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While I feel I have lived with this for most of my life, I am new to this condition. I just want to feel better.

I'm feeling pretty low today. This is the first forum I have ever joined.

I remember as a kid of about 8 having diarrhea, never feeling finished, on and off over the years. Needing to go but nothing happening. Skip forward to when I was 18 and suffering painful diarrhea on a regular basis. I saw a nurse who suggested I stop eating dairy and see how I felt. Well I felt a whole bunch better, but never 100% right. The times I did unintentionally eat dairy I suffered diarrhea so painful I felt like I was being cut by razor blades which made me vomit in pain for 3 days.

Over the next 15 years or so, my symptoms continued to escalate until I had a hair test done for food intolerance. My results showed I needed to avoid lots of food, dairy, wheat, soy, plus a bunch more. I stopped eating these foods and felt a whole bunch better, but still not 100% right.

Then over the next year my stomach issues escalated. I thought that I was still not eating right for my body. I had another hair test done and this showed that actually I could eat a lot of those foods now. This was really confusing as I was feeling like crap. Cramps, diarrhea. All day, every day.

Then I started to have really really painful cramps. 5 months of putting up with this I had a really bad day of pain. Nothing seemed to help. All I could do was lie on my bed and hold my stomach. It was at this point that I had to face the fact that something was wrong with me.

I went to my GP who ran some tests, then ran some more, then said that I most likely had crohns. He started me on 40mg of Prednisone reducing by 5mg each week. My pain was still almost unbearable, so another GP gave me Colofac for the cramps, this helped lots.

I got down to 30mg of prednisone, (so 2 and a bit weeks) and got the worst pain that cramped and never eased. I went to A+E and was vomiting. They did Ct scan and xrays and watched me. I got worse so a couple days later they xrayed me again and found I had a blocked bowel. 10cm of my ileum.

After 9 days in hospital I came home and started back on 40mg prednisone for 2 weeks then to reduce by 5mg weekly. I was feeling fantastic until the day after I dropped down 5mg. My pain has returned and so has diarrhea. After trying to go one day 40mg next day 35mg alternating, my symptoms are not improving, so GP says stay on 40mg until I see gastric Dr in a couple of weeks.

I feel that prednisone is not working for me. While I feel I have lived with this for most of my life, I am new to this condition. While it is great to have answers to why I feel the way I do physically, I am currently feeling really down about my current situation. I just want to feel better.
 
Location
Texas
Sounds like a rough time, hopefully the GI doc will be able to get to the bottom of your issues. I'm on Prednisone also, when I tried to tapper the Pred the D came back full force so I back up. There are a lot of different diets out there that you can research on this site. This is a wonderful Forum with lots of people who have a lot to share with their experiences.

Good luck - I'm sure someone will be along to offer other advice.:ghug:
 
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