What to do

Hello Everyone,

I am new to this forum, but not new to crohn's disease.  I was diagnosed 9 years ago during ( incidentally) during colonoscopy.  I have had only very mild symptoms thus far, for the most part.  I haven't really been on much medication except for pentasa in the beginning and entocort more recently, but am off of it now.  According to some of the diagnostic tests ( small bowel follow through) I have a narrowing that is progressing and very narrow.  I still feel pretty okay, no pain really, just gurgley stomach and some nausea.  The Dr. is now recommending 6MP.  This is a hard one for me as the treatment is surely to be worse than the disease.  Just wondering what your opinions are..thanks

Thank you so much for your feedback. Currently, I am not on any medication. 6MP is mild? With everything I read this med scares the heck out of me. I definetly don't want an emergency situation which is why I am thinking I need to do something pretty quick. In the meantime should I just drink liquids and avoid food? This whole thing is incredibly scary to me. Is there a certain med that you think is better for strictures. Thanks so much for your response

Twinsrock: Hi, its interesting what different GI's think. I am newly dx and the GI doc wanted to start one of the TNF's. I didn't say no but only that this all made me nervous and so he added Lialda on top of Entocort instead of something more sophisticated. So 6 MP seems milder than the TNF's and I don't know if this information really guides your decision making. Although after reading a lot of what many posts on this web site, when I see the dude again I might revisit the issue. He did say that the thinking is starting to change with some discussion regarding aggressive treatment might have more merit than conservative treatment that only accelerates post symptom/disease advancement.

There seems to be 2 school of thoughts on treatment. One is to start with the most aggressive meds and the other is to start with the most mild and work up from there. It really all comes down to what you are comfortable with and which type of CD you have. My doctor, and I think I agree, believes that leaving the stronger meds in reserve is the way to go.

If you have the stricturing type, then you don't want to take something that will cause more stricturing. But you should always be on some form of maintenance medication. We have a chronic incurable disease which will always be working its little magic on a microscopic level, even if we don't have any symptoms. I learned this the hard way. I self diagnosed at 13, but was treated like I was a bit crazy. My mom had CD so I knew what I was looking at. 10 years later I was finally diagnosed and treated properly, but it took another 10 years to undue the damage that had been done by leaving the disease unchecked for so long.