Is Crohn's Disease causing Abdominal Pain? Posted: 06-07-06 13:56pm
I was diagnosed with crohns when i was 21.
At that time i had a really sharp pain
between my ribcage below my sternum, and a
pain lower down, to the right of my belly
button. The doc i saw at the time said it
might be gallstones but as i was away at
the time i didnt really think much of it.
After having an ultrasound and a barium
xray i was diagnosed with crohns. It has
been fine for the past 5 years until
xmas.
I was getting bad pains between my rib
cage again, and also kept getting a
butterfly type feeling too, like ive been
really high up in the air on a
rollercoaster and just dropped. i went to
my gp and she gave me protium which i took
for about a week and it worked. the pain
came back again and i got more protium but
it stopped working. I saw my crohns doc in
Jan and he gave me 6 wks of steroids to
take and after 2 wks of taking them i had
an endoscopy, which showed nothing, just
some redness.
so the steroids calmed everything down and
i was getting the pain every so often but
it was fine. i had an op in april for my
foot for the arthritis and my joints all
acted up and so did my stomach. i saw my
crohns doc again in may and he said he
wanted me to get a cat scan done, which im
getting on friday, results next wednesday.
i saw my crohns doc last wednesday and he
gave me protium to take until i see him
next week. the first day or so i felt a
difference but now its worse than ever.
the only thing i can do when i get the
pain is to bend over and rub my stomach
while holding my breath. i feel my stomach
is swollen too. im not eating much with
the pain, i either dont have an appetite
cos of the pain or while im eating the
pain is so severe i have to stop. its
pretty much constant all day long and
keeps me awake at night when its really
bad
my question is basically, what do you
suggest it could be? i want to have some
options to bring it to my docs attention
when i see them on wednesday. i think i
have an ulcer, but the fact its the same
pain as january and the endoscopy showed
nothing has me disheartened. I saw a
herbalist and from just touchin my stomach
he seemed to think it was an inflammed
bile duct. i said that to my crohns doc
and he said if it was it would show on my
blood test. or could it be gall
stones?
Crohn’s disease can be the cause of the
abdominal pain you describe, and can
include arthritis. Crohn's disease is an
autoimmune inflammatory disease that can
affect any part of the gastro-intestinal
tract. It most commonly affects the
terminal ileum. It can cause obliteration
at the affected area and stop the bowel
passage (so called ileus). It can also
cause perforation of the intestine. Both
conditions, ileus and perforation, are
urgent conditions and require surgical
intervention. Crohn’s disease can
sometimes be accidentally detected during
such urgent surgical interventions. If in
your case the diagnosis for Crohn’s
disease has been definitely established
(endoscopy with biopsy), you don’t need
to identify additional diseases but should
concentrate on the treatment of Crohn’s
disease. Medical treatment includes
5-aminosalicylate, corticosteroids and
immunomodulators.
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