Active crohns not showing in blood tests?

Kel:

My son's labs were normal last month yet he was still having diarrhea and very fatigued. A stool test came back positive for C-Diff. Maybe you could get a stool test done just to rule out any infection.

Hope you feel better soon.

Thank you for the replies, i feel like i'm going mad, my gp says i'm fine but i'm not. She gave me a referral for the hospital because she doesn't know what to do, but that looks like it's gonna take over 10 weeks so i suppose i'll just have to wait.

My bloodwork is almost always normal. A few years ago I was to the point of needing surgery after 6 months of elemental diet and biologics not working, and my bloodwork only showed minor inflammation. Luckily my GI figured out a long time ago not to depend on my bloodwork to treat me. He now goes by my symptoms alone. Not sure what I will do when he retires in a couple of years and I have to train a new GI all over again.

Tanya

I went to the ER after several weeks on prednisone with uncontrolled rectal bleeding. I was swaying on my feet and they admitted me within about 30 minutes, pretty quick for an ER visit! My blood work showed nothing! My Crohn's is generally in the last 2 inches of my rectum, so apparently it doesn't show up, even when I am pretty sick. I spent the next 3 days on a steroid IV to get things under control. So keep pushing to find out what's up.

My expirience is that it is very commom that there is a lack of objective measures. That means you are very sick without any obvius signs from bloodsamples etc,. I can easily recollect one instance when there was no specific evidence of anything abnormal but in order to do something, i was ordinated albumin.
That was then an very expensive treatment and I still do not understand what it was supposed to do.

My most recent bloodwork all came back in normal ranges but the results of my pill capsule endoscopy showed moderate inflammation in the terminal ileum, so yes, bloodwork can be very tricky!