Anemia and Peri-anal Crohn's???

I too have peri anal crohn's and I get a B12 injection every month.  Recently though my hemoglobin levels have dropped so my GI is starting me on Iron infusions.  I will be getting them when I get my Remicade which is every 8 weeks.  I can not tolerate oral iron so im hoping this will help.

I do have iron deficient anemia.  B12 was ok.  I have a family history of low iron in the women of my family...periods aren't really heavy though. 

Jeaneac:  I got food poisening from a McDonald's fish sandwich in 1995 (I'm really wishing I would have went to the hospital and gotten a nice fat check from the deep pockets, but was 23 with no insurance at the time...it was the worst 10 days of my life - physically speaking)  Anyway...the very first time I had symptoms after that I freaked out thinking I had food poisening again, but no fever or vomiting let me know I did not.  Then periodically after that I would have days where I was just unexplainably "poopy."  It became known as "I'm feeling poopy today" (on the toilet 12 times with not much but blood or mucus and a small amt. of stool).   I went to my dr and she said, "oh you have ibs, just try to avoid spicy foods and stress."  In college I had a horrible flair and went to the clinic - they took it more seriously and dx'd hemmies and gave me cream and pain meds...still ibs.  This went on for years.  In 2004 I got to a point I could no longer eat, had horrible acid reflux and ulcers in my mouth and esophagus.  The next doc wanted to do an EGD.  During scheduling the nurse assumed I was having a colonoscopy and EGD because they're usually done at the same time.  I got to thinking about it and said something my doc about the "poopy days."  Since I was being put under for the EGD he said it would be a good time to look at the colon.  He noticed inflammation and took biopsies of small areas of inflamation because he suspected Crohn's from clinical perspective.  His test came back neg for Crohn's so I was not dx'd.  Little did I know the knot I was feeling on the exterior of the rectum was an early fistula that had not broken through.  I eventually developed an abcess that began to drain.  Went to the ER cause I didn't know what was happeinng and they incised and debried it.  Then I developed an abcess on the interior of the vag wall that would drain through the original "cyst" opening.  I went to two different docs trying to tell them that when I pushed on the vaginal cyst it would drain at the rectal opening & that it had to be conencted somehow.  I actually had one female ob/gyn look at me and tell me that if I knew anything about anatomy, then I would know that wasn't possible.  The next doctor decided it was just a vag cyst and performed another surgery. So he opening up a lovely tract at the vag edge that I started passing gas and feces through on my "poopy days."  FINALLY I decided to take matters into my own hands and with about 15 minutes of internet searching I discover without a doubt that I had and ano-vaginal fistula.  When back to the first doc who referred me to a local surgeon.  That surg. didn't want to touch me since there was an earlier speculation of Crohn's and he sent me to a specialist colo-rectal surg.  That doc couldn't even do a rectal exam because of the pain.  By this time I had developed a skin tag as big as my earlobe.  He dismissed me and said he couldn't do anything if I had Crohn's because it would just come back.  He said I needed to talk to my GI and get the Crohn's under control.  No one at this point has even really dx'd me w/ Crohn's!  I just let it go figuring I would have to live with it...I had tried taking Asacol, but 3 pills 3x a day isn't really my thing.  I visited ANOTHER GI during a brief stay in Pittsburgh who ran me through an abdominal scan and said she didn't see and fluids, but clinically thought that yes I did have Crohn's.  I let it go again out of sheer exhaustion with 6 different docs and no one helping me.  When I move to a different city I tried again.  On a particularly bad day I went to the Redimed clinic hoping they would give me pain meds (I had found that if I made pain go away it would make the colon spasms and contractions stop, which would make the pooping stop, which would make the inflammation go away).  They immediately got on the phone found me a colo-rectal surgeon who saw me the very next day.  She was about my age and smart and said she could help me.  I had surgery two weeks later and after fully healing have been in complete remission.  She scheduled the Prometheus and on the morning of my surg. officially dx'd me.  She also discovered that the reason I had so much pain was because there was a HUGE ulcer hiding behing the skin tag...she didn't even know it was there until she removed the tag.  Giving all of that a chance to heal made all the difference.  I am so thankful every day that she wasn't afraid to do something.   She had me do a relatively new abdominal cat scan and found no thickening of the small intestine or any evidence of Crohn's anywhere but the peri-anal area. There you go.