Hi everyone,
I guess I'm lucky because I got a quick diagnosis. 5 weeks ago I went to the hospital with severe abdominal pain and constipation. I was worried I might have appendicitis or something, I had never even heard of Crohn's. I had a CT scan done the next day and that evening my doctor called and told me I had Crohn's with severe inflammation and stricturing. They put me on Entocort which didn't make a huge difference. About a week later the pain got way more intense and they put me on Prednisone which worked amazingly well. Since then I have had some of the side effects. I have been in a total fog because I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in weeks. I had a colonoscopy done a couple weeks ago and that showed inflammation and abcesses in the ileum and rectum and the biopsies showed that it was all chronic. I guess I have a fistulas as well. So now it's official. The pain hasn't been bad since I have been on prednisone but I just started the tapering schedule and the pain came back in a big way after just 3 days. This has me pretty freaked out but I'm determined to get off this drug. Once I get down to 20mg/day I will start up with Pentasa. Does anyone have experience with this stuff? It sounds like the side effects aren't that bad. My experiences have been really different from the stories of others I have read. I haven't had much diarhhea at all. If anything I lean towards the other end of the spectrum with constipation. I probably lost about 10 pounds the first couple weeks but then my weight stabilized. This past week though the weight has begun to fall off me again- about a pound a day. This also has me worried becasue it can't be healthy to lose weight that fast. But I haven't had diarrhea and I have been really conscious to drink a lot of fluids so I shouldn't be dehydrated so I don't know what's causing it. At least I started out a little overweight so I had a few pounds to lose anyway. I guess that's it for my story. I have no idea what's going to happen in the future with all this. I'd like to think that it will go in remission and I'll feel like myself again in a few months, but this hiccup with the returning pain has me worried. I was glad to find this messageboard with other peopl'es experiences and I hope to post more in the future.
Thanks for listening (or reading I should say),
Mike
I guess I'm lucky because I got a quick diagnosis. 5 weeks ago I went to the hospital with severe abdominal pain and constipation. I was worried I might have appendicitis or something, I had never even heard of Crohn's. I had a CT scan done the next day and that evening my doctor called and told me I had Crohn's with severe inflammation and stricturing. They put me on Entocort which didn't make a huge difference. About a week later the pain got way more intense and they put me on Prednisone which worked amazingly well. Since then I have had some of the side effects. I have been in a total fog because I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in weeks. I had a colonoscopy done a couple weeks ago and that showed inflammation and abcesses in the ileum and rectum and the biopsies showed that it was all chronic. I guess I have a fistulas as well. So now it's official. The pain hasn't been bad since I have been on prednisone but I just started the tapering schedule and the pain came back in a big way after just 3 days. This has me pretty freaked out but I'm determined to get off this drug. Once I get down to 20mg/day I will start up with Pentasa. Does anyone have experience with this stuff? It sounds like the side effects aren't that bad. My experiences have been really different from the stories of others I have read. I haven't had much diarhhea at all. If anything I lean towards the other end of the spectrum with constipation. I probably lost about 10 pounds the first couple weeks but then my weight stabilized. This past week though the weight has begun to fall off me again- about a pound a day. This also has me worried becasue it can't be healthy to lose weight that fast. But I haven't had diarrhea and I have been really conscious to drink a lot of fluids so I shouldn't be dehydrated so I don't know what's causing it. At least I started out a little overweight so I had a few pounds to lose anyway. I guess that's it for my story. I have no idea what's going to happen in the future with all this. I'd like to think that it will go in remission and I'll feel like myself again in a few months, but this hiccup with the returning pain has me worried. I was glad to find this messageboard with other peopl'es experiences and I hope to post more in the future.
Thanks for listening (or reading I should say),
Mike