Still in the process of being diagnosed

I'm a 25-year old caucasian recent college graduate.

It's been a few weeks now since it all started. It was just really, really bad diarrhea for a couple weeks... My doctor tried putting me on flagyl, but it just made me horrendously ill (vomiting after a couple days of nausea). I felt a little better for a week while I started on a probiotic (Culturelle), but dipped back down into the feeling awful again. I attributed it at the time to the Papa John's pizza my SO and I had after we were done at the Renaissance Festival because we were lazy and didn't want to cook.

I went back to the doctor that week. She was concerned because I have a family history of Ulcerative Colitis (Grandmother on dad's side). So she had blood tests done, I took a stool sample over the weekend and gave it to them the following Monday morning, and I had a colonoscopy the middle of that week. My first; wouldn't recommend. They found an 8mm polyp which they snipped out, and signs of inflammation. The GI doc told me it looks like Crohn's.

A few years back, I had an abscess that I had to have 2 surgeries in 6 months to take care of. Earlier this year, I had another surgery on a fistula that had developed where the abscess had been. It still hasn't healed. I'm guessing that's been partially due to the inflammation and diarrhea that's been going on. I haven't seen my general surgeon since before all of this started going down, though.

Last week I had a CT scan. I wish someone had told me beforehand that the barium sulfate solution they make you drink can cause diarrhea. But, thankfully, nothing is wrong in my small bowel.

I've been on prednisone for a week and a half, lomotil to control the diarrhea, a double-dose of Culturelle, and hydrocodone as needed (mostly because of the fistula surgery site).

So hello, and thanks to everyone who runs support websites like these. I've been a little scared about what's going to happen, but I've passed each hurdle so far... Just gotta take it one step at a time.

Flagyl is a great antibiotic and will help get rid of the bacteria, maybe you can ask for Zofran with the Flagyl, the zofran helps settle the stomach and prevents nausea..

welcome to the forum,

I'm not sure how you got past a fistula repair without a Crohn's diagnosis. That sounds nuts.

There's a good group here, you'll find lots of help if you want it.

muppet said:

I'm not sure how you got past a fistula repair without a Crohn's diagnosis. That sounds nuts.

There's a good group here, you'll find lots of help if you want it.

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I intend to ask my general surgeon about it the next time I see him for a follow up. Once I learned that there's a correlation between IBD and abscesses/fistulae, I became very curious to see if that's something he should have thought of earlier. I had only been told previously that once you get your first anal abscess, you're more likely for a recurrence, or to develop a fistula.

Thanks for the welcome.

Greetings and welcome

Am I correct that they haven't made a firm diagnosis of Crohn's Disease yet? Or have they?

While there are different causes of fistulae, I too am a little surprised that things weren't investigated a little more to see what was going on. Regardless, here you are.

Have they discussed what sort of medications they're planning to put you on? Or are they waiting for a firm diagnosis first?

Again, welcome

David said:

Greetings and welcome

Am I correct that they haven't made a firm diagnosis of Crohn's Disease yet? Or have they?

While there are different causes of fistulae, I too am a little surprised that things weren't investigated a little more to see what was going on. Regardless, here you are.

Have they discussed what sort of medications they're planning to put you on? Or are they waiting for a firm diagnosis first?

Again, welcome

Click to expand...

They haven't made a firm diagnosis yet. During the colonoscopy they found inflammation, but I'm lucky it's only in my colon as far as they've discovered.

We haven't discussed further treatment options yet. I've been on prednisone for less than 2 weeks, plus the lomotil. I have an appointment with my GI doc's physician's assistant next week, presumeably to talk about how the prednisone has worked and figuring out the plan for the future.

Any recommendations as far as bleeding edge treatments go? I'm always interested in helping out in the name of Science! Before all this crept up, I was looking into drug trials for HIV (I am HIV negative, but my partner is HIV positive). I'm not sure if I'd still be able to participate given that I have my very own autoimmune disease to deal with now, but I figure I can help out with Crohn's drug trials at the very least. It's definitely going to be something I talk to my doctor about.

I don't have any recommendations for clinical trials, sorry. This is a good resource, however.

Please keep us updated as to how you're doing and what they find. And let us know if there's anything we can help you with.