DanSJVDavis said:
Sad that that seems the fall back answer to young people when they get the disease. I got that line as well, that it was just "growing pains" and everyone gets them. I somehow don't consider blood in your (switching to gross kid mode) poo to be normal, or a bunch of pain that makes you roll up into a ball. Luckily, my Mom and the doctors kept at it till they figured out the problem. I got that line from my Dad, but he didn't know better at the time and he's learned a lot more about it after having to see me go through it.
I also got the very annoying diagnosis of: It's all in her head. Since Mom moved me from the first pediatrician who said I was just nervous, the next one said, flat-out, that it was all in my mind. How in the world could a seven year old decide to MAKE UP this sort of illness?
Plus, as you said, the bloody stools. Except all of the bad pediatricians can argue that away as it being a case of over-protective mothers who are creating fake illnesses in their kids (and while this is an actual mental disorder, I don't think it's relevant when the kid is actually sick).
It was strange the way we finally found a pediatrician who actually listened to us. I'd broken my ankle on a Saturday, so we went to the clinic to see the on-call Doc about my ankle, and just ended up talking about all of my fevers, bloody stools, rolling in a ball on the floor and screaming in pain. You know. The usual. Turned out that he had done some residency work at Valley Children's Hospital out here in CA (now Children's Hospital of Central California) and that he had worked with their head gastroenterologist.
He got me an appointment with her on the following Monday. She basically saved my life, and I continued to see her until I was 23 (yes, 23 years old, still seeing my pediatric GI) because I love her. She's almost like a family member.
I'm glad the CCFA is so much more organized now, and is always working on educating doctors about IBD, trying to get them to stop treating us all like we're a bunch of nervous hypochondriacs.
Katie.