Living With Crohns Disease

The mortality rate for sufferers of Crohn’s disease is relatively low, and as many with the disease will tell you, it is quite possible to live a long time with the condition.

What is of greater concern to many Crohn’s patients is quality of life, or the lifestyle a Crohn’s patient leads and what they will and won’t be able to do when they have it.

I can tell you from an experiential perspective that the thing I have to think about most often, no matter what I do, is being away from a bathroom - just how far away I’ll be and for how long.

I work a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job, and I thank God for every single day I’m able to wake up at the crack of dawn and go to work.

Sometimes I need to use the bathroom at the office once, twice, or even a few times; some days I don’t need to at all. My office is a modern building with modern facilities, so even if I do need to take a trip while I’m there I don’t worry.

Now, if my friends invite me to go on a camping trip, on the other hand, I have to think. If it’s a pretty tame campground with bathrooms on the premises, I may or may not go depending on how long the trip is. When they talk about hiking up a mountain and camping on a cliff, though, I politely refuse if I don’t feel comfortable with a backwoods excursion of such magnitude.

Sure, there will be some things you can’t do because you are living with Crohns disease. Big deal! Getting to know your body and how it responds to different conditions and situations is the best thing you can do for yourself; you’ll have a better idea of what you can handle and the quality of life you’ll experience.

If you came to this page hoping that someone had actually found out what causes Crohn’s disease - I’m sorry to disappoint you, because I haven’t. Theories abound as to the source of the disease, but currently there is no single cause that can be pinpointed by medical studies. Some of the more common theories and explanations of each are below.

Crohn’s Is An Immune System Disorder

It is widely held that there is a deficiency in the immune system that causes the symptoms of Crohn’s. It is classified in the autoimmune category of pathology, meaning that it has something to do with how the immune system works or handles certain conditions of the body.

In the case of Crohn’s, the immune system is believed to be attacking the digestive tract because it believes there’s something wrong when there isn’t.

Crohn’s Is A Bacterial Parasite

Due to the similarity of Crohn’s with a condition called Johnnes Disease that occurs in cows, some believe that a parasite is passed to humans who drink cow’s milk.

Only some people exposed to the bacteria are said to fall victim to it, whether it be because they are exposed to large quantities of the bacteria (ie., they drink lots of milk) or because their bodies are particularly susceptible to it.

Crohn’s Is A Virus

Certain links between the CMV, or cytomegalovirus, have been theorized to cause Crohn’s disease. CMV is a type of herpes virus, and most people are exposed to it by the time they become adults. Again, the theories behind CMV’s association with Crohn’s involve a weakness or susceptibility, which is said to be present in only some people and not in others.

Crohn’s Is Genetic

Since studies have shown a link between those who suffer from Crohn’s and relatives who have other inflammatory bowel diseases, genetics are thought to have a distinct role in the development of the disease. Around 1 in 5 people with Crohn’s have a close blood relative with some other form of inflammatory digestive condition.

Crohn’s Is Caused By Environmental Factors

Whether it’s something in the water, living too close to power lines, or growing up next to a nuclear test facility, almost every disease and condition has its ambiguous milieu of ‘environmental’ causes. What a human is exposed to throughout his or her life can have a profound impact on the body’s health, but as of this writing the possible environmental causes of Crohn’s are as wide-ranging as the world itself.

Crohn’s Is An Evolutionary Malfunction

Prehistoric man is believed to have subsisted on a diet of mostly nuts, berries, meats, fish, and eggs. With the introduction of breads and processed sugars, the diet of modern man is made up of larger quantities of complex carbohydrates, which are somewhat intensive to digest.

One theory is that certain people do not have the ability to digest these complex nutrients as quickly or efficiently as others, and so they remain in the gut for longer periods of time. The bacteria that naturally exist there then feed off of the materials and cause the symptoms of Crohn’s disease.

Crohn’s Is Exacerbated Or Caused By Stress

Psychosomatic conditions are those which are believed to be caused by a person’s mental state.

Within this line of thinking is a spectrum of theories, ranging from the probable guess that stress makes the disease worse, all the way to the belief that the disease is merely a state of mind that a person can just “snap out of.”

Many chronic conditions and even infectious diseases can be affected by stress because of the close link between body and mind; an unhealthy amount of mental stress can have a greater subconscious affect on the health of the body than many realize.

It’s difficult to ignore even a mild case of Crohn’s disease. At first a sufferer might not have as many of the symptoms as are developed as time goes on, but patients may first be alerted that something is wrong when they begin to see traces of blood in the stool.

Abdominal pain and cramping may also occur, and while the patient may believe this to be a passing infection such as gastroenteritis, it could become apparent that something more serious is occurring when these sensations continue for several weeks or months. In fact, Crohns disease can go undiagnosed at first because of its similarity to so many other conditions and temporary gastrointestinal infections. Yeast infection symptoms, for example, are quite similar to those occurring in Crohns disease.

