How do you deal with the pain?

I have really bad abdominal pain a few times a day, my dr have prescribed percocet for this and also wants me to try buscapan (sp?) I have also found that a heating pad helps as well

Crohn's can be a tricky disease and despite 2 people both having severe disease, it can affect each so differently. I am much like chrisnsteph and get the severe abdominal pain out of nowhere sometimes. It is enough to bend me over and take my breath away like someone just punched my gut. It will hit for about 10- seconds and then release and then hit again hit again about 30 seconds later. This is typically about 15 minutes after eating a large meal and when the food hits a stricture that I developed. When I am flaring, I have an almost constant sharp pain through my lower gut that starts from the right. I have to use Lortab 10's and a heating pad to help with it.If it keeps up, I have an antispasmotic called Librax that also helps. Be careful with taking too much tylenol in one day because you do not want to screw up your liver. 1000mg should be fine but if you are going over 2000 daily or 2500 daily, you could cause some damage. You need to talk to your G.I. about the pain because it is your body's way of saying that something may be wrong. It does not always mean that it is an emergency but you may have some inflammation or a stricture that needs to be treated. Are you throwing up or have loss of appetite? Have you lost any weight recently? Those are some of the other signs of a stricture. If it does get severe, don't hesitate in going to the E.R.

I know that losing weight when you are overweight always feels good but remember you still have a disease that weight loss can be a sign of bad things. Last April I started having some of the same issues and started losing weight. At first, it was amazing to finally start to lose some of the prednisone weight. As the belt notches went down for me, the vomiting went up. After losing 40 lbs in a couple months, I found out that I had a stricture. I had to change my diet and that has really helped with the pain and to keep the weight off. I now rarely eat any breads, red meat, or anything that may be hard to digest. I added a lot of fiber to my diet through eating granola and yogurt and really started eating a lot of chicken breast( baked or grilled) and salmon. My vomiting has pretty much ceased and the weight stabalized at a good weight.

...and don't be afraid to see a pain doctor/pain specialist(PM)...or talk to your PCP or GI about the pain...really...you shouldn't have to suffer that much pain...and yes, when prior to seeing a PM doc, I would go to the ER when the pain became unbearable and would not go away...they would give me medicine or admit me...now I have some "end of need"(to be hid away safe, until the end of need...from LOTR) pills that I take when nothing else works(which at this point it has not)...if that fails I call my doctor...
Take care...

The only that helps my "attack" pain, which is how I refer to it, is percocet. I've had the pain you are describing, it's happened to me while I was driving; this was before I was diagnosed and it got progressively worse. I did have to pull the car over, I was squeezing the steering wheel so hard my hands hurt for days afterward, I cried hysterically in the car and when it subsided a bit, I turned around and went home. Percocet is the only thing that could take the edge off for me so I could at least breathe a little easier through the pain.

I did call my GI today. He was out, but his partner called me back. He said he thinks percocet was taken off the market, so he's going to call me in a few lortab to take 'sparingly' until I can start the Cimzia. He sounded very hesitant to do anything for me. But he's going to do it, so that's all that matters. Anyone heard about percocet being taken off the market??

Hi Stephanie, it seems you and I are having a painful day. I hope yours improve soon.

As far as I know Darvocet was taken off the market, but nothing about percocet.

i have pain so bad it makes me puke...it's pretty constant on a scale of about 4 or so all day but when i have to poop and am sitting on the can it jumps to a 9 or 10...and i say 9 or 10 because i've had 6-8 kidney stones and they were a joke compared to this pain.  like i said it's so intense i puke and i feel like i'm going to pass out.  i was doing GREAT for a few weeks and then all of a sudden- bam!  back to the bs...i was terrified i was going to run out of percs but made them last til my appt with the pain doc yesterday!  phew!! 

i try so had not to feel sorry for myself but i'm losing it.  i'm a pretty tough guy and have built up a fairly high tolerance to pain over the years but this brings me to my knees.  scopes have shown no strictures, but i'm thinking there's one hidden somewhere if that's possible.  pain seems to be central below my belly button.

at home is bad enough, but at puking and trying not to cry out on the can in the bathroom is horrifying.  luckily i've been very lucky with my timing at work.  man this disease sucks.

hope you find some pain meds that work...the percs for me are ok- not perfect by any means, but i'm kind of scared to try something different in case whatever that might be would not work as well.  maybe it's time to try...

hope you all have a great long weekend!

When I was first diagnosed I would get extreme pains like you are describing, but it never made sense to me to take pain meds because the pain was over before the meds would kick in. So I just dealt with it, and my mom would massage my stomach to help relax me. I found if you can relax your body as much as possible during a major pain it helps, but its hard because your in so much pain.

I hope you figure out something to help you and a way to end the pain!

Best wishes!