The stupidest conversation about Crohn's I have ever had

I'm really sorry that a person would choose to end his life coz he cannot face Crohn's courageously. For me, it's a challenge, a test or a fate that I'm predestined to fight. I second you that he might he have had another undisclosed disease that drove him to commit suicide. I try to eat correctly and take my meds regularly in order not to let my family suffer. I once was very depressed and had a pseudomembraneous colitis attack and decided to stop ALL meds cold turkey. As a result, I kept screaming out of pain for almost a week and had to be given iv tranquillizers until my GI talked w me about my problem and convinced me to return to my meds and since then I NEVER do it again.

@minnie - Not even another disease. It could have been depression (which I don't count as a disease), financial problems, or other pressing problems or secrets. I'm not saying the Crohn's diagnosis would have cheered the guy up, but killing yourself over it supposedly to spare your family sounds fishier than the contents of the Atlantic Ocean.

@don'tscopeme - Great quote: thanks for reminding me of it!

And exactly. Most people who get a chronic illness get on with it, because most people want to live, illness or not. Without getting morbid, there are certain scenarios where I can imagine quality of life being so diminished, death would be preferable. But that's another issue, really. What made me laugh about anon guy's posts was his accepting utterly at face value the idea that a Crohn's diagnosis is a legitimate reason for killing yourself. Like, don't try medication or anything! Nope!! Just top yourself, right then and there, only possible answer.

Plus I would bet every last penny I had in the bank that anon doesn't know the first thing about Crohn's disease. Like, literally not the first thing, the drugs available for it, or anything.

JoeFalcon said...
Imho I am 18 and I do think about that option as in if it is as bad as it is now, what about in 15 years? A little bit of an outliner in stress wise makes me go into a huge flare.

Well all right, put it this way. If somebody you knew got diagnosed with Crohn's, would you tell them there was no hope so they might as well go and kill themselves already?

You have literally no way of knowing what life will be like in 15 years' time. There will almost certainly be more drugs available. There might possibly be a cure or, at least, more effective treatments than there are now. Your currently severe disease might go into a 20-year long remission.

Anyways, if you reckon your disease is so susceptible to stress, then it would make good sense to work hard on reducing your stress levels via therapy, CBT, meditation, etc. Does depend on the sources, admittedly, but stress is something you can partially control.

bananagirl said...
i totally understand why someone would kill himself/herself if she had crohn's/UC. this man, although i don't know anything about why he killed himself, could have been suffering for years and was just never diagnosed. now that he knew what was his diagnosis was, he probably thought there was no point in suffering through all the medication's side effects or surgeries he might need. he also might've known somebody else with crohn's and saw how dibilitating and disabling the disease is.

that's just my take on it, but i had my first flare last year and was completely suicidal. i'm flaring now, though not as bad, but when it gets bad, death seems way more favorable than living.

Yeah, I'm not going to judge if someone wants to off themselves for having a chronic disease. Montell Williams wanted to off himself because of MS. He even jumped in front of a Taxi.

I'm in my 60's, but I'm not about to consider killing myself. Even when my UC was at its worst I never considered that. This guy's blithe assumption that an "old" person wouldn't want to live as much as a young one only points out his own youth and ignorance.

I think people should have the right to end their lives if they want to, but would hope they would only do so after getting all the information and making an informed decision. And part of the information they need to consider is that suicide almost always leaves a terrible burden of guilt for their family and friends. In most cases it seems a very selfish thing to me.

@NCOT, I agree with you completely.....I've been hospitalized 14 times this year from CD and effects from it, and not once have I considered killing myself. Once or twice when the pain was extreme I was ok with dying from it, but not in doing it myself and I got over the feeling rather quickly when I thought about my husband and my family and how much I had left to live for, even if it wasn't what I wanted. There HAVE to be underlying reasons for that guy's actions and I feel sorry for him and his family.

I do want to dispute about depression being a disease or not....for some people it is a physical chemical imbalance that occurs in their brain. Others it is a state of mind, but there are a few who have no control of it (similar to bipolar).

Other than that, I totally got your point. But on the flip side, at least the guy wasn't saying what we usually hear, stuff like "just eat healthier" or whatever. :)

Just because I have a different opinion than you doesn't mean I "completely" missed the point. I just don't believe in judging people and I think anyone has the right to do what he/she wants to their own body.

I understand exactly what Anon means with the "older" comment and I didn't think your convo you had with him was stupid at all. Made perfect sense to me.

As far as having UC or Crohn's, I don't see much of a difference to be honest. Both diseases are deadly and make you miserable. Colon removal has a lot of negatives and brings on a whole host of problems in some people, death even.

Oh guyz. Can't this wait until tomorrow, when I'm (hopefully) less braindead? ¬_¬

But because I love you all, too, I'll spare you the agony of waiting over 12 hours for my reply :p

scifigal2k said...
Once or twice when the pain was extreme I was ok with dying from it, but not in doing it myself and I got over the feeling rather quickly when I thought about my husband and my family and how much I had left to live for, even if it wasn't what I wanted. There HAVE to be underlying reasons for that guy's actions and I feel sorry for him and his family.

