Can stomach bug trigger crohn's?

Sounds like a bug . Most times we take a little extra time to get over them .

mmm, yep...I would agree. When i got the flu it took me at least 7-10 days to get rid of it totally. It sucked but was happy it was only the flu. Drink lots of water!!! Hope you feel better soon.

Best to let doc check you out when you have doubts Kew , Hope you feel better soon.

My wife when she first was diagnosed with Crohn's disease thought that it was possible to keep Crohn's at bay with diet. It took a couple years to find out that it was not possible. And a few more to figure out that the "bad" foods that she identified as causing Crohn's didn't have any impact. She had a symptom that happened after eating a food or tried avoiding it to see if it would help. Sometimes it did help or seem to. Later, we figured out actually what was happening.

Essentially, flare ups happened at random times - except that they happened more often if she got a cold or flu. Food had nothing to do with it at all. She had avoided a lot of foods for years thinking they were bad for her but they had nothing to do with it. The random nature of the flare up and linking food or something else to it caused some foods to be falsely identified as a problem. During a flare up or the start of one, foods that don't digest well caused a lot more symptoms. Therefore, she avoids them whenever she has any symptom of Crohns or feels a flare up is starting. If you have a flare up or are on the edge of having one, food has a large impact on how you feel due to how easily it is digested and how much fiber it has. During a flare up, a person should eat more meals or small snacks but the meal sizes should be small portions of fairly bland food avoiding anything with a lot of fiber. Count the calories to make sure there is enough but no extra. Just enough to barely maintain a persons weight with normal activity. All vegetables must be cooked. No salads, uncooked carats, onions, cucumbers and etc. This reduces the work on the intestines and the amount of material passing through the large intestine and colon. An uncooked vegetable is more difficult to digest than a cooked one especially for a person with Crohns. A person new to Crohn's who was healthy probably can't tell that they are on the edge of a flare up or not. It takes a few years of having it in various degrees of severity to figure that out. So a person newly diagnosed can easily identify many foods as being problems when they have nothing to do with causing a flare up of Crohns. They only have something to do with the symptoms that they feel from active Crohns disease.

After a few years of trying different medicines that would work sometimes and not others, she finally started using Remicade. That keeps her almost symptom free except when she gets a flu virus or cold. At which time - especially if it is a few weeks after having the Remicade infusion, she can still get a flare up. She never gets a flare right after a Remicade influsion only when it has about worn off. She now knows that a flare up is coming by how she starts to feel. And at which time, she immediately takes a low dose of prednisone for a few days then tapers off of it quickly. This happens only about every 2 years or during cold or flu season so we believe that for her, some colds or flu viruses have some impact on Crohn's disease. The reason to take prednisone quickly is to prevent a full flare up of the disease. If it flares up completely, it takes a lot more medication to get under control. (We learned that the hard way.) A flare up for her after having Crohns for many years could also cause a blockage that requires surgery. So taking low doses of prednisone quickly is important to prevent the flare up from progressing. Luckily for her, prednisone has always been very effective to control flare ups but it is not something that should be taken regularly for a long time unless there is no other alternative.

During full remission of Crohn's disease, she has found she can eat whatever she wants. For her, the only time she has full remission is when using Remicade or when she uses around 35 to 40 mg of prednisone per day. Prednisone however, has various side effects that can get worse the longer it is taken and the larger the dose. Remicade does not seem to have any symptoms for her.

I thank you for your comments. I am only 8 months into this chron's thing and I couldn't figure out which foods were good or bad. The no fiber thing and you suggestion helped.

Gosh i bled all the time...I am talking everytime i went to the bathroom,and it seemed to get worse when i had the runs....But I can say going on remicade stopped the bleeding( it took awhile but it has stopped)
I can't do fiber..although they say it's good for you..for some of us chronies, it's really bad. Yep diet is the hardest part..trying to figure out what you are able to eat...and sometimes you think it's a "safe" food cause you had it before, and then finding for some reason, that "today" it wasn't safe.. The joys( i joke) of this d.d. Keep in touch and i hope you kicked that bug in the butt!!

My Crohn's had been under control for 3 years with Humira. I could actually eat whatever I wanted except dairy and had no issues. In January my insurance changed and I could no longer afford Humira so I went cold turkey with no medicine. I was doing great until May 1st, exactly that date, I woke up extremely sick. My boyfriend had the stomach flu a week prior but I slept in another room, washed the bedding, lysoled everything, kept my hands clean like OCD style and yet I wound up with the stomach flu after he had it for only a day. I was sick for about a week but then never quite felt better after that. The diarrhea never stopped and finally mid-May I was sent to the ER from my doctors office and they did a CT scan. My Crohn's had flared up again, this time in a different portion of my intestinal tract that it hadn't been before AND where it was normally. So it had spread. I was put on Prenisone and refused a hospital stay as I have children at home. I was sent home on 40mg prednisone and my blood count was 10.6, normal is usually 13 or higher so I was only considered slightly anemic and I wasn't losing too much blood in my stools. Usually with Crohn's if you lose blood it's in small amounts over a long period of time, so your body can keep up with the loss and replace it. With me I dump large amounts of blood in short periods of time (usually within a day) and I go from being fine to near death (which isn't common either with Crohn's I've been told). So anyway, I went home that day on my prednisone and I was slightly okay, still feeling not myself. My stool had began to be formed instead of diarrhea so I was lowered to 30mg of prednisone. At this time my doctor was out of town and another doctor had lowered my medicine under my doctors orders and I was to stay on 30mg until he returned. Well, I went to work on June 15th, had a really bad headache but otherwise was okay. My boss asked me if I was okay, said I looked a little pale but besides a killer headache I thought I was fine. I got home at 4pm and by 9pm I was in the ICU with a blood count of 6.8, 2 units of blood being transfused, my heart rate had dropped below 20 beats a minute and I had collapsed in the hospital room (I was immediately admitted from the ER because they took a stool sample which was pure blood, I had pure blood diarrhea stools that started at 6pm) and was then put in ICU, on bed rest, etc. Now I've still been on the prednisone since mid-May (gained 10 pounds and hating it), but just started my first shots of Cimzia last Thursday.
So the point of this whole story was that it started from the stomach flu, and bloody stool is not normal and CAN be life threatening. So... please see your doctor and at least make him/her aware of what is going on. I received a very stern lecturing from a very nice doctor who I respect very much now that was at the hospital. She told me to stop thinking I'm in control and wasting precious life moments worrying about what I can or can't do or what to do to make my disease "go away". And not to be so stubborn to think that I can do anything better than some medicines can do (such as the cimzia). She said she lost 15 years of her life to lupus and since she realized she (even a doctor) wasn't stronger and smarter than the medicines her life has been so much better.
I'm glad that you can get through without medicine, I wish I could, but I can't... but don't let symptoms like this go without talking to your doctor, regardless of how long it's been since a flare up. Your story sounds like my flare up almost exactly. I hope all is well with you.