Chrons Disease Symptoms

In many cases it is initially quite difficult to diagnose Chrons Disease as the symptoms can be quite varied and sometimes the symptoms of Chrons Disease can be confused with Ulcerative Colitis as is what happened in my case.

Chrons disease lasts a long time, sometimes for the rest of the affected person's life and is therefore refered to as a chronic condition. The term chronic refers to time, not to how serious a condition is.

One of the main pointers of Chrons disease is the flare ups of symptoms and then returning to periods of no symptoms at all, which is called remission. In most cases there is no real obvious reason what causes the Chrons disease symptoms to come back (which is called a relapse).

When you have Chrons disease symptoms, the disease is said to be active.

The main symptoms of crohn's disease include the ones listed below but please note are not the only ones:

• Diarrhea which sometimes may contain blood, pus or mucus


• No appetite


• Loss of weight


• A Fever


• Painful and swollen stomach


• Bleeding from the anus


• Tears, ulcers or abscesses (pus-filled areas) around your anus

When the disease is active many people often experience other lesser chrons disease symptoms which include:

• Ulcers in the mouth



• Inflammation of the eyes


• Rashes


• Pain in your joints


• Skin ulcers

Whilst not really a Chrons disease symptom, it is important to note that many people experience fertility problems and women have an increased risk of a miscarriage.

About Chrons Disease

I found this excellent video about chrons disease which explains all the main details including:

Chrons Disease Definition
Chrons Disease Diagnosis
Chrons Disease Treatment

So if you get tired my writing, take a look at the video, it may answer a few of your questions:

Chrons Disease basics

Some Basic Chrons Disease facts: What it is and some of the main Chrons Disease Symptoms

Often when you are trying to research a medical condition like Crohn's Disease, you get bombarded with long words and medical terminology. In this article I will try and explain what chrons disease is in really basic terms. Hope it helps

So What is Chrons Disease?
Basicall Chrons disease is a medical condition that causes inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract which is sometimes known as the gut.

So what is the gut then?
When medical people talk of the gut, they mean your oesophagus (where your food first goes down after swallowing it!), your stomach, and your small and large intestines.

People cant be affected by Chrons disease in any part of the gut, but it seems to occur more often in the lower part of your small intestine, this part of your intestine is known as the ileum.

How do I know if I have Chrons Disease and what are the basic Chrons Disease symptoms?
The most common symptoms of chrons disease include, pain, which is often in your lower abdomen or stomach, ulcers and diarrhoea.

What can be done to help with the Chrons Disease Symptoms?
If you are diagnosed with Crohn's disease, you may be given medication that you will take daily that can help relieve your symptoms. Sometimes the medication will not work and you may have to have surgery to remove part of your gut, that has been affected with chrons disease.

So how common is Chrons Disease?
Chrons Disease is probably more common than you may have thought, about 1 person in 1,500 people have Chrons disease.

Chrons Disease can start at any age, but most often first shows up between the ages of 15 and 40. The disease also seems to affect slightly more women than men.

What is the Prognosis of Chrons Disease?
If you have Chrons disease, what is your outlook? This can be difficult to answer as it will depend largely what part of your gut has the disease and how bad a case of chrons disease you have. But if we work on an average case of Chrons, most people will experience some symptoms from time to time - this is called a flare up.

Most people who have chrons disease (about 80 %) will eventually have surgery at some time, probably to remove the diseased part of your gut.

Only in very rare cases where there is a complication, will Chrons Disease be life-threatening.

Chrons Disease Prognosis

So you have been diagnosed with chrons disease, after the initial shock, many people want to know what the outlook is, or the prognosis of chrons disease?

Again as with many questions involving Chrons Disease, there is no straight answer and the outlook tends to be quite variable. It all depends on which part or parts of your gut have been affected with chrons, how frequent and how severe your flare-ups are.

The Stats on a Chrons Disease Prognosis
Around Eight out of every Ten people who have Chrons disease will eventually require some sort of surgery at some stage in their life. About 50% of people with Chrons disease surgery is required within the first 10 years from the emergence of the disease.

