High School

My daughter has missed a lot of school over the last two years.  She's starting her junior year and has already missed more than ten days.  Can anyone offer experience on how to deal with a) making her attend; b) dealing with the school; c) allowing her to stay home when she isn't feeling well. 

Thanks ...

Hi belle66, While Endeavor08 has mentioned the key factor of talking to the school especially the guidance counselor which is very helpful in order to talk to the teachers but also help arrange a home bound tutor. If your daughter is unable to attend school over a long period of time look into home bound tutoring which is one of the teachers from the school that will actually come to your house and tutor your daughter and bring work to her. Very helpful which as just about my whole high school time health issues interfered between going to different hospitals and treatments. Having Crohns that is not under control while trying to attend high school is a nightmare especially with today's kids at school. I know exactly what its like especially as ontop of having uncontrolled times while in school my high school had bomb threats and closed all the bathrooms except for the bathroom at the very front of the school that was then monitored constantly and only one girl and one guy were allowed into each of the genders bathrooms at a time.

You had to get your teacher to sign ur pass then depending where you were in the high school rush to the bathroom and usually there were others all ready there and wait in line and u had to sign in and out of the bathroom when it was ur turn and as I mentioned only one person allowed in at each time. Which there were also ****** teachers that did not understand crohns and thought that you should only need to go to the bathroom once and that could be during your lunch break. So needless to say there were a number of times I had to go home early because I couldn't get to the bathroom. My doctor sent in a letter stating that I needed to be allowed to use the bathroom whenever I wanted and that I could use the one in the nurses office whenever needed which did help and thankfully the use of finding medications that worked. So I extremely understand what your daughter is going through especially when the pain in your stomach is unbearable and having to attend school and when your stomach rumbles loudly and makes sounds continuously which are hard to hide in class.

You mentioned she was on Pentasa did this medication just not work? Was the dosage ever increased? Has she been on any of the other 5-aminosalicylic acids? Such as Asacol, Dipentum, Azulfidine, or Rowasa. There is also the use of imuran to help or methotrexate. Or there's the biologics such as Remicade, Humira, and Cimzia to name the popular. Finding the right medication or combo to help her get under control is key at the moment, is she seeing a Gastro Doctor?? Until she is the use of home bound tutoring can be her best bet. Completing work outside of school does not mean you can't do well, I did all my work and got excellent grades to the point I even got exempted from some of my finals even though I hadn't been there most of the time. Wish her the best of luck!

I was diagnosed senior year but had been suffering since sophomore year and I did miss a lot of school from tenth grade on. But I just tried to stay on top of everything and I ended up graduating with honors. So I think if she is feeling very bad she should miss school. There were quite a few times I went with a big abscess and fistulas on my bottom and can assure you my attention was not directed at the teachers.