New to this site. So bear with me please!

Hi everyone, I wanted to see what everyone's symptoms have been since dealing with Crohn's.  I have battled with this lovely disease for 10 years, about a week after my daughter, 2nd child, was born.  I have been in the hospital 2 times and have had to have 2 blood transfusions.  about a year ago I started having different type of symptoms besides the normal pain in the tummy, diarrhea and aches- as if I have the flu but no other symptom of the flu.  about a year ago, I started experiencing major bloating in the upper portion of my stomach. I also had major gas, but not from releasing it, NOT being able to release it.  I would be up all night sometimes and then throwing up- I was drained and had to take the day off of work.  My stomach hurt but it was a different type of pain than the normal cramps (isn't it great how your stomach can hurt so many different ways?)  I also get anemia several times in a year and have to be treated for that.  I had a small bowel follow through x-ray a few weeks ago and it was determined that the Crohn's is severe enough that I may have to have my first surgery to take out the diseased part of the small intestine.  I am on prednisone (40mg) a day for 3 weeks then will start to wean off.  I am then supposed to start thinking about going on Humira.  I am truly overwhelmed. I have dealt with this for a long time, but I truly thought surgery would be when I was so down and out that it was the last option. Although I am suffering with all of this I have been able to function pretty well in my work life.  I get extremely tired and can not concentrate, but am pretty used to that.  I did research Crohn’s right after first being diagnosed many years ago but am starting to look into this disease again.  One of the things I find different than anyone else is I am not underweight but am very much overweight, going on prednisone right now is a real stress for me.  I know I need to eat more healthy, but with the budge that I am living on it’s pretty hard to buy some of the healthy foods that are available. If anyone can help me out by giving me some tips, advice, similar symptoms or anything you think I would benefit from I would greatly appreciate it.  Thank you for taking the time to read this.

i find there are 2 types of being tired 1) when you are actually tired and 2) when you have gas, are bloated and the body shuts down and you feel tired because the body actually wants some time to process the bloating. either way resting is remedy but even better is to avoid the sugary stuff in the first place and get the bowel time to be in a normal flora. If that means eating 6$ salmon instead of the 1.50$ supermarket pizza, so be it. A gluten free type diet longer term might work and figure out what foods are making you bloat and avoid them. cut down on the carbonated beverages. There is also exercise and i say this not for overweight but for circulation blood flow to the bowel but as well for extremities. so try to distinguish between 1 and 2 above and get the exercise in before either occur. Try a hot shower after eating will keep the bowel active to process the food, or brush teeth after eating to let the body know you have completed eating. Just tricks try what works for you. I sit alot so I have weights next to my desk to try to keep away the bloating from sitting. There comes a point though, the bowel needs to relax,-- but relax in order for peristalis to occur.

Hi Sugar Smith,

And welcome to Healingwell. Does sound like you have a stricture going on. I would try to stick with a low residue diet until they can get this figured out. Remember easy to chew, easy to digest. One thing that helped me alot when I had a stricture was to avoid red meat. Red meat is very difficult for even the healthy intestines to digest, you can only imagine how hard it is for diseased intestines. When you have those episodes of what you are calling trapped gas sounds very much like you are suffering not from painful gas symptoms, but a obstruction. Tell me if this sounds like what you are experiencing. You get VERY bloated and cannot pass air from either direction, you cannot have a BM, you have pains that comes in waves much like labor pains, and then eventually you get nauseous and throw up. Is that what you are experiencing? If so, the next time this happens get your butt to the ER, as you are obstructing. Obstructions can be very dangerous and you could perforate your bowel.

I went thru a almost 20 year remission where I didn't even think of my Crohns. I kept having these episodes like I described above and would go to the ER. They would tell me they were gastritis episodes or that I was constipated, until one time I finally got a good doctor who discovered I was completely obstructed. Thats when I had my emergency resection. I hope these docs can get you figured out before you wind up in my situation as I can tell you a planned surgery is much better on you than a emergency.

Sending good thoughts your way, and hope they get things figured out for you soon.

Hugs
Gail*Nanners*

While I am a big believer in throwing everything in the arnsenal (meds, suppliments, diet, etc.) at this disease, but I did not lose weight on the SCD. So if it does not help do not worry about it, because this disease is very individual.

Howdy! I know how you feel, my recent flare is also like yours. I had a similiar experience when they did a colonscopy and small bowel follow through, I was told that surgery seemed like a good option too. My doc wanted to try to spare me surgery for now, so we tried a research infusion drug. While getting through the pre study testing and such, my doctor suggested that I go on a no fat, no fiber, no dairy diet. Yeah, I know that's hard to do, mainly got by with leaner meats and had to watch labels pretty hard for two months, but it did help and gave me the time I needed to see if this med was right for me. I was also on prednisone too. Talk to your doc about that :), maybe it'd help with the pain and make things a bit easier.