Why do most people with chrons disease need surgery?
Is seems that the most common reason is to relieve an abnormal contraction that has formed in your gut.

Some people with chrons disease require more than one operation in their lifetime and if your chrons disease developed as a young adult, the average is to have between 2 and 4 operations in your lifetime. The good news in all this glum is that you CAN expect to have a good quality of life for most of the time, and it is important not to forget that!

Stats on Chrons Disease Flare-ups
Around 15% of people who have crohns disease have frequent and / or severe flare-ups. Again this is not a fixed number as a few people with Chrons disease have just one or two flare-ups in their whole life and spend most of their lives with no symptoms of the disease. The most likely prognosis is that you fall somewhere in between and have flare-ups from now and again and can have long periods of time without any symptoms of Chrons Disease.

It is important to keep in mind that a severe flare-up is and can be life threatening and there are some people who die as a result of a serious complication like a perforated gut, so you should always seek professional medical advice if you suspect that you are having a Chrons disease flare up .

Three Quick Chrons Disease Facts

As I don't have a lot of time today I am just going to pass on thre interesting facts on Chrons Disease that I have managed to dig up in my research:

First of the correct spelling is actually Crohn's Disease. The Cisease is named after Dr Crohn, who in the 1930's identified the disease.

You can get crohns disease at any age and it is still not fully understood why you get it although they do know that chrons disease is hereditary.

For every one thousand people living in the UK, about one person has Crohns disease

What are the Complications associated with Chrons Disease?

Most complications associated with Chrons Disease end up with abdominal pain to different degrees. The obstruction of the bowl, narrowing and perforation, or ulcers, scarring, abscesses and inflammation, can all result in abdominal pain and sometimes nausea and vomiting.

Because of this, it sometimes means that the intestines cannot absorb enough nutrition from the food that you are eating and this can lead to deficiencies, diarrhea can lead to dehydration and rectal bleeding to anemia.

The narrowing of your intestines with Chrons Disease can be because of swelling and scar tissue which result in blockages. Ulcers can eat into the walls of the intestines and can affect the surrounding tissue of organs like the bladder, vagina or the abdominal cavity. This burrowing causes a tube-like tunnel which is called a fistula, if the fistula becomes infected it causes abscess and recurrent infections.

Sometimes Chrons Disease is also associated with inflammation of the joints, arthritis, skin problems and inflammation of the eyes or mouth.

What causes Chrons disease?

Cause of Chrons Disease
Even though there is loads of research that is ongoing, the exact cause of Chrons disease is still unknown.

There are some researchers that suspect that infection by certain bacteria, probably strains of mycobacterium, may be the cause of Chrons disease. Unfortunately up to now, there has been no hard evidence that the disease is caused by infection.

The good news is that Chrons disease is not contagious, it cannot be passed on by blood or in the air. Even though your diet may affect the symptoms of your Chrons disease it is probably not anything to do with diet that caused you to get the disease.

ChronsDisease and the Immune System
In Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) the activation of the immune system in the intestines seems to have some significance. Your immune system is made up of immune cells and the proteins that these immune cells make. The function of these cells and their proteins is to protect the body against harmful viruses, bacteria, fungi and other foreign bodies. When they are activated it causes inflammation inside the tissues where this activation occurs. This is natural and this is important as part of the defense used by your immune system.

In people who have IBD, the immune system is seems to be activated even though there is no known invader and it is this continued activation which causes the chronic inflammation and ulceration. It seems that this condition and your chances of getting Chrons disease is passed on genetically from your parents. So if your parents have IBD, you are are more likely to develop Crohn's Disease.

Recent research has discovered that a gene called NOD2 has something to do with Chrons disease and it has been found that it is important in determining how the body reacts to some bacterias. The research also showed that people who have mutations of NOD2 are more likely to developing Chrons disease.

Stress and Chrons Disease

Many people often ask if stress can make the symptoms of Chrons disease worse?