Good distinction! There's a whole lotta difference between being okay with the thought of dying, or even of wanting to die, and actively planning to kill youself. I'd be lying through my back teeth if I said there were never any days when I wished to die. However, I think that's part of having a depressive temperament in general, so, while this cantankerous colonic curse doesn't help, I would never cite it as the sole reason for wanting to no longer exist either.

As for the suicide guy, if he'd only just been diagnosed, then he wouldn't have tried any drugs or surgery. (The vast majority of folks with Crohn's can get away with having simple resections, unlike me...) Literally no excuse for committing suicide without trying to get better first. Even if you never get better, killing youself if you have children is a scummer's act. (I dunno if this man had children or not, tbf.)

Somedude said...
Well, there is truth to this statement. Obviously, a young person has more to live for than an old person. A young person has his/her whole life ahead of him/her.

When you're 80, you'll want to wake up and see the next day. Trust me. Nobody is more paranoid about their health than my elderly dad...

It might make sense, in an emergency, to save young 'uns over old 'uns, but that doesn't mean the old 'uns aren't scared of dying or feel they have nothing to live for.

Somedude said...
NCOT, you can't fathom why the guy would off himself for having IBD? Weren't kids killing themselves in Japan for failing an exam.
I mean, you don't need a GRAND reason or a license to acquire before offing oneself.

No, I can fathom it. But not somebody who's just been diagnosed, who wouldn't have had an opportunity to try any medical treatments. That seems bizarre to me and what makes me suspect a red herring about the whole thing.

Even if all medical treatment fails, it's not an automatic cause for despair. Lots of people go down the diet and supplements route, with varying degrees of success. Not everyone has severe disease. Some people go into spontaneous remission. Yada yada yada. Put simply, I have not read about many Crohn's cases which have seemed so intolerable I have thought to myself, 'I could not live with that'. A couple, maybe, out of hundreds, if not thousands, of cases I have come across on the internet over the years.

But just to prove I'm not all hockey sticks Pollyanna, there are some diseases and disabilities I know I would not want to live with them if, heaven forbid, I got them. See no point in naming them, but they are there.

@bananagirl - (I'm sick of typing out quote tags!) Again, love, when you're 80, get back to me about not wanting to live any longer.

The rest I've all covered off elsewhere. Including Crohn's being worse than UC. Edit: Or, rather, scifalgal covered this one off... I should elaborate to add I do not think Crohn's is always worse than UC; it obviously depends on disease severity, how well the disease can be controlled, etc. But severe Crohn's, generally speaking, has a worse prognosis than severe UC: more complications, more surgery, eventual risk of short bowel syndrome if too many surgeries are needed - and so on. And, of course, there's that thorny issue of a surgical 'cure'. All I know is I would jump with joy at this stage in my life to have the opportunity to remove the Crohn's in a one-off operation, knowing it wasn't gonna come back. That seems to be just me in this thread, but it is how I feel.

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 11/25/2012 7:00:38 PM (GMT-7)

i do agree that UC sufferers always have the option of colectomy can be 'comforting,' which is a feeling no other AI disease sufferers can feel. no one with psoriasis can remove skin, remove organs with lupus, remove the brain with multiple sclerosis but removing the colon is supposedly a cure. recently though, doctors (well, some) don't think of it too highly.

"colectomy is not a cure for the disease but rather the substitution of a large problem with smaller problems, including fecal incontinence, pouchitis, irritable pouch syndrome, cuffitis, anastomotic ulcer and stenosis, missed or de-novo Crohn’s disease and, in young females, reduced fecundity."

NCOT, i look at each day as a blessing so i don't even think as far ahead as 80. if i wake up tomorrow, i am a happier person. i hope if i ever get to 80 that there will be way better treatments for IBD so people don't have to think whether ending their life is a better option. until, then, i'll keep trying anything that comes up before i get my colon out. i'm hoping it never has to come to that, but if it did, i think i could get through it.

as for the crohn's versus UC comment, i just meant that both are really bad and i don't think it's worth disputing over which i'd rather have. i'd rather have NONE but i'd feel no different having crohn's either. my UC affects my colon, stomach, throat, and mouth so i know how it feels to have stomach ulcers and not being able to swallow anything. don't assume things, scigal, until you educate yourself about UC. i threw up everything i ate for months just like you have even though my meals consisted of a tablespoon of applesauce. it was mostly just bile and dry heaves. true, i have not had an abcess or fistula so i can't comment on that- just some terrible hemmies where of course you can't sit, lay down, or walk. and of course, i have all the osteopenia, ocular problems, allergic reactions to all my meds, chronic hives, severe malabsorption. so until you walk in somebody else's shoes, i'd be embarassed at myself for making a comment like that.  

somedude, i also think that everyone has the right to off themselves if they want to. of course, it's a tragedy but i'd never think less of someone for doing it. i'd just feel sorry that they thought there was no way out.

Just my two cents...

This suicidal guy, IMO, didn't had "only" crohn issues. We don't know his family history (divorces, affairs, children wars, etc) or depression history - a huge issue for many, even if they are physically healthy people. For a person on the edge, this diagnosis is just the final excuse to let it go and quit battling.

about the comment of a "noble" attitude (sparing family expenses), I confess having a hard time believing it with the information I have.

NCOT, haha i think i'll pass. i've been able to reduce my symptoms a lot in the past few months so i'm seeing progress!