NiceCupOfTea said...
beave said...
My most consistent GI issue is that I just have no appetite in the mornings. I eat very conservatively earlier in the day, but usually by evening I can eat anything I want with no problems.
I've had that all my life, long before I got Crohn's >.> Are you a night owl by any chance? In my case I think it takes a few hours for my stomach to really wake up; same for my brain.
At any rate, I didn't know that a) you had so many EI issues and b) that your brother has IBD. My EI issues aren't as bad as yours, but I can definitely relate. Over the last ten or so years I've had issues with fatigue, headaches, itchy/sensitive skin, heat intolerance, noise intolerance, intolerance to glarey light, blocked sinuses, restless legs, tingling and numbness, bad reactions to meds, autoimmune thyroid issues (which I'm on levothyroxine for), etc. All stuff that I don't remember ever having a problem with in my teens and most of my 20s. As for the recent uveitis business, I realise the issues with my right eye started years ago - the symptoms just weren't severe enough to drive me to see a doctor about
it.
My brother on the other hand seems to have no EI issues at all. He works full-time, has had two children, plays sports, goes on holidays. I think he perhaps eats more carefully nowadays than he would if he had never got Crohn's, but he's not on some mad strict diet like the SCD. Or even gluten or dairy free. He just seems to try to avoid eating too much, that's all.
Meanwhile I haven't worked in many years and honestly don't know if I ever will again. It isn't
just the Crohn's and the related issues, but it really really really doesn't help.Yes, I'm a night owl, big time. And yes, I too feel like my stomach doesn't wake up until long after the rest of me wakes up. My mom has the same issue. We've both been like that for decades. She has lymphocytic colitis, but you are right that it might have nothing to do with us having IBD. It might just be the way our circadian rhythms work.
My brother has UC. He got it pretty suddenly around age 40, ten years ago and ended up in the hospital for a week or so before they figured out it was UC. Started on mesalamines, got partial relief but not total remission, added 200mg/day of imuran, got a little better still but still flared on/off, and started Remicade last year. Is pretty near full remission now.
His diagnosis was key in me figuring out I had Crohn's. I'd never even heard of such a thing, but I started reading up on his UC, which lead me to reading about
Crohn's, and I wondered to myself if that could be what I'd had for many years (I'd gotten sick for 2 months in 1988; about
4 months in 1994-95; and had a lot of abdominal pain issues in 2001 that led me to see a gastroenterologist who was dismissive and then accused me of being on illicit drugs!). Shortly after my brother's diagnosis, I ended up in the hospital myself in early 2006! They were pretty dismissive even then. It took a 2nd hospitalization, and me insisting over and over again to my doctors that they needed to consider Crohn's as a diagnosis, before they finally took me seriously enough and ran proper tests.