To start off with, there is no hard evidence that stress can cause chrons disease in the fist place. It is true to say though that people who suffer with chrons disease do often experience the increased stress in their lives, mainly due to having to cope with a chronic illness.

There are also reports that people with Crohn’s disease have flare ups more often when they are going through a particularly stressful situation in their lives. The best advice if you feel that you feel that is a connection between your stress level and a worsening of your chrons disease symptoms, is to use relaxation techniques like slow breathing and possibly even meditation. Also as always, make sure you eat well, and correctly and get enough sleep.

Some books on chrons disease that I have found useful:

Perianal Fistulas in Chrons Disease

What is a Fistulas?
Fistulas are pretty common is people who have Chrons disease, so what are they? Well basically they are abnormal connections or passageways between organs or vessels that should not normally connect to each other.

What Are Perianal Fistulas?
A perianal fistula is an abnormal connections (fistula) between the anus and rectum with another organ or vessel such as the skin or the vagina. This can be a very debilitating condition, and can lead to a big drop in the quality of life for anyone who has Perianal fistuals and Chrons disease as they can cause anal incontinence and / or infections.

According to research about 12 percent of people with chrons disease have Perianal fistulas, this is a huge amount as there are said to be at least half a million people with Crohn's disease in the US alone.

How are Fistulas treated?
Current treatments rely mainly upon surgery, which unfortunatly has a pretty poor success rate and is obviously very invasive. Anti TNF-alpha, is also used which only has a sucess rate (complete absence of fistulae) of only 36%.
So there is a huge need for another more effective and less invasive treatment for people who have chrons disease and fistulas.

Help with Fistulas on the way?
Possibly! A product with the catchy tilte of Cx401, is in development and is to be used for the treatment of perianal fistulas common in people with Chrons disease.

What is Cx401?

Cx401 uses stem-cells not derived from embryo's to treat perianal fistulas in Chrons and also non Chrons Disease patients. There has already been a Phase 2 clinical trial which has shown the effectiveness and the safety of Cx401. The Patent application has been submitted, and fingers crossed for all people with Chrons Disease who have perianal fistulas, if it is granted it could provide protection until the year 2025!

Chrons Disease and Pregnancy

A few people have asked me to do a little research on the effects of having Chrons disease whilst pregnant, crohn's disease often affects women of childbearing age so it is a common problem. Here are my findings:

Risk of Preterm Birth
Recent studies have shown that having active chrons disease during your pregnancy raises the risk of having a preterm birth. I guess by "active" they mean that you are having a flare up? This risk was shown to be three times higher in women with active chrons disease.

This research was carried out at the Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark by Dr. Bente Norgard and colleagues. They examined the impact of chrons disease in 71 women with low to moderately high active chrons disease during their pregnancy and another 86 women with inactive Chrons disease during pregnancy (I guess this means remission?).

Good news
The good news is that the women with the active chrons disease during their pregnancy, were shown the risks of giving birth to a child of low birth weight and congenital abnormalities were not increased, compared to the women with inactive chrons disease.

SOURCE: American Journal of Gastroenterology, September 2007.

Chrons Disease Flare Up's

So what is a Flare-up in Chrons Disease?
Chrons disease is both a chronic and relapsing condition. The Chronic part means that it is ongoing and Relapsing means that occasionally your symptoms will flare-up (relapse). During the time that you have no or only a few symptoms, chrons disease is said to be in remission. The frequency of flare-ups and the amount of time chrons is in remission, varies from person to person. Often the first flare up is the worst, so atleast ther is some good news!

Tips on getting through a flare up
Flare ups can make you generally very ill especially in severe cases and should not be taken lightly and I would highly recommend that you go to a hospital or at least see your doctor.

If you can't get to either for some reason (If like someone I know was working in a remote location). The first thing you need to do stop what you are doing and get into a bed. In order to recover, your body needs rest, and by that it must be total rest. Dont do the washing, clean the kitchen or anything else. Obviously to do this you will need the total help of your friends or family.

