close to 9 years go when I first started seeing signs of Crohns disease, and got extremely ill, the first sign I had was a rectal abcess, which at the time I didnt even know what it was, I just knew I could not sit down, and I was at a high school football game, when i got there I was fine, but time the game was 3/4 over I could not even sit, then I had to get my friend to take me home, which was in his jeep wrangler, what a pleasant smooth ride that was
but at this same time now when I think back, I had constant sores in my mouth, especially between my cheek and gums mostly, and they would hurt when acidic foods would touch them, they would go all the way along my gums, and to feel it it felt as if it were just simply skin folded over skin sort of is the best way to explain it. But the acidic food hurt so bad i had to cut out things of my diet for weeks sometimes months, especially like mustard and ketchup and more acidic things such as that.
My point is at the time my mom called them 'canker sores', but I never thought to bring it up to my GI at the time and actually have not had them ever since, but I'm wondering if that was another early sign of crohns disease?
Since I'm on the subject of early signs and symptoms, YEARS before I got sick or was diagnosed or anything I had an abcess in my mouth on my gum, I was sent to 4 or 5 specialist in dentistry and ENT and no one could come up with a reason for this or really explain anything other then it was there. No medications worked.... (ironically they had scheduled a surgery for it twice, and first time it just 'went away' a day or two before the surgery was scheduled so it was cancelled, now it didn't drain or anything so i don't know where it went, but the 2nd time I was scheduled for surgery, I actually woke up that morning to go to surgery and it was gone.... over night, went to bed with it, and woke up without it. And it wasn't small, it was big enough for teachers to always be asking me 'Chris do you have candy in your mouth?' which by the way was embarrassing and I didn't think was quite professional of them, even at that young age.) Anyway, could this have been another early sign of something going on? I'm thinking this because I have a history of abcesses, since being diagnosed....I actually had to have that first rectal abcess drained before I had ever even seen a GI or was diagnosed, thats what made them originally think crohns to begin with. And since then I have had literally 25 to 30 maybe a few more, rectal abcesses, sometimes two at a time, sometimes very narrow and long or sometimes just big and round, and I've also had two abdominal abcesses which were weird to me, when I got the first because I had never had one prior, it came up one year on morning of 4th of july, and it came up on my incision line from surgeries in the past years, and within an hour and a half to two hours, it had became about
the size around of a quarter or a little larger and stuck out about
3/8's of an inch, so a little more then a half of an inch...I thought nothing of it but then it actually I guess couldn't 'grow' the skin area anymore so it busted the skin and it was green inside, which isnt normally like my rectal abcesses at all, so I went to a local 'ER' ( Its more like a doc in the box, or urgent care, but it has everything an ER has, just doesnt have a standing hospital attached to it, but they admit to the hospital they are affiliated with or what hospital you prefer) I went here because I knew I'd be in and out within an hour, and I was gone within 30 minutes, they gave me a shot of daluadid and told me to just continue what I was doing medication wise...meaning taking my cipro and flagyl.
Also when I was a baby, and toddler and a little older then that, my mother said that I always had trouble being constipated and that the doctors tried everything they knew of medication wise and they gave me things such as sugar water and even some like weirdo 'home remedy' type of things but that i continued to have issues with it. Which is actually the absolute reverse once I got diagnosed, I constantly had diarrhea and I don't think I ever really regained completely formed stools between then and getting my illiostomy. But I did notice that at the time of the 'canker sores' and right before the abcess at the football game that I had been being extremely constipated, which was strange for me, because I had never remembered a time prior that I had EVER been constipated, and I remember it lasting for days, and then it would go away and I might have diarrhea for a day or two after the constipation, and then once again constipation would come back. And it was really hard for me to have a bowel movement literally, it was so hard that when I would try to push out that it could not come out and eventually after pushing I would start to bleed, not blood in the stool but bleed from pushing and blood would just be so much it was just dripping into the toilet and the entire water bowl would be red color and not clear like normally. I actually never brought this up to the GI or the surgeon I had to see about
the abcess even before I had ever seen or heard of a GI..because I was sent from my GP directly to the surgeon that day to have it drained in the office(it was so painful for me that when it was done the surgeon promised me that he would never drain another one on me like that again that he would use general anestesia..... talk about
some foreshadowing, 25 to 30 of them later lol, I guess he knew something I didn't) but he had actually told me that it could have been caused from pushing hard to use the bathroom, which made sense in my mind because of the constipation I was having prior to that... I did not tell him about
that either. For some reason in my mind none of this, the abcess, the mouth sores, the constipation were linked... and actually because I believed they were not linked I also believe that I overlooked some symptom that I may have had at the time, and just don't remember them because I didn't pay attention at the time or think it was related... so why pay attention anyway?
Do anyone of you out there think this could have all been linked? Or that they were any kind of early signs of Crohns Disease?
Any input would be certainly helpful... and I'd also like to know what those sores were in my mouth if any of you have a clue, or educated guess... like I had said they were really just like skin folded over skin... they might have been slightly redder then the rest of the cheek and gum but they didn't look like sin breakdown or anything like that was going on.
Thanks Guys, I sort of pride myself on being young and having this tremendous trove if you will of knowledge especially when it comes down to Crohns disease, and my Crohns disease at that, but sometimes you just have to kick the question around and see what others have to say and what their input is... so anything you have to add is highly appreciated. Again, thank you very much. I know you dont have to really 'thank' someone or anyone for that matter around here, its really a given that you'll be helped and we're actually encouraged to seek support and help on matters we dont particularly know but I think a nice thank you is well deserved sometimes, so especially to all of you 'regulars' out there whether you've been here for years like me, or you've just been here for months but are ritualistic almost in your visiting the healingwell site thank you very much. And also we can not forget the other people that make this site what it is... THE NEWBIES! I don't believe we could continue to exist without the new people coming, and realizing how great of a support system HW has set up for us all here.