I'm a little confused

Hello all,

The knowledge on this sight is vast and I would really appreciate if someone can clear this up for me as I am fairly new to this.

I have had severe outbreaks of mouth ulcers, abdomen pain/ache and very strange bowel movements for almost 5 weeks now (including mucus, yellow, dhiorea, wierd shapes etc). I have not eaten any fatty foods, chocolate or drunk anything but water throughout this as i initially thought I had an Ulcer.

Since then I have had an ultrasound and stool test, the ultrasound came back ok but the stool test showed high calprotectin levels which indicates active intestinal disease.

My question is... If I have Crohn's disease, how long is each episope likly to take before the ulcers/condition heals and I am releaved of pain? (back to normal)

I know the condition has no cure although I assume this means it will reoccur throughout life rather than I will always suffer the symptoms, am I correct?

I have results of an Endoscopy back tomorrow and I think my doctor will then send me for a colonoscopy which will tell me everything I need to know hopefully.

Thanks all.

The faster you get the flare under control the shorter the flare will be (that's generally speaking). Keeping you out of flares/in remission is the harder part. Getting the flare under control usually requires medication and the length of the flare will depend on the severity and the person.

For some people treated flares can last a couple weeks to a couple of years. It all depends on what's going on, how soon and aggressive its treated or how aggressive the disease is. Unfortunately even if you listed what meds your GI gives you to try all we can really do is share how long the med usually takes to start working but even if it starts working it may be a while yet before it puts you into remission (if it does, you may require a different combination of meds).

You are correct that you should not always be suffering from symptoms because there are meds out there to get flares under control. Without medication we're talking a whole different story though.

Welcome to the forum!

Hi there, unfortunately there is no hard and fast rule on how long a flare will last or how often - we are all so different in how this disease behaves. The docs will use meds (usually steroids) to firstly get things settled down and then a maintainence drug is introduced, as crabby has mentioned we can only tell you how long each one should take to kick in but not whether it will work or how long for. I think the key is to try and catch things early, to me remission should be that you have no pain, no weird poops or other things that you personally get when on a flare (ulcers, fatigue, rashes, joint pain etc), as soon as you start experiencing anything that is not the norm for more than a few days get onto your doc. I agree that if things get missed and the tum gets really bad then it will take longer to get it back under control.

AB
xx

Thanks for your reply. I have just seen my doctor who has informed me that he is 90% that I have Crohn's. He has ruled out most others as my results have come back from endoscopy showing not Stomach Ulcer, no H-Pylori virus, not Cialiac's. The Ultra scan came back ok too.

I will have an MRI with the blue dye next week now to check for any blockages etc and to check organs. They have just given me a blood test to check for vitamin b12, D, bones etc. I was pleased to hear him say that he didn;t think it was Colon Caner mainly because of my age (36).

I'm hoping to get diagnosis very soon now and looks highly likley it's Crohn's.

Most people seem to be diagnosed in there teens, if I get a positive result for Crohn's could it be I've been sitting on this for many years but this is the first time I've had these symptoms?

Appreciate your advise on this.

Hey, glad to hear that your vit levels are being checked, when you get the results ask for the specific numbers and post them here. Hope you get the 'official' answer soon.

AB
xx

ecobr said:

Most people seem to be diagnosed in there teens, if I get a positive result for Crohn's could it be I've been sitting on this for many years but this is the first time I've had these symptoms?

Click to expand...

Its possible that you may have had minor symptoms or its possible that its just now manifesting itself. It sits dormant when you're a carrier of the disease and its not fully known what exactly triggers it but our environment is believed to play a HUGE role in kick starting the disease. I made a thread a while back trying to figure out what other people's environments were like before they were diagnosed but there wasn't anything that was an obvious cause above the rest of the possibilities. The thread is almost a year old but the info is still there. You'll see numbers in bold by possible causes in the bottom of the first post and stress seemed to have the highest number but others weren't far behind. http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=19813

Thanks Crabby, I believe stress has been the trigger for me fro sure.

Welcome to the forum! We're glad you're here. Hopefully it turns out that it's not IBD and something more acute. But if it does turn out to be IBD, we're of course here for you

Any test results come back yet?