You also need to go onto a clear liquid diet again you have to be strict with this one. Your stomach needs the rest in order to recover from the flare-up and go back into remission.

So what is a clear liquid diet?
Non-carbonated drinks. Carbonated drinks agrivate the intestines. It is VERY important to keep your body hydrated at all times so drink plenty of water, ideally you should sip water all through the day. At least once and preferably twice a day you should drink an energy drinklike Gatorade or Propel as these will help your body replenish electrolytes. Soup Broth, Jelly (Jell-O) and Popsicles (lollies). Dont eat pudding or ice cream.

After you are in bed, resting and fully hydrated you need to get someone to get you help from a doctor as you will need antibiotics and other medication. Chrons disease can be difficult to live with and manage and because you have an autoimmune disease, your life does sometimes have to revolve around the disease but you can help to try and maintain a healthy body and stomach by eating correctly, keep a positive mental attitude and keep chrons disease in remission.

Is Chrons disease different to ulcerative colitis?

In one word, yes. Chrons disease is different to ulcerative colitis although they are quite similar and a incorrect diagnosis can often be given.

In what ways is Chrons Disease different to ulcerative colitis?

Crohn's disease usually causes inflammation in your rectum, colon, small intestine and sometines even in your stomach, mouth and esophagus.

Ulcerative colitis causes an inflammation only in the colon (which is called the colitis) and or the rectum.

The inflammation in Chrons disease is also different from ulcerative colitis because except in the very worst examples, the inflammation of ulcerative colitis only seems to affect the superficial layers of the inner lining of the bowel.

The inflammation of Chrons disease tends to be concentrated in some areas more than others and affects layers of the bowel that are deeper than the superficial inner layers. Therefore, the affected areas of the bowel in Chrons disease often has deeper ulcers with normal lining between these ulcers.

Find books on Chrons Disease in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada on Abebooks.com

Chrons Disease - What to expect

When you are first diagnosed with Chrons disease the prospect can be very frightening, especially as there are so many unknowns. Even the doctors cannot be totally sure! So what can you expect? Well here are a few of the facts:

People with Chrons disease often go through periods of improvement which are then followed by deterioration and increased symptoms again sometimes these periods of remission can go on for years. If you have chrons, you have an increased risk of small bowel or colorectal carcinoma.

Complications associated with Chrons Disease

* You can get fistulas in the following areas:
o Bladder
o Vagina
o Skin
* Bowel obstructions
* Abscess
* Nutritional deficiencies (commonly vitamin B12 deficiency)
* Complications of corticosteroid therapy
* Erythema nodosum
* Pyoderma gangrenosum
* Inflammation of the joints
* Lesions in the eye
* Impaired growth and sexual development in children

Obviously when you reading this list can be very frightening and I don't think anyone has had ALL these complications with Chrons. I feel that it is important to know the facts about Chrons, but it is also important to know that there is also a whole life to live EVEN if you have Chrons Disease.

Find books on Chrons Disease on Abebooks.com

Chrons Disease Treatments

If you have Chrons disease you may be prescribed medications like 5-aminosalicylate to control the inflammatory process.

If this treatment is not effective or if the case is very severe, you may require corticosteroids and immunomodulators such as azathioprine or 6-mercaptopurine.

If you have any fistulas or abscesses you may be given antibiotics to fight against it. Infliximab which is an antibody to an immune chemical called TNF-alpha, which promotes inflammation. This treatment can work for people with fistulous disease.

If medical treatment does not work, you may need surgery where your segment of your bowel which has Chrons disease will be removed. Unfortunately though, unlike ulcerative colitis the removal of a diseased portion of the intestine does not cure Chrons disease.

There has been no concrete evidence that a specific diet has been shown to improve or worsen Crohn's disease. But as with everyone and probably more so with people suffering with Chrons disease, an adequate intake of calories, vitamins, and protein is important. The foods that make your diarrhoea worse should be avoided and specific food problems may vary from person to person.

