Crohns or uc or both

When I was first diagnosed, the CD was in my ileum and there were also some ulcers in my colon, but now it is only in my ileum. CD typically has "skip lesions" and can move around. The question for your doc is if he thinks your disease is worsening. I see you are on Humira. Do you think it's not working effectively?

First diagnosis in 1987 was in small intestine. Have had scopes, upper GIw/SB, cat scans and MRE. Have been on tysbri, remicade, back to tysbri, I seem to do well for 3-4 years then have to change to another biological drug. Cimzia was the only one that did not seem to help. Had a bad flair 12-12, had to wait for insurance to approve humira. Got bad dog bites, had to wait for wounds to heal before starting humira. Started humeria in June still getting sicker and ended up in hospital. I was diagnosed with cdiff along w/CD flair. Went home and could not restart humira until everything cleared up. Relapsed w/cdiff in September, back in the hospital. Came home and finished meds and just started humira again, a week ago. I already feel better. I was told that now the CD is in my large and small intestines and had fistulas on left side and a non-drainable abscess in lower right side. I always assumed it was just in the small bowel.

Crohn's can be from mouth to anus. If you have it in both the small and large intestine, it's usually called ileocolitis. That's what I have and colon activity usually causes more diarrhea compared to small intestine disease since the colon regulates water reuptake. Small intestine disease causes malaborption problems. Anyway, I think that your doctor is saying your CD has become active in the colon also, which I'm sorry to hear for you.

I was originally dxd with cd, then later told uc by a different doctor. All my symptoms are in the colon. They told me it is rare but possible to have both. I will just have to see what the next scope shows I guess.

heatmiser, you can have only CD affecting the colon, that still makes it crohn's (specifically crohn's colitis) it the pattern of inflammation that tells whether a patient has UC or CD, with CD the inflammation is always patchy, with UC it never is, with CD the inflammation can affect the many layers of the intestinal lining, with UC it always remains on the surface of the lining...so there are ways to tell between CD and UC.

I think they quite often do because many of them just aren't as good at their job as they think (and want their patients to think) they are.

Anything in regards to researching CD and UC always states the information I mentioned above.

There is always a small chance that a patient can in fact have both UC and CD and perhaps that's why some GI's get stumped when it comes to proper DX as well.