Crohn's Disease: Know the Symptoms

There are similarities between Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. This means that at times one can be mistaken for the other. Both of the diseases lead to inflammation in the digestive tract, abdominal pain and serious attacks of watery or bloody diarrhea. The important difference between the two is Crohn's disease can happen anywhere from food pipe to anus, but ulcerative colitis occurs only in the innermost lining of the colon and rectum. Crohn's disease goes deeper into the tissue of the digestive tract. You will need a colonoscopy to determine which disease you have.

At this time there is not any proven medical cure available for Crohn's disease. There are therapies which have proven quite effective in reducing the signs and symptoms of the disease. In certain cases, it can even offer a long term remission to the sufferer. Also it is important to note that a particular therapy may work for a time and then become ineffective. Do not be disheartened. Work closely with your doctor and try another medication. This approach has worked for my son. So far, the second therapy has given him a significant improvement in his symptoms. In fact, at this point his doctor is working on slowly reducing the amount of medication he has to take each day.

It is important to become familiar with the signs and symptoms of the disease. The symptoms of the disease can be mild or severe and they may develop gradually or at once without any prior warning. The symptoms of Crohn's disease are diarrhea, abdominal pain and cramping, blood in the stool, ulcers, loss of weight and appetite, and can include occurrence of problems outside the digestive tract together with eye inflammation, skin disorders, arthritis, liver or bile ducts inflammation. My son's symptoms started with diarrhea and cramping and then progressed on to copious blood in the stool which finally made the doctors take notice.

Another aspect of Crohn's disease information is disagreement in the causes of the disease. Not all factors that cause inflammation in Crohn's disease are known exactly. However, there is agreement with the factors that are not responsible for the triggering of the inflammation. Stress and diet are not considered to be the causes of Crohn's disease, but they can aggravate symptoms at times. There is a study that suggests that people who consumed excessive amounts of sugar are more prone to Crohn's. That study is still in its infancy and more information is needed to make a determination. Rather than concentrating on dietary and stress factors, researchers are now focusing on other possibilities such as the immune system, heredity and environment.

Though this disease is not fatal itself, it can have life-threatening complications, such as malabsorption of vital nutrients such as; B12, D, Iron, and Calcium. My 20 year old son has both pernicious anemia and iron deficient anemia. He has to have B12 shots every month and he's taking mega doses of vitamin D. He's scheduled for a bone density test next month. I can't stress enough to be insistent with your primary physician if you feel something is wrong. As I said before, it took bleeding to get the doctors attention.