blood work for ? of chrons

Has anyone ever had this blood work that is suppose to test to see if you have chrons or not?? I met with the surgeon on monday and he said we could do this prior to surgery. anyone heard of this before??

I dunno if I've had it but I probably wouldn't trust it completely, every time I got bloodwork before being diagnosed, everything was perfectly fine.

Yes, I had it. It is a very specific test and your blood work has to be sent off to Prometheus Labs (if in the USA). I think you would know if you had this test run because it is so specialized - most people call it the Prometheus test. It is usually done if you are going to start an AZA drug. Mine came back indicating UC and not Crohns...

I had extensive blood work done to determine if I had Crohn's or UC. The answer came back a big fat 'MAYBE'. Biopsies from my colonoscopy indicated ulcerative colitis. However the inflammation was patchy and I had the beginnings of perianal disease, which is characteristic of Crohn's. Then the blood tests came back and said negative for UC and possible Crohn's. In other words, nobody knows.

My GI didn't seem too concerned. "It is 100 percent IBD and the treatment is the same whether Crohn's or UC". He prescribed pred which I never took but I went into remission anyway.

Actually it does make a difference at least to me. UC is a superficial inflammation that never leaves the confines of the colon. And in the worst case scenario it can be 'cured', if you want to call it that, with a JPouch.

I believe that Crohn's is a much more serious disease. First of all more people can die of it. It can spread to your small intestine and digestive tract. It is not a superficial inflammation but can penetrate digestive tissue creating abscesses, fissures, and wormholes that ooze crud throughout your body. And surgery is an almost eventual certainty that will not permanently 'cure' you but at best place you into remission for a temporary amount of time.

I never thought I would be hoping that I have UC, but the alternative is much worse.

Babe-I'm in pretty much the same boat as you. My Prometheus was off the charts for Anti-cbir 1 antibody and it said consistent with Crohn's. My doc said it didn't matter one way or the other, similar treatments, even if you have Crohn's it's in a UC pattern, you have continious severely inflamed colon all the way for 25 cm and then a perfect at 25.1cm, blah blah blah. I'm like you, it does matter! I do think that people in our situations, if we do indeed have Crohn's, it will most likely be large bowel Crohn's. Also, most of the things I've read show those who are definitivley given an inderterminite (is that an oxymoron? haha) colitis diagnosis, usually keep it becuase nothing definitive is ever found. (Which means it would never have spread to the small intestine.) And, the majority of the people who do fall into one camp or the other eventually go to the UC side.

I've been hoping against hope it wasn't Crohn's, but then when I found out UC'ers are much more likely to develop diseases like PSC, which scares me to death, I kinda hoped it was Crohn's. No way to know for sure but to give it time and see how it shakes out, unfortunatley.

My GI I saw for a second opinion (as recommended by my 'normal' GI) said he gave me a 2% chance of having CD based on the Prometheus test. He didn't put much stock in it either. He did think I was indeterminite though because one of my biopsies showed "mild chronic colitis" in my ascending colon too. My regular GI swears this isn't "UC" inflammation and could be present in a normal person (it didn't show cryptitis or crypt abcess formation, markers of UC inflammation.) It still worried me though. I also have a cecal patch.

I have read cecal inflammation is not abnormal in perfectly healthing people, and periappendiceal inflammation can be present as well. What is the periappendiceal region exactly? I know it's around the appendix, but is it the cecum? Cecum and part of the ascending? Could that be the cause of your patchiness or my "mild colitis" in that area?

I had the Prometheus test...

Cost me $200 to come back negative for both! Ugh. I do, however, definitely have IBD as evidenced in my first colonoscopy.

Good luck with it though!

My surgeon told me that they did the test just to see what it said but that it didn't really mean much to them