Find books on Chrons Disease in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada on Abebooks.com

Chrons Disease Symptoms

Diagnosing Chrons Disease is often very difficult, as the disease canoccur at any age, it does seem though that are the times of the highest risk are adolescence and early adulthood. As there is thought to be a genetic link to Chrons disease, the only known risks seem to be a family history of Chrons disease, people who have Jewish ancestry, and smoking also seems to increase the risk of Chrons.

Chrons disease is fairly common with about 7 people in every 100,000 developing the disease.

These are some of the Symptoms of Chrons Disease?

* Tenesmus (pain with passing stool)
* Fever
* Diarrhea
* Loss of appetite
* Unintentional weight loss
* Abdominal mass
* Abdominal sounds (gurgling or splashing sound heard over the intestine)
* Fatigue and tiredness
* Gastrointestinal bleeding
* Stools that are Foul-smelling
* Pain in your Abdomen


There are also some other symptoms that have shown to be associated with Chrons disease:

* Blood in your stools
* Pain in your joints
* Anal Incontinence
* Swollen gums
* Constipation
* Abdominal fullness and gas


Find books on Chrons Disease in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada on Abebooks.com

Facts and Causes of Chrons Disease

Today I am going to go over more of the facts, causes and symptoms of Chrons Disease.

So what is Chrons Disease?
Chrons disease is a chronic autoimmune disease that can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract but most commonly occurs in the ileum, this is the area where the large and small intestines meet.

What other names are there for Chrons Disease?
Firstly the correct spelling is Crohn's Disease, I use Chrons every time im not really thinking aboput it, and so do many other people. Other names for chrons are: Inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, Regional enteritis, Ileitis and Granulomatous ileocolitis. It is similat to ulcerative colitis but definitly not the same.

How about the causes of Chrons disease?
Fistly Chrons is an autoimmune disease, what does this mean? This is when the immune system attacks your body's own cells. In the Autoimmune disorder in Chrons disease, these 'bad' immune cells attack the gastrointestinal system (your stomach). Unfortunatly the actual cause of this is still not known, but there seems to be a link to genetics.

In Chrons disease this often happens where the end of the small intestine joins the large intestine, the ileum. But it can also affect any other part of your digestive system. Because of this attack by your immune system, the wall in your intestines thickens and deep ulcers often occur. In addition to your digestive system chrons can also affect other organs in your body and may cause, Skin rash, Fistulas which are abnormal connections between bowel and adjacent organs or skin, Liver inflammation, arthritis, your eyes can become inflamed, kidney stones and deep vein thrombosis.

About Chrons Disease

I have had a few queries from people asking what is Chrons Disease? (correctly spelt Crohn's disease)

Chrons disease is a chronic and debilitating inflammatory disease of the
gastrointestinal tract. The onset of Chrons disease often occurs between the ages of 18-25, but can begin much later in life aswell.

As Chrons disease is a chronic ailment, people go through unpredictable periods in which the disease flares and causes symptoms. These episodes are followed by times
of remission in these periods the symptoms disappear or decrease and good health
returns.

Canada has one of the highest incidence and prevalence of Chrons disease in the world and chrons disease is much more common in developed nations.

The cause of Chrons disease is not really known but it is believed to be an autoimmune disease that has links to genetics. The condition occurs when the immune system contributes to damage of the gastrointestinal tract by causing inflammation.

There is no known medical or surgical cure for Chrons disease, unlike the other major type of IBD, ulcerative colitis.

Many people live with Chrons disease for many years and don't realise it. The usual onset of chrons disease is between 15 and 30 years of age, with no difference in numbers or chances of getting the disease between men and women.

Chrons disease, can cause a variety of systemic symptoms. Growth failure is common in children with Chrons disease and many children are first diagnosed with Chrons disease based on inability to maintain growth. Fever may also be present

Older people who have Chrons disease may manifest as weight loss. This is usually related to decreased food intake, since individuals with intestinal symptoms from Chrons disease often feel better when they do not eat and might lose their appetite.

Find books on Chrons Disease in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada on Abebooks.com