Patients may feel intermittently feverish, and they may begin to see abnormal fluctuations in weight, most often loss.

Bowel movements may become more frequent, and diarrhea can become common. The patient may feel nauseous some days or at certain times of the day, and may experience vomiting due to intestinal blockage, stomach ulceration, acid reflux, or general inflammation.

Other areas of the body may become inflamed, including the eyes, skin, and joints.

Among others, any of the following complications may arise over time as a result of the disease:

Malabsorption
Strictures
Obstructions
Fistulas
Fissures
Abscesses
Polyps
Ulcers
Colon Cancer

I had just turned eighteen and was about to begin my freshman year of college. For many people that summer is more exciting and scary than most; it’s a transition period where we feel as if we’re leaving our childhood behind and setting out into a new part of our lives. But for me this summer was even more troubling.

When you start to notice something disgusting and embarrassing, like blood in the toilet after you go to the bathroom, your first inclination is to ignore it and wait until it goes away. You want to believe it’s something temporary - maybe something minor from rough housing with friends or playing sports.

In those days I never had much pain or discomfort, as the early stages of this progressive disease don’t manifest many of the symptoms that begin to appear as time passes. It was only after the blood kept appearing every few days or weeks for the next few months that I finally decided to mention it to my mom.

She was the only person I ever would’ve felt comfortable enough to bring it up to in the first place. I’m not sure what I would have done otherwise, but I remember being surprised at the alarm with which she reacted. Her concern was strong and immediate, and although I wanted to make myself believe she was overreacting (as many children are wont to do in regard to their parents) I had the uneasy realization at that point that something big was probably going on.

When my mother told me I had Crohn’s disease, I was elated. Not because of that news, but because whatever magical concoction they’d flushed my veins with hours ago was still making me feel very happy. As I sat in the front passenger seat of the family van, half-conscious and coming out of an anesthesia-induced sleep on the way home from the hospital, she relayed what the doctor had told her he’d found during the colonoscopy.

I didn’t want to care. I was too busy watching the motion trails of the other cars on the road, the buildings and signs and people along the streets blurring into intricate patterns in the air as we flew by. Doesn’t matter. I’ll deal with it later, I thought. And deal with it I did.

Over the course of the next few years I underwent a series of periodic tests, treatments and regimens, and experienced a myriad of strange and disconcerting symptoms ranging from severe pain and bleeding to unpredictable days-long episodes of vomiting and sickness. Through diligent study and research I learned more about my body in five years than I believe the average person does in a lifetime.

Theories abound as to the origins of Crohn’s disease and its counterpart, ulcerative colitis, and the list of medications and treatments for both conditions is constantly growing. Still, there is no known cure.

While most doctors and medical experts claim that inflammatory bowel disease is an ailment that goes into and out of a state of remission, one thing I can say for certain is that I have never experienced this. Some days do finish better than others, but not a day goes by where I don’t think about the fact that I have this condition; not a single one passes where my body functions completely as it would were it a normal, unaffected entity.

I find it interesting that few medical professionals seem to believe that diet plays a significant role in the appearance of the disease, as I have found that eating a limited variety of foods helps to alleviate symptoms dramatically. It seems that avoiding processed sugars - especially corn syrup - and other starches and complex carbohydrates dispells most of the pain, discomfort and inflammation I used to have such trouble with. I have been using the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and my condition has improved greatly, but while this is something that has worked for me it may not be the solution for everyone.

Living with Crohns disease is a constant struggle. It is a chronic condition that you must be willing and ready to face at all times, but also I believe it’s important to view it as a boon rather than a burden.

I’ve come to realize that questioning God or the universe or the laws of fate will never get me anywhere, and neither will floundering in self-pity. Each day is a gift, every breath a reminder of the opportunities that life continues to provide to us. Surviving through pain is one of the only ways one can truly appreciate it as much as I have come to.

Crohn’s is one of two chronic diseases placed under the medical umbrella of IBD - Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The other is Ulcerative Colitis, a less severe but still incredibly difficult condition that affects only the large bowel.

Every part of the digestive tract can be affected by Crohn’s, from the “mouth to the anus,” as they say. That doesn’t mean that it always affects every portion of the digestive system in all the people who are living with Crohns disease - and in fact it often does not, instead concentrating itself in one or two areas.

As opposed to Ulcerative Colitis (UC), which affects only the inner lining of the large bowel, Crohn’s can attack every part of the system from the inside out, making the long-term outlook more serious.

The disease is characterized by inflammation in the digestive tract, to the degree that any number of potential complications can arise. Crohn’s is both a chronic and a progressive condition, meaning that it generally stays with a person for life and that it gets worse over time.

For more on the disease itself, check out the pages below.

Signs and Symptoms
Statistics
Causes
Prognosis
Flares and Remission