How ill are you with Crohns? (as opposed to IBS)

Doc is currently doing blood tests for me. I've had "IBS" for 20+ years but its got a bit worse recently.... Hence the doctor visit.

But I've never been "ill" with it, no tiredness, illness etc. Not much. Just diarrheoa. Obviously a LOT of inconvenience.

Doc seems to think I'd be ill if I had Crohns or UC. And I would lose weight (not at all!).

Just wondering how bad a typical crohns sufferer would be?

For instance, I assume it can be so bad you miss work/laid up in bed? For me, theres been days when its been difficult to travel, difficult in work but I've never had sick day because of it. Its more of annoyance ratehr than an illness for me.....

Crohn's disease is chronic and varying in severity. But I do feel like it can be progressive as well, meaning gets worse as time goes by due to scaring and surgeries. I have been in remission and fully functioning and then had times where I was on TPN and living off pain meds and IV fluids. I will say though, after really bad episodes I never seem to get completely back to good. It's almost like "good" has a new definition.

Crohns is a lot more than diarrhea (although I am in no way undermining how real and disruptive chronic diarrhea can be). My worst symptoms are pain, fatigue, and uncontrolled weight loss. I just had surgery on 2 fistulas and a rectal structure and am hobbling around from that at the moment.

I would ask for a colonoscopy is you have suspicions. Certainly if it is Crohns you wanted it treated ASAP. Good luck!

Thanks all. Seems doc might be right but I'd rather check it out. Currently doing blood tests.....

Colonoscopy. Hmmm. Not sure if I'm going to be able to swing that. If blood tests don't show anything at least then its going to be a battle getting my doc to agree to this.

BTW, Im in the UK, subject to the NHS where funds are tight and it can be a fight to get things like this done. Either way chances are the wait time will be long (I'd be surprised it it was shorter than 2-3 months).

Drawbacks of having a "free" healthcare service I guess :-(

Since UC hasn't been ruled out, I'll chip in from that perspective. Everyone seems to experience UC differently. I've had it for 15 years, and it's never caused me to lose a pound. I also never missed a day of work until I retired 7 years ago. Sometimes that depends on the nature of your job and the access to bathroom facilities. I had days where I was in the bathroom every hour, so wouldn't have been able to continue working without easy access.

For the first three years, despite severe proctitis and constant bleeding, I really didn't have any significant pain. Then the fecal matter moving through suddenly started to feel like a ball of barbed wire.

Some people lose massive amounts of weight and are unable to keep working. We're all different.

Generally a colonoscopy is used to to hep determine IBD over IBS, how was your IBS dx 20 yrs ago? Did you have any tests to rule IBD out in order to get an IBS dx?

Since IBD can be mild to severe and has similar symptoms to IBS, a scope is the best test to have in order to help determine between the 2 separate conditions, they take biopsies and check under a microscope to check for microscopic colitis since being microscopic it cannot be seen via the human eye alone and is a form of IBD. There are also 5 subtypes of Crohn's therefore small bowel tests need to be done since CD can affect any part of the GI tract from mouth to anus. Any type of colitis is generally conformed to the colon/rectum...even with all those tests it can sometimes be difficult to detect IBD or type of IBD which then often leads to what's called "Indeterminate Colitis when they cannot tell for sure if it's CD or UC...

CD inflammation tends to go deeper into the lining of the intestines where UC is always on the surface only, the inflammation with CD is also "patchy" inflammation (healthy tissues basically marbled or patchy with inflammation, with UC the entire area will be inflamed.

With IBS there isn't any inflammation or bleeding (bleeding only if there are hemorrhoids internal or external).