Newly diagnosed with Crohn's Disease & Pyoderma Gangrenosum.

I had an ulcer start on my lower leg just before Christmas 2010. Started on antibiotics but the ulcer started getting bigger and carried on growing when more antibiotics were given at the strongest strength possible. Then another started at the back of my knee and a 3rd at the beginning of march. By that time, the pain was unbearable! I was admitted to hospital and within a few days, the dermatologists Dx PG. It took another 4 wks before I was Dx with Crohn's (this being the reason for the PG). After another 2 weeks I was allowed home. Apparently I had probably had Crohn's for years I had been telling my Doctors for years that there was something wrong, but they always just ignored me - probably because I had none of the classic signs - being overweight and never having bled from the back passage. I was Dx with Irritable Bowel Syndrome 30yrs ago and never got examined properly for that.

So now I am on steroids and immunosuppressants. The newest ulcer didn't come to much and cleared very quickly once I started on 80mg of Prednisolone. The 2nd ulcer which got to about 2 x 3 inches, has just cleared up. The main one is still about 7 x 6 inches, extremely painful, but at last has some new skin starting to form like little islands in the middle of the wound. PG is a very nasty condition but having found a closed group on Facebook, I have been able to interact with other PG sufferers which had been very good for boosting my morale.

I am tapering off the steroids now but am amazed at the side-effects I am experiencing which are worse than when I was on 80mg a day - but hopefully, they will go.

It's great that there are sites like this in which to read others experiences and I hope we can all mutually help each other.

Hi jill!  Welcome.  I don't have PG, but I have had many other skin related issues to the CD.  This group is very supportive so I know you will hear from someone eventually on PG....one of my favorite people on this site that had it no longer visits, but there should be others

As for the steroid side effects...yup mine seemed to sometimes get worse when the taper started, but then they would tail off as I tapered more and would go away after some time off of them.

I hope you are healing well (no pun intended...or may be there was).  Please visit often and keep asking questions.

Hi Jill, I'm suffering from PG currently. Mine started out as a completely different entity. I had an outbreak of what we thought was rheumatoid arthritis and they finally ended up calling it "undifferentiated connective tissue disease". It's apparently a autoimmune disease also. It hit me like a ton of bricks. One day I am feeling just fine and the next morning I can't get out of bed. There wasn't a joint or muscle that wasn't on fire. I lost a lot of weight and muscle mass and it knocked me down for several months. Progressively I felt better and then seven months later I came down with PG. I was in the hospital for two months before they figured out what was wrong with me and trust me it was a brutal two months. I lost approximately 60% of the skin off of my lower left leg, right down to the muscle. I was in two separate hospitals in that two month span and finally ended up getting transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN. They had a diagnosis and treatment plan within the first week, too bad I didn't start out there. Oh well...That was a year ago last Memorial Day when the PG started. I had skin grafts on my leg last September and am still having minor problems with the leg. Small lesions keep appearing (two so far) and the healing on those is very slow. I am taking prednisone (35mg), imuran (azathioprine 150mg), doxycycline, gabbapentin, colcrys, spiranalactone, aleve, and a bunch of OTC stuff. They keep trying to wean me off the prednisone and every time they do something goes wierd. They (dermatology) pretty much leave it up to me to adjust my prednisone and then they say "OK or lets try this" something to that affect. My ankle lost a lot of flexibility after the skin graft. The plastic doc doesn't really know why, he thinks it's probably some internal swelling or something, but it's a pain and it limits my walking as pain sets in fairly soon when I try to walk any distance. I'm finally set up to see a podiatrist (I have diabetes also) for a good foot evaluation.
Anyway, sorry if I have rambled but this is the first forum I have found that has someone that also has what I have.
I wish you the best of luck with your treatment and hopefully we'll beat this and move on with our lives. I don't know how old you are, but I'm 68 and glad it didn't do this to me when I was young.