Hi all! I'm going to the Mayo Clinic tomorrow. My Crohn's has only appeared in my ascending Colon, but I get internal bleeds to the point of hospitalization and blood transfusions. The latest visit, I had 2 Colonoscopies, and I saw the images. My Crohn's was very minimal-not enough to show how I could be losing so much blood. My appointment tomorrow is with the Gynecologist to see if possibly I have Endometriosis attacking my colon from the outside! If so, I will have surgery to remove it. I pray that is what it is, since my Crohn's doesn't normally bother me, but has been painful and unusually active since July 2013. I'm not on any medications (Thank GOD I got off Pred 2 days ago). I'm wondering if that might be included in this list?
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Possible EIM - internal blood loss
- Thread starter shambeyla
- Start date
DustyKat
Super Moderator
I’m so sorry for the late reply shambeyla. :ghug:
How did things go at Mayo? Did you get any answers?
My daughter had a ruptured bowel so although she had loads of issues in her abdominal cavity they all stemmed from the bowel itself.
There have been many women here that have had issues with endometriosis and IBD and many do find that treatment for the endometriosis or if they are past childbearing years that a hysterectomy helps considerably with their IBD symptoms.
I personally wouldn’t classify endometriosis as an EIM of IBD but I have no trouble connecting the dots as to how one can exacerbate the other…
The bowel is in very close proximity to your reproductive organs and when flaring the swollen and inflamed bowel reaches a size that causes it to come into contact with surrounding structures causing them to stick together and that in turn causes pain and complications. Add endometriosis into the mix, a disease where tissue is growing on the outside of the uterus…not a far stretch for it to reach the bowel and cause havoc particularly if the bowel is swollen. You treat the IBD and get it under control but the fibrotic uterine tissue remains.
Thinking of you. :heart:
Dusty. xxx
How did things go at Mayo? Did you get any answers?
My daughter had a ruptured bowel so although she had loads of issues in her abdominal cavity they all stemmed from the bowel itself.
There have been many women here that have had issues with endometriosis and IBD and many do find that treatment for the endometriosis or if they are past childbearing years that a hysterectomy helps considerably with their IBD symptoms.
I personally wouldn’t classify endometriosis as an EIM of IBD but I have no trouble connecting the dots as to how one can exacerbate the other…
The bowel is in very close proximity to your reproductive organs and when flaring the swollen and inflamed bowel reaches a size that causes it to come into contact with surrounding structures causing them to stick together and that in turn causes pain and complications. Add endometriosis into the mix, a disease where tissue is growing on the outside of the uterus…not a far stretch for it to reach the bowel and cause havoc particularly if the bowel is swollen. You treat the IBD and get it under control but the fibrotic uterine tissue remains.
Thinking of you. :heart:
Dusty. xxx
Like Dusty I know some people have both, but to the best of my knowledge, research directly linking them isn't well developed. Have scans shown the proximate location of the bleeds? Endometriosis lesions bleed but not usually to the point of tranfusions. Lesions have been found in every organ in the body except the spleen (though extra-pelvic locations aren't common). Common sites include the ovaries, tubes, and peritoneum. Some people have shallow lesions, other people have deeply inflitrating lesions. Either type can grow in the bowel and both can be highly symptomatic but DI lesions are able to inflitrate right through the organ, causing bleeding, inflammation and scarring in its wake. So what starts on the outside of the organ can burrow through to the lumen, affecting/damaging the functioning of the organ. Overtime inflammation becomes chronic. Surgery can be either conservative or radical depending on presentation. Surgery is often helpful but it doesn't prevent recurrence - there is no cure for endometriosis. Those with bowel endometriosis almost always present with lesions elsewhere too. I hope you don't have to go through that, but that they find a cause for your pain and bleeding.