Hi All!

I was first diagnosed with IBD when i was about 8 years old after going through a lot of doctors visits and tests for about 2 years and lived with the symptoms through all of my childhood while going to see a specialist a state away and trying different medications/dosages. It made high school almost unbearable. Running to the bathroom almost every class along with the long anxious bus ride to school and a run to the bathroom from there. After high school my symptoms slowly disappeared and I had hoped that I had some how outgrown the disease. But about 2 years ago after my 23rd birthday I had a flair up and kept putting off finding a new doctor since my last doctor was in pediatrics. I put it off two long and ended up being hospitalized immediately when I finally saw my family doctor. While I was in the hospital I was paired up with a GI who wanted to reevaluate my diagnosis and of course ran a lot more tests and then diagnosed me with Crohn's, Which I am to understand is pretty much the same thing? Since then I have not been able to keep the flairs under control. I've been hospitalized 2 more times for about a week each and been kept on steroids. I would start at 40mg and slowly reduce my dosage till I'm around 10mg. I start to flair back up and go right back up to my 40mg dosage. I'm also on Flagyl, Asacol, and asazan (sp). About 3 months ago I started Remicade for the first time and I was finally able to completely come off the steroids. It seems right now I can barely make it to the next treatment, I usually start to feel a flair up a few days before I am scheduled to go in. At least it's better then the side affects I was getting from the steriods and I was talking to another patient who was receiving the remicade treatment at the same time I was and she said it took a while but she was eventually able to make it between doses without having any problems.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it

Welcome to the community HostileJava!

I am sorry you have had to live with this disease for so long. Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease are both forms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease and display similar (but not exact) symptoms, so as the sufferer there is no benefit of being diagnosed with one disease over the other. The difference between the two is where they occur in your digestive tract and their appearence (usually as seen in a colonoscopy).

I am glad that Remicade has allowed you to get off steroids, and I hope that you are able to continue to hang on inbetween treatments. I know it can not be fun or easy to feel bad as you near each treatment, but hopefully time will allow you to make it between doses like the other individual you met.