Hello there, I'm new on the forum but have been reading it for a few months now. It is certainly an awesome place to get a ton of info so many thanks for all of that.
My story: I was diagnosed with Crohn's of the terminal ileum and colon back in February of this year after about two months of bloody diarrhea, going 6-10x per day, and abdominal pain. At that time, I was able to get back into remission by May after trying some medicines and found two that seemed to work: prednisone and Imuran. I was taking 100mg of Imuran and calcium and iron supplements daily until about a month and a half ago when this flare that I'm still having got too bad to handle on my own. In mid august I started having bloody stools again, sometimes loose, sometimes not and slight abdominal pain that would come and go. After 2 or 3 weeks though, it progressively got worse. I originally thought it was just a flare and that it would eventually go away but told my doctor about it who recommended another prednisone course. Unfortunately, it just kept getting worse and I was admitted to the hospital where I stayed for two weeks in extreme pain, bloody diarrhea, going 10-15x per day. I got a couple of heavy doses of iv steroids, iv iron, iv fluids, a blood transfusion, and humira which helped only a little. Unfortunately this was all during my first semester of medical school down in Florida, and since I wasn't getting much better the doctor recommended I withdraw from school and go back home to MD until I was healthy again. Obviously not an ideal situation
Now I'm back home living in my parents house but I'm completely bed ridden. It's been almost a full 3 months with this flare. Too frequent bowel movements which are excruciatingly painful every time, abdominal pain which is also quite bad at times, still losing blood, very fatigued from the BM's and malabsorption of nutrients. I can hardly get up and walk around for more than 10-20 minutes before getting short of breath and having to lie/sit down. My parents are very concerned and stressed which makes it a little more stressful for me at times. I'm back on prednisone and have been having quite a few side effects from it this time, which I didn't have the first time I was on it and those have been driving me crazy. I was also on biweekly injections of Humira but just found out today that the level of it in my blood is too low so I'm switching to weekly injections. I don't know it just seems like a lot of medicines that I've tried just didn't work or aren't working. Now my new GI's also saying that he's not even sure if it's Crohn's or UC, which could be a good thing I guess because from what I understand UC is a slightly better disease to have but still the uncertainty is really disheartening.
Wow that was kinda long, haha. I guess I'm just starting to go a little nuts and needed a place to vent it out a bit, haha. Quite honestly I can say that it does feel kinda good to have gotten some of this off my chest. So many thanks again to this forum and to all of you in it who have given me this avenue to vent and also a ton of info through all of this.
My story: I was diagnosed with Crohn's of the terminal ileum and colon back in February of this year after about two months of bloody diarrhea, going 6-10x per day, and abdominal pain. At that time, I was able to get back into remission by May after trying some medicines and found two that seemed to work: prednisone and Imuran. I was taking 100mg of Imuran and calcium and iron supplements daily until about a month and a half ago when this flare that I'm still having got too bad to handle on my own. In mid august I started having bloody stools again, sometimes loose, sometimes not and slight abdominal pain that would come and go. After 2 or 3 weeks though, it progressively got worse. I originally thought it was just a flare and that it would eventually go away but told my doctor about it who recommended another prednisone course. Unfortunately, it just kept getting worse and I was admitted to the hospital where I stayed for two weeks in extreme pain, bloody diarrhea, going 10-15x per day. I got a couple of heavy doses of iv steroids, iv iron, iv fluids, a blood transfusion, and humira which helped only a little. Unfortunately this was all during my first semester of medical school down in Florida, and since I wasn't getting much better the doctor recommended I withdraw from school and go back home to MD until I was healthy again. Obviously not an ideal situation
Now I'm back home living in my parents house but I'm completely bed ridden. It's been almost a full 3 months with this flare. Too frequent bowel movements which are excruciatingly painful every time, abdominal pain which is also quite bad at times, still losing blood, very fatigued from the BM's and malabsorption of nutrients. I can hardly get up and walk around for more than 10-20 minutes before getting short of breath and having to lie/sit down. My parents are very concerned and stressed which makes it a little more stressful for me at times. I'm back on prednisone and have been having quite a few side effects from it this time, which I didn't have the first time I was on it and those have been driving me crazy. I was also on biweekly injections of Humira but just found out today that the level of it in my blood is too low so I'm switching to weekly injections. I don't know it just seems like a lot of medicines that I've tried just didn't work or aren't working. Now my new GI's also saying that he's not even sure if it's Crohn's or UC, which could be a good thing I guess because from what I understand UC is a slightly better disease to have but still the uncertainty is really disheartening.
Wow that was kinda long, haha. I guess I'm just starting to go a little nuts and needed a place to vent it out a bit, haha. Quite honestly I can say that it does feel kinda good to have gotten some of this off my chest. So many thanks again to this forum and to all of you in it who have given me this avenue to vent and also a ton of info through all of this.
