be removed or (b) you don't respond to other treatments (including the "stronger" drugs like Remicaide) and they do something like an ostomy.