Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Introduction

I am a twenty two year old girl (soon to be 23), who has been recently diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Since having a traumatic brain injury in 2003, I have always had a "sensitive stomach". My health problems from having a TBI overshadowed my stomach problems, whether it be dealing with neurological issues such as epilepsy, regaining simple motorskills or dealing with PTSD and cognitive impairments. I was initially diagnosed with IBS and gastritis, due to the amount of medication I was on, and prescribed prescription ranitidine to deal with the pain, nausea and other issues.

This past January after dealing with the extreme stress of breaking up with a long term boyfriend, I started to really notice more stomach issues. I wrote the issues off as being from stress and ignored the pain and symptoms. My gastro doctor prescribed a stronger dose of ranitidine, and it seemed to take the edge off. As the weeks passed, the nausea, urgency and pain continued to get worse.

At the time I was working full time, and going to graduate school fulltime. I started to become afraid to eat if I knew I would not be close to a bathroom. At one point in February, I was questioned if I had an eating disorder, from being constantly in the bathroom after eating. I was enraged at the thought of this, because I have always loved food, and been extremely confident with my body and weight.

In March my pain was so severe, along with the nausea that I ended up in the emergency room. The doctors there diagnosed me with dehydration and possible kidney stones. I was given liquids, and medication for the pain along with a follow up with a urologist. After seeing a urologist during the week he first said I was misdiagnosed, and that I was suffering from a kidney infection and proceeded to do urine tests, along with prescribing an antibiotic. A few days later, the lab results came in with no sign of infection, my CT scan was clear of stones, but I was still experiencing pain and nausea.

I went again to the emergency room where I was put through a CT scan of my abdomen, chest x-ray, complete blood work up, ultrasounds of my kidneys, gallbladder, liver, and full GI tract. I was diagnosed with a pulled muscle and again given pain killers and fluid, and released later on that night.

The pain was never eased by any pain killer. I had a prescription for an anti-nausea medication, which eased the nausea somewhat but there was no relief of pain or other symptoms. I contacted my trusty GI doc who agreed with me that this may be all stemming from an issue in my GI tract.

I managed to see my doctor in April, soon after I came back from a public health outreach trip to rural villages in the Dominican Republic. The first step we took was doing another complete blood workup along with stool testing, including for most tropical diseases and parasites. These blood tests all came back negative, and the doc decided that the next step would be to a CT scan with contrast. That too came back negative for the most part, with minimal inflammation in my small intestine and illeum. A week later I went through having an endoscopy and colonoscopy complete with biopsies of a few polyps, areas of inflammation and cysts. A week after that I proceeded to have a small bowel series. This too showed a bit of inflammation but nothing significant.

I was prescribed an antispasmotic, which did help a bit with the nausea but the pain and other GI issues were still unresolved. Now, six months after the initial onset, I was prescribed a amino-salicylate anti-inflammatory drug specifically for Crohn's disease. As of today, June 15th I have only taken one full day's worth of medication, and it takes between 3-21 days to fully take effect.

Right now, my short term goals include getting healthy enough to continue graduate school in the fall. I feel extremely fortunate that my family is extremely supportive, and that I am not being forced to work during this time. With the exhaustion, uncontrollable stomach and pain, keeping a normal fulltime job would be close to impossible. I was forced to leave my job in February because of missing numerous days, being forced to leave early or being constantly in the bathroom.

I know I am forgetting some of this story, and will definitely add later, but for now this is me, and my story of dealing with Crohn's.