Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Crohns Surgery

Question:
I've had Crohn's Disease for 14 years Being that we all are diagnosed with CD, is there anyone that has never had surgery due to Crohn's.  I don't think that I haven't met a person that hasn't had any type of surgery whatsoever. If you in fact have been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, please answer me this.   HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD CROHN'S?    IF YOU NEVER HAD SURGERY DONE ON YOU, WHAT STEPS ARE YOU TAKING TO ENSURE THAT YOU NEVER DO? Is there anyone out there that also have questions to those with Crohn's but has never had surgery?  If so, what is your question?

Answer:
I have had Crohn's Colitis for about 28 years (I'm 36).  I have had three surgeries....one appendectomy, which was when I was officially diagnosed, one re-section and one incisional hernia repair. My sister has also had Crohn's for about 28 years (she is 46).  She had her appendix out (all of the females in my family have had their appendix out) and one exploratory surgery.  She has been in relative remission for about 15 years.  She got stabilized by having colonics and taking herbal supplements for a couple of years.  I tried the same thing but it just made me sicker. My sister and I have found that although we have the same disease, we react to things differently.  We can't eat hardly any of the same foods.  She can eat lettuce as much as she wants and that would put me in the hospital.  I can eat foods that she can't. I have had long periods of relative remission, when I am going to the bathroom only five or six times a day.  I find that when I my Crohn's is starting to become more active, I have to severely limit my diet to things that I know that I can tolerate.  Neither my sister or myself are on any meds for Crohn's.  She was able to get into remission before she had to really try them.  I have tried them all and found none of them to work except Remicade. If I were you, I would try Remicade before I even considered surgery.  It works well and has helped me a lot over the last few years.  I was able to get back to work after two years of being deathly ill. By the way, I live in Winnipeg (nickname Winterpeg), which is the coldest city of over 500, 000 people in the world.  I do feel worse in the winter. I also have the tendency to have a Crohn's attack every time I go into the frozen food section of the grocery store....for me; cold temperature starts my guts to cramping.  In that respect, my sister and I are the same. I have not had surgery, however, they did want to pull my colon out upon my original diagnosis.  I did everything that I could to get back to a status quo from that point.  Even with my most recent fissure the doctor wanted to perform surgery and again I toughed it out and am somewhat in limbo as it doesn’t seem to want to heal 100%... To keep as healthy as I can, I stick to eating only 'safe' foods, watch for signs of flare ups and try to get as much rest as I can. With UC or CD, I don’t think there is 'never' a chance that you wont need surgery some day.  In fact, it’s probably a good bet that one day I will need it.  However, I also believe that if you catch and treat the disease properly and quickly, there is less of a chance that you will need immediate surgery.  The unfortunate part is, that CD/UC presents a wide variety of problems, each that may require different treatments and finding out what works is not always very easy.