Hello everyone my name is Brandy. I am a single mother of 3 boys. We have had a very rough summer and I am so glad to have a diagnosis, a treatment plan, some answers, and definitely some hope. I am grateful to have found this site it is so full of information and I feel it will be very helpful. This is our story. School was ending and everything in life was going really well. My middle son Connor was being a regular 11 year old boy. Enjoying life and happy for summer to start. The first two weeks that school was out I noticed that Connor was losing some weight, but I was not concerned because he does this every summer. I assumed going swimming everyday and spending every afternoon riding his bike was the reason for this. Out of all my children Connor has been my healthiest. I can't even remember the last time that he even had a cold. The third week of June I noticed he was eating less and I started questioning him as to why he wasn't eating very much. He stated that he had been having a stomach ache. I asked him about how his bm's were and he said they were fine, but a little harder than usual. I added some fiber and some more fruit and veggies to his diet. I thought maybe he was a little constipated and that was causing the stomach issues. By the end of this week he had lost a total of 10lbs.
I started monitoring his activity and every thing that was going in or out of his body. During this week he started eating less and less and laying around more and more. I had decided that on the Monday of the following week that I would make him an appointment. Monday didn't make that Friday Connor started vomiting. Once the vomiting started it didn't stop. Every time Connor would eat he would throw it up. On Sunday he was curled up on the couch crying in severe pain. I was worried and not sure what was going on so I took him to the ER. At the ER he had blood work and xray's done. The doctor there thought he had an ulcer. He prescribed him some pepcid, zopran, and referred us to a specialist. When we left Connor seemed to be feeling a little better. I called the specialist and his schedule was busy.
He couldn't get us in till the middle of July so I kept Connor on the meds he was prescribed and we waited. He was still not eating much, the vomiting had lessened, and activity was still low. Two weeks after first ER visit we were back. Severe vomiting, severe stomach pains. At this point by son was down to 80 lbs which was a 25lb weight loss in a little over a month. The doctor at this visit was rude and wanted to spend most of her time talking to me about my son's mental state and telling me she was worried that he was anorexic. I left that visit disappointed and with no assistance. I continued to call the GI specialist and begged for them to please get us in asap. The second week of July we got in. We have now had an Endoscopy, Colonoscopy, every blood test you could think of, and finally the M2A pill cam. The doctor has finally gotten the results and went through all of his test and is diagnosing him with Crohn's. He is now down to 73lbs. He looks horrible! He has dark circles under his eyes. He looks extremely emaciated and malnourished. Almost like a walking skeleton. His disease is affecting his stomach and small intestine.
His large intestine looks perfect. We have no diarhea. We have vomiting and extreme stomach pain as soon as he eats. The doctor is starting him on Prevacid, Imuran, zopran, a dairy supplement and 20 mg of prednisone 3 times a day for 3 weeks. I am so glad to get a diagnosis and hopefully get my son back to a healthy state, but also very worried about the meds and their side affects. Thank you for any one that reads this I really needed to let this out. I am so glad that I found this forum. I was getting to a point were I was feeling like a horrible mom watching my once healthy son starve himself to death and nothing I could do about it. If anyone has any advice I welcome it. He is not very happy with me right now as he is looking at all the pills he has to start taking, but I am definitely looking at this as a chance for us to get back to normal.
I started monitoring his activity and every thing that was going in or out of his body. During this week he started eating less and less and laying around more and more. I had decided that on the Monday of the following week that I would make him an appointment. Monday didn't make that Friday Connor started vomiting. Once the vomiting started it didn't stop. Every time Connor would eat he would throw it up. On Sunday he was curled up on the couch crying in severe pain. I was worried and not sure what was going on so I took him to the ER. At the ER he had blood work and xray's done. The doctor there thought he had an ulcer. He prescribed him some pepcid, zopran, and referred us to a specialist. When we left Connor seemed to be feeling a little better. I called the specialist and his schedule was busy.
He couldn't get us in till the middle of July so I kept Connor on the meds he was prescribed and we waited. He was still not eating much, the vomiting had lessened, and activity was still low. Two weeks after first ER visit we were back. Severe vomiting, severe stomach pains. At this point by son was down to 80 lbs which was a 25lb weight loss in a little over a month. The doctor at this visit was rude and wanted to spend most of her time talking to me about my son's mental state and telling me she was worried that he was anorexic. I left that visit disappointed and with no assistance. I continued to call the GI specialist and begged for them to please get us in asap. The second week of July we got in. We have now had an Endoscopy, Colonoscopy, every blood test you could think of, and finally the M2A pill cam. The doctor has finally gotten the results and went through all of his test and is diagnosing him with Crohn's. He is now down to 73lbs. He looks horrible! He has dark circles under his eyes. He looks extremely emaciated and malnourished. Almost like a walking skeleton. His disease is affecting his stomach and small intestine.
His large intestine looks perfect. We have no diarhea. We have vomiting and extreme stomach pain as soon as he eats. The doctor is starting him on Prevacid, Imuran, zopran, a dairy supplement and 20 mg of prednisone 3 times a day for 3 weeks. I am so glad to get a diagnosis and hopefully get my son back to a healthy state, but also very worried about the meds and their side affects. Thank you for any one that reads this I really needed to let this out. I am so glad that I found this forum. I was getting to a point were I was feeling like a horrible mom watching my once healthy son starve himself to death and nothing I could do about it. If anyone has any advice I welcome it. He is not very happy with me right now as he is looking at all the pills he has to start taking, but I am definitely looking at this as a chance for us to get back to normal.
I will certainly be keeping fingers crossed that the meds can get him feeling